Intro to developmental psychology

Question 1

What did Nicholas Humphrey mean when he described people as “nature’s psychologists”?

Answer 1

As intelligent social beings, we use our knowledge of our own thoughts and feelings (introspection) as a guide for understanding how others are likely to think, feel and behave

Argued that our self-awareness is useful to us for this purpose –> successful social existence
Consciousness as a biological adaption to enable this introspective psychology

Question 2

What do we mean by development?

Answer 2

The process by which an organism grows and changes throughout its lifespan
Critical development happens during early years, but change can occur at any point during the life span of an individual, driven by a variety of influences

Question 3

What is the purpose of developmental psychology?

Answer 3

Scientific study of the PROCESS OF CHANGE in mental processes and behaviour during a lifetime
Describe, explain and predict behaviour at certain stages of the developmental cycle

Question 4

Why is the study of developmental psychology important?

Answer 4

Allows us to have the understanding which permits us to influence behaviour and develop interventions to stop certain maladaptive behaviours at the root of the problem
Essentially allow optimisation of conditions to allow for healthy development

Question 5

What are the 3 main types of development?

Answer 5

Phsyical e.g. height and weight, motor abilities
Perceptual/cognitive e.g. vision, hearing, language, reasoning
Social e.g. identity, relationships

Question 6

What is meant by continuous development?

Answer 6

Quantitative change - monotonic increase as a function of age
Doing more or less of something e.g. increase vocabulary size

Question 7

What is meant by discontinuous development?

Answer 7

Qualitative change
Doing something differently e.g. crawling –> walking
Levelling up in sophistication of interactions with the world

Question 8

What does the nativist approach suggest regarding influences on processes of development?

Answer 8

Maturation of characteristics and behaviour are wholly predetermined by innate biological factors
Genes determine the first stages of our development e.g. cell division and differentiation and we are programmed by a biological clock to develop at a set rate (reach set milestones at genetically predetermined times)

Question 9

What does the empiricist/”nurture” approach suggest regarding development?

Answer 9

Tabula rasa
Behavioural characteristics determined entirely by experiences, acquired through learning rather than being innate
Environment provides energy and building materials, and stimulation in the form of visual, auditory, social etc interactions with our surroundings
Social clocks shape our lives i.e. social norms such as the right age to get married, but events in our lives can also defy these norms very easily and thus make us different people at any stage in our lives

Question 10

What is the current consensus regarding the influences on development?

Answer 10

Contributions from both nature and nurture
Also INTERACTIONS between nature and nurture i.e. our genes determine our environment, and then our environment influences our development and behaviour

Question 11

What 3 types of interaction between genes and the environment were suggested by Scarr and McCartney?

Answer 11

1) PASSIVE INTERACTION - Parental genes influence child’s environment and subsequent development
2) EVOCATIVE INTERACTION - Innate characteristics of a child elicit response from surroundings, thus genes influencing surroundings which then influences future behaviour
3) ACTIVE INTERACTION - Individual seeks out environment best suited to personal capabilities/motivations

Question 12

What do observational methods involve?

Answer 12

Observing and recording subjects’ behaviour and drawing inferences as to possible underlying cognitive processes (certain behaviour categories will normally be defined in advance and are scored when they occur)

Question 13

What is the difference between “naturalistic” and “structured” observations?

Answer 13

Naturalistic involves measuring behaviour in natural settings - the investigator can be a non-participant, or can be an actor within a situation e.g. when studying things like gang behaviour
Structured observations involve measuring behaviour in an artificial setting

Question 14

What are the 2 self-report methods commonly used?

Answer 14

Clinical interviews - conversational and tailored to subject’s individual level of ability and understanding, reliant on development of good rapport
Structured interviews/questionnaires - more fixed set of questions used

Question 15

What are the 2 possible experimental designs used in developmental psychology and what is an important caution?

Answer 15

Cross-sectional - testing individuals of differing ages at one given time
Longitudinal - testing the same individuals at different points in time
Neither design is going to be fully representative of changes with age alone - historical events affecting some/all participants and unique life experiences may impact more on the variable being measured, thus we are not necessarily measuring uninterrupted natural developmental stages

Question 16

What are 3 advantages of naturalistic observation methods?

Answer 16

1) Observations more likely to be representative of normal behaviour
2) Richly detailed and descriptive data (esp useful where little research exists for a particular phenomenon)
3) Can follow up observations using correlational analysis

Question 17

What are 5 disadvantages of naturalistic observation methods?

Answer 17

1) no experimental control - many extraneous variables
2) Behaviours of interest left to chance - may never even happen in the observation window
3) Simply the presence of an adult observer may influence a child’s behaviour
4) Observer bias
5) Tells us little about child’s own reasoning behind their behaviour

Question 18

What is meant by observer bias?

Answer 18

Tendency to only see what already expecting/hoping to see
Researchers often come into an experiment with prior knowledge and subjective feelings about the group/behaviour being studied

Question 19

What are 3 advantages of structured observations?

