Historical & Conceptual Issues Flashcards
What are twin studies?
- Compare development of monozygotic or dizygotic twins
- twins are brought up separately, then compared to see how their environment affected them
- Monozygotic twins share identical DNA so supports Nurture if they turn out differently
What famous Psychologists are on the nature side of the Nature/Nurture debate?
- Plato (4th century BC), people are born with innate knowledge
- Freud (20th Century) concluded biological drive exerted a crucial influence on development
What famous Psychologists are on the nurture side of the Nature/Nurture debate?
- Aristotle (4th Century BC) knowledge comes from experience
- John Locke (16-17th Century) saw the child as a tabula rasa (clean slate)
- Rousseau (18th Century) “Noble savages” - learning emerges from spontaneous interaction with people&objects
- JB Watson 1930
What were the English-Romanian Adoption Studies?
Institutionalised Romanian children were adopted in Western families. They had experienced extreme deprivation because parents were very poor
English-Romanian Adoption Studies: Rutter et al., 2004
- What did they do?
- What was their sample?
- What were the results?
- Compared the development of Romanian and UK adoptees until 6 years old, looked at their physical and cognitive development.
- 144 Romanian children adopted in 1990-1992 & a comparison group of 52 UK adoptees
- Adopted before 6 months: no differences
Adopted after 12 months- 2 years: some Romanian Ps showed deficit in cognitive development & weighed less
English-Romanian Adoption Studies: O’Connor et al., (2000)
- What did they do?
- What were the results?
- compared 48 Romanian children adopted after 2 years of severe deprivation to children adopted earlier
- later adopted children had emotional development impairment & lower cognitive scores
English-Romanian Adoption Studies: Beckett et al., (2006)
- What did they do?
- What were their results?
- Explored further the links between duration and timing of deprivation and IQ scores of the Romanian adopted children when they were 11y.o. of 128 adopted children
- Was a marked improvement in cognitive catch-up for children after 2 years BUT still remained in impaired group
What is Developmental Psychology?
The study of people from birth to death
List some aspects of developmental psychology?
Cognitive
Social/Cultural differences
Personality/Individual differences
Neuropsychological/Physiological
Why do we study developmental psychology?
- Nature/nurture debate
- Most people become parents, so it helpful to understand child development
- Understanding childhood & development can be applied to: Social policy, Education, Law & Clinical Psychology
List some methods used to study child development.
Give some Pros & Cons.
Diaries
- main method used until 70/80s, relies on observation
Longitudinal Designs
- following same set of individuals for long time, usually relatively small samples
- Pros: control fro EVs such as family & gender
- Cons: takes a lot of time, children might withdraw when old enough to decide for themselves
Cross-sectional Design
- Examine children’s behaviour of different ages at same time
- Pros: lots of info., lots of Ps
- Cons: how representative is the sample? can groups be compared?
What did Charles Darwin (1809-1882) do in developmental Psychology?
- One of first people to look @ child development
- Developed baby biographies(diaries) as one of first methods to study children
- Proposed theories of evolution that still influences research in modern child development (attachment, innate fears, sex differences, aggression & altruism, learning)
What did Albert Binet (1857 - 1911) do in developmental Psychology?
- Developed first practcal IQ test (Standford-Binet test) - Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
- Study of child development started at end of 19th century
- Started investigating children’s intelligence & creating standardised tests in 1900
What are the 5 factors of cognitive ability that are tested in the Standford-Binet IQ test, and how were they tested?
- Fluid reasoning
- Knowledge
- Quantitative reasoning
- Visual-spatial processing
- Working memory
all tested verbally and nonverbally
What did Ian Pavlov (1849 - 1936) do in developmental Psychology?
- Father of classical conditioning
- Pavlov’s dogs (used animals as a way to study physiology in terms of responses & that conditionings are based on the past)
