Developmental Research Methods

Question 1

Why are twin studies important to developmental psychology?

Answer 1

allows us to tease apart the effect of nature vs. nurture

Question 2

Identical twins share ____% of their DNA and ____% of their environment

Answer 2

100%, 100%

Question 3

Fraternal twins share ____% of their DNA and ____% of their environment

Answer 3

50%, 100%

Question 4

If identical twins and fraternal twins who share the same environment experience equal depression rates, then this can be attributed to:

Answer 4

nurture

Question 5

If identical twins and fraternal twins who share the same environment experience inequal depression rates, then this can be attributed to:

Answer 5

nature

Question 6

Why are the Jim Twins an interesting case study?

Answer 6

both were raised in completely different environments but experienced many parallels in their life

Question 7

Why are the “three identical strangers” an interesting case study?

Answer 7

all three triplets were raised in completely different environments but had many of the exact same mannerisms

Question 8

What is the normative development approach?

Answer 8

looking at changes of groups (how most people are alike)

Question 9

What is the individual differences approach?

Answer 9

looking at individual variations in development (how people differ from each other)

Question 10

What is a longitudinal design?

Answer 10

• a group of participants is studied repeatedly at different ages
• commons developmental patterns and individual differences

Question 11

What are the flaws of longitudinal designs?

Answer 11

• participants may move away or drop out
• participants may behave unnaturally
• cohort effects

Question 12

What is a cohort effect?

Answer 12

particular influences on one group that may make research results inapplicable to other groups
i.e. Covid-19

Question 13

What is a cross-sectional design?

Answer 13

• different aged groups are studied at the same point in time
• group differences are assumed to be the result of developmental changes

Question 14

What are the flaws of cross-sectional designs?

Answer 14

• individual changes cannot be detected
• cohort effects

Question 15

True or False:
Longitudinal-sequental designs are less efficient than longitudinal and cross-sectional designs.

Answer 15

False

Question 16

What is a longitudinal-sequental design?

Answer 16

• combines the longitudinal and cross-sectional methods by studying two or more age groups over time
• detects cohort effects by comparing same-age results for participants born in different years

Question 17

What is the preferential looking paradigm?

Answer 17

Given two objects to look at, infants will look more at the interesting one

Question 18

What does the preferential looking paradigm observe in infants?

Answer 18

visual acuity

Question 19

What is the conclusion made by the preferential looking paradigm?

Answer 19

if an infant has no visual acuity, it will have no preference for a specific image

Question 20

What is habituation?

Answer 20

• if you show something to an infant enough, they will become bored
• if an infant is shown something different and they can detect the difference, they should be more interested in the new object

Question 21

What does habituation observe in infants?

Answer 21

cognitive representation

Question 22

How is “interest” measured in habituation?

Answer 22

heart rate
high heart rate = high interest

Question 23

What is the violation of expectancy?

Answer 23

young infants express surprise and will look longer at events or objects that violate their expectancy

Question 24

What does violation of expectancy observe in infants?

Answer 24

object permanence

Question 25

What is object permanence?

Answer 25

the knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they can no longer be seen or heard

Question 26

True or False:
Jean Piaget and Renee Baillargeon came to the same conclusion about the age range of object permanence.

Answer 26

False
Jean Piaget: 9 months
Renee Baillargeon: 3 months

Question 27

What is eye tracking?

Answer 27

tracks the angle between the center of the corneal reflection and can be used to compute the point of gaze

Question 28

What does eye tracking observe in infants?

Answer 28

early signs of autism

Question 30

True or False:
People with autism are more likely to avoid eye contact.

Answer 30

True

Question 31

What is the high-amplitude sucking paradigm?

Answer 31

a pacifier is connected to a computer that detects sucks and computes the amplitude of sucking patterns

Question 32

What does the high-amplitude sucking paradigm observe in infants?

Answer 32

babies’ preference for their mother’s voice

Question 33

True or False:
Infants had a stronger sucking response when listening to their own mom than when listening to another three-day-old baby’s mom.

Answer 33

True

Question 34

What is the infant kicking method?

Answer 34

• baby’s foot is attached to a mobile
• when baby kicks their foot, they realize they can control the mobile with their kicking

Question 35

What does the infant kicking method measure?

Answer 35

infants’ memory

Question 36

True or False:
If a baby has good memory, it would kick a few times before kicking rapidly when brought back to the lab.

Answer 36

False
The baby would kick rapidly instantly.

Question 37

According to the infant kicking paradigm, infants could perform the task up to ____ after initially performing it.

Answer 37

one week