Chapter 1 Understanding Development Flashcards
Field of study devoted to understanding systematic constancy and change in individuals throughout the lifespan
Human Development
Human development covers three broad domains. What are they?
Physical, Cognitive, Psychosocial.
What is LifeSpan Assumptions approaches main assumptions?
Lifelong
Multidirectional
Highly plastic—flexible in response to outside influence
Involves gains and losses
Influenced by many interacting forces
(Biological, historical, and cultural influence)
What is Cohort?
people born in the same time period.
Some things that Influence Development is Historical Influences. What are history-graded influences?
Events, experiences that influence development of a cohort, making them different in some way from other cohorts.
A developmental Influence: Culture
What is age norms?
Society’s expectations about what is age appropriate.
Developmental Influence: Culture
What is Age Graded Influences?
Events strongly related to age Occurrence is predictable Societal differences Includes roles, responsibilities, privileges that come with certain ages Can be Socially or biologically driven.
what is a social clock?
Society’s (or an individual’s) ideas of when things should be done
Influenced by age grades and age norms
What are the two Represents the diversity found within a culture or society?
Ethnicity—group affiliation based on common heritage or customs
Socioeconomic status—group standing based on education, income, and occupational standing
(Poverty)
What are the goals of studying LifeSpan Psychology
Description
Describe average or typical behavior at different ages
Normal development, individual differences
Prediction & Explanation
Gain an understanding of typical development
Typical and individually different development
Optimization
Aimed at prevention and overcoming difficulties & enhancing human capacities
Focus now is on evidence-based practice
What are the issues with researching these populations?
Issues with special populations
Infants and young children—Attention, instruction, answering questions may be difficult
Elderly adults—Possible sensory impairments; discomfort being studied, tested
Awareness of issues re: culture, SES
Experimental Design Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
Allows us to infer cause and effect
Helps us to explain human behavior and identify ways to improve peoples’ lives
With a good random sample, we can generalize findings to other people
Disadvantages
“Real life” often is very different from the experimental setting
Cannot always be used for ethical reasons
Correlational Design Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
Allows us to study relationships that cannot be manipulated
E.g., effects of harsh punishment on self-esteem, elderly women’s quality of life after their spouse dies, drug use during pregnancy and prenatal development
Disadvantages
Cannot infer causal relationships
Hard to identify and/or explain intervening variables
Cross- Sectional Design Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages of cross-sectional designs Timewise, very efficient Less worry about: Participant dropout Practice effects Disadvantages of cross-sectional designs Only tells us about cohort effects How different age groups differ, so we obtain no data on how individuals change with age Age and cohort effects are confounded
Longitudual Designs Advantages and Disadvantages
Disadvantages of longitudinal designs
Age effects are confounded with time of measurement effects (as in studying computer use)
High drop out (attrition) rates
Can change representative nature of sample
Practice effects
People may come to know what researcher expects, or may become more aware of their thoughts, feelings, actions, and change behavior
Cohort effects
Results may not apply to other cohorts