Answer 19

1) Higher degree of experimental control
2) Elimination of extraneous variables
3) Able to measure behaviours which might be difficult to see in natural settings

Question 20

What are 3 disadvantages of structured observations?

Answer 20

1) The experimental scenario may not be fully generalisable and thus behaviour recorded may not be fully representative
2) Observer bias
3) Tells us little about child’s reasoning behind their behaviour

Question 21

What are 3 advantages of clinical interviews?

Answer 21

1) Examining thinking rather than simply inferring from behaviour
2) Interview tailored to the individual i.e. greater specific relevance of information
3) Probe widely and deeply in little time

Question 22

What are 3 disadvantages of clinical interviews?

Answer 22

1) Subjects may not respond accurately or truthfully
2) Requires a skilled interviewer - rapport and probing effectively
3) Child must have sufficient linguistic understanding

Question 23

What are 3 advantages of structured interviews/questionnaires?

Answer 23

1) Easier to quantify so able to make more valid comparisons between subjects
2) Examine thinking rather than inferring it
3) Efficient way to collect data from large sample

Question 24

What are 3 disadvantages of structured interviews/questionnaires?

Answer 24

1) Don’t get depth of detail as in clinical interviews
2) Subjects may not respond truthfully or accurately
3) Child must have sufficient understanding and linguistic ability

Question 25

What are the 3 advantages of longitudinal study designs?

Answer 25

1) Wealth of data for one individual over time - tracking real-time development
2) Controls for and examines individual differences over time
3) Useful for finding whether behaviour at time 1 can predict behaviour at time 2

Question 26

What are the 6 key disadvantages of longitudinal study designs?

Answer 26

1) Costly and often difficult to keep track of subjects (which can affect generalisability)
2) Subjects can actually outlive the experimenter
3) Bias in the sample - type of person able to go the distance
4) Practice effects
5) Major world events can disrupt normal development and thus render questions used irrelevant
6) Results can be outdated i.e. influences on behaviour in the past may not have the same influence now

Question 27

What are 2 key advantages of cross-sectional study designs?

Answer 27

Quick and inexpensive

Avoids practice effects

Question 28

What are 3 key issues with using cross-sectional study designs?

Answer 28

1) Can only examine group averages over time, not specific individuals
2) Need to carefully match participants on other potentially influential variables to ensure only differ in age
3) “Cohort effects” i.e. individuals born in different years are exposed to different influencing factors, which may affect behaviour more than the key age-related developmental stage

Question 29

How can purely experimental methods be utilised in studying developmental psychology?

Answer 29

Focus on explaining behaviour within a particular limited developmental period rather than comparing ages
Allows stronger inferences of cause-effect relationships, but must be cautious of ethical issues surrounding purely experimental methods

Question 30

Why is the study of developmental psychology particularly helpful?

Answer 30

To define “normal” in a population (i.e. most common behavioural patterns in a given population in individuals at a given stage)
We can then observe how particular events can deviate individuals away from this norm e.g. whether an unstable home environment prevents a child from hitting normal developmental markers

Question 31

What did Tanner suggest regarding the increasing speed of developmental processes?

Answer 31

We now have optimum conditions for growth and development compared to several decades ago, and thus we are unlikely to now continue seeing an increasing speed of development i.e. milestones being reached earlier and earlier as they have been doing e.g. age of menarche used to be 16 and is now 12.5 on average

Question 32

What is meant by “Normative Age-Graded Influences” on development, as suggested by Baltes?

Answer 32

Influences on development which have a fairly strong relationship with chronological age
Biological e.g. advent of puberty occurring alongside adolescent years
Non-biological e.g. entering school at 5 years old

Question 33

What are “Normative History-Graded Influences?

Answer 33

Influences associated with historical time for members of a given generation (cohort)
Can use cohort designs to study impact of historical change on development by comparing different cohorts at the same ages

Question 34

What are “Non-Normative Life Events”?

Answer 34

Do not occur in normative age- or history-graded manner
Biological e.g. brain damage in an accident
Non-biological e.g. effects of job loss

Question 35

What are 3 other methods able to be utilised in developmental psychology research?

Answer 35

1) Focus groups - less structured interview approach where several participants discuss a topic (bear peer pressure effects in mind!)
2) Testing - either individually or in a group, asked certain questions/perform certain task, and measure that particular ability (comparison with normative values)
3) Experimental techniques e.g. ultrasound of foetuses or neuroimaging techniques

Question 36

When would we be likely to use a cross-sectional or longitudinal study design?

Answer 36

Cross-sectional where the main interest is what abilities/behaviours are TYPICAL at a certain age
Longitudinal where main interest is the PROCESS OF CHANGE and the relationship between earlier and later behaviours e.g. can individual differences at age 3 predict anything about differences a year later

Question 37

What are age-related norms?

Answer 37

Culturally accepted ideas which dictate sort of behaviour considered “normal” for given age groups e.g. two year olds are “terrible”
Age is not an altogether helpful gauge for developmental stages, however, as social conditions play a hugely significant role

Question 38

What does research suggest about the normal course of growth?

Answer 38

It has changed over recent decades, with both physical and psychological changes happening earlier than they used to