Developmental Psychology Flashcards
The role of peers on development
Damon and Killen (1982): (cognitive development):
A: study moral development.
M: Structured interview
P: children were presented with a set of ethical dilemmas which they had to solve, having to justify their decisions.
R: Found that children who engaged in peer discussions were more likely to advance in their moral reasoning than children who discussed the same problem with an adult.
C: peer interaction can have a significant influence in the development of moral reasoning among children.
E: limited sample.
Hollos and Cowan (1973): (cognitive and social development):
A: study how children who grew up without (or a limited) same age peer interaction differ in social and cognitive skills.
M: observation/comparison/independent measures design?
P: compared a group of Norwegian farm children (isolated farms) to children with same age peer interaction.
R: concluded that their social skills were impaired but not cognitive skills.
C: This would suggest that the lack of peer interaction in childhood has detrimental effects on social development but not cognitive development.
E: limited sample, unclear how development was measured.
The role of play on development
Sylva, Bruner and Genova (1976): (cognitive development)
Children try to reach food, but some cannot.
A: demonstrated the role of object manipulation in the process of play.
M: Independent Measures
P: Pre-school children had to solve tasks, e.g. retrieving food that is too far away, where they needed to connect two sticks and a clamp to reach it. Split into 5 groups:
1: watched an adult join two sticks with a clamp.
2: made attempts to attach the clamp to a stick.
3: watched an adult solve the problem.
4: could play with the objects outside of the problem’s context.
5: were presented the problem without preparation.
R: Results showed that 4 did as well as 3 and much better than the rest.
C: This shows how play with objects can help children learn the objects’ properties and functions.
E: Independent measures design, there could be participant variability.
Manuilenko (1948): (social development)
A: aimed at studying the role of play on the development of social development, specifically self-regulation.
M: repeated measures design (?)
P: there were 3 conditions. Condition 1 involved the child playing the role of a sentry in a game with other children in the room. Condition 2 involved the child playing the same game in a separate room without children. Condition 3 involved the child directly being told to stand still in the presence of other children. They measured how long each of the children in the 3 conditions stayed still.
R: the amount of time spent standing still in condition 1 was much higher, especially in 4–6-year-old children. It was somewhat lower in condition 2 and was much lower in condition 3. Observations also showed that other children often verbally enforced the child’s role by telling them to not move.
C: Both the aspect of it being a game, as well as the presence of other children strengthened the child’s behavior. Play can therefore contribute significantly to the development of social behavior (self-regulation).
E: limited sample, social desirability, different developmental stages among children.
Resilience
Schoon and Bartley (2008):
A: Stated that an individual’s resilience should not be reduced to their personality, and that social and economic factors play a large role in supporting the individual and their family.
M: Meta-analysis
P: Reviewed research studies and identified the sources of resilience (in results).
R: - Staying in school helps people overcome trauma
- A stable family will help people overcome trauma
- Having a wide social circle will help in overcoming trauma
- Employment that includes a lot of opportunities and fair pay helps in overcoming trauma.
C: In order to help individuals overcome trauma and help families support them, larger-scale economic and social interventions must be applied.
E: It is a theory – experiment needed.
Betancourt et al (2013)
A: Aimed to investigate resilience among children in Sierra Leone with war-affected youth, many of whom were child soldiers.
M: Self-report and interviews
P: Longitudinal study; children were interviewed three times. Researchers then identified four common symptoms among the children.
R: Four common symptoms:
- Maintaining low levels of depression and anxiety: 41%
- Improving over time despite access to care: 48%
- Stable reporting of severe difficulties: 5%
- Worsening symptoms: 6%
Researchers also found that the factors responsible for triggering they conditions were usually loss of a caregiver, family abuse and neglect, or community’s disapproval and distancing of their fighting.
C: The access to care among children has a negative impact on their PTSD symptoms.
E: No pre-war information on the children is available.
Not very generalizable due the study’s specific nature.
Relies on self-report.
Childhood trauma
Use Schoon and Bartley (2008) + Betancourt et al (2013)
Poverty
Costello et al (2003): The Great Smoky Mountains study
A: observe influence of poverty on psychiatric symptoms
M: field study
P: researchers carried out a longitudinal observation of 1500 rural children aged 9-13 through annual psychiatric assessment over the course of 8 years. The game-changing factor in the study was the opening of a nearby casino. Surprisingly, this provided the poor families an income supplement which increased annually. While many families remained poor, approximately half of the poor population escaped poverty.
R: Following the comparison of psychiatric assessments for the poor, ex-poor, and never poor groups, the results showed that the poor and ex-poor children had more psychiatric symptoms, but that after the opening of the casino, the ex-poor children’s symptoms dropped to the levels of the never poor children.
C and E: While it is difficult to isolate the variables which may have been at play, this study suggests that developmental adversities may actually be overcome, meaning that the effects of poverty on development are not irreversible.
Brooks-Gunn and Duncan (1997)
Identified groups of outcomes of poverty:
- Physical health: stunting, nutritional health status.
- Cognitive ability: can lead to developmental delays.
- School achievement: certain predictors of completion of school.
- Emotional and behavioral outcomes: emotional and behavioral problems, be they externalized (aggression) or internalized (depression).
Also outlines pathways through which poverty operates:
-Health and nutrition
-The home environment
-Parental interactions with children
-Parental mental health
-Neighborhood conditions
E: The study provides evidence in support of poverty affecting the behavior of children. Emotional and behavioral problems may become apparent, be they externalized behaviors (such as aggression) or internalized (such as depression).
Socio-economic status
Schoon and Bartley (2008)
+
Duncan (1988):
A: This study conducted an analysis of factors which may predict children’s likelihood of completing the fundamental years of education.
M and P: Analysis
R: This study found the only variable which had a significant effect in predicting the completion of school was the parents’ income.
C: This crucial predictor was investigated longitudinally, and it was concluded from the results that the average parental income was a significant predictor of school completion at the early stages of childhood.
E: This may provide evidence in support of poor socioeconomic status influencing the child’s development irreversibly – if low income had a significant effect on the early stages of childhood only, then this may imply that the effects of poverty on development cannot be overcome later in life.
