Introduction and RM Flashcards
What is developmental psychology?
The study of change and stability over the lifespan - looks at how we change physically, cognitively, behaviourally and socially due to biological, individual and environmental differences
What are the three types of development?
Ontogenetic, microgenetic, phylogenetic
What is ontogenetic development?
The development of an individual over their lifetime
What is microgenetic development?
Changes that occur over very brief periods of time
What is phylogenetic treatment?
Changes over evolutionary time
What are the three levels of explanation?
The brain, mental processes, individual differences and environment
Describe the brain as a level of explanation
How changes in the brain can cause change in behaviour
Describe mental processes as a level of explanation
Language, memory, attention - how we can observe and measure changes in these processes
Describe individual differences and environment
How this causes development
What are the different domains development can be examined in?
Physical, cognitive and psychosocial
Describe the physical domain of measuring development
How we grow and mature physically
Describe the cognitive domain of examining development
How we learn, memorise, and problem solve
Describe the psychosocial domain of examining development
How our personality and emotions change
What are the different ways of studying development?
Quantitative, qualitative, and stability
What are quantitative changes?
Easily measurable and quantifiable aspects of development
What are qualitative changes?
Changes in functions or processes
What are the factors that affect development?
Nature and nurture
What is continuity?
The extent that development is a series of gradual small continuous changes (e.g adding more of the same skill)
What is discontinuity?
The extent that development involves abrupt transformations (e.g a process in which new ways of thinking emerge at specific times)
What is the order of the scientific method?
Observation, hypothesis, test hypothesis, analyses, report finding and draw conclusions, then either replicate results or test new hypothesis
What are important considerations
1) Are measures reliable and valid
2) When does change actually occur
3) What age group are we testing
4) WEIRD samples
What does WEIRD stand for?
Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic
What are methods for understanding change?
Cross - sectional studies, Longitudinal, and microgenetic
What are cross-sectional studies
Children of different ages studied at the same time.
Evaluate cross-sectional studies
Strength - least time consuming as don’t need the kids to get older
Weakness - can’t look at how individual children change as performance is averaged
What are longitudinal studies?
The same children are tested repeatedly at multiple time points as they grow older
Evaluate longitudinal studies?
Strength - can look at both individual change and across children change
Weakness - practice effects leading to change, costs a lot of money and time
What are microgenetic studies?
Extreme version of longitudinal studies, individual children being tested repeatedly over a short period of time
Evaluate microgenetic studies?
Strength - very precise descriptions due to high intensity of measurements
Weakness - intensive to run so often only results in small samples
What is the experimental design?
Looking at the effect of variables on children’s skills or abilities (if the IV affects the DV)
How can indirect and observational methods gather data about children?
- Interviews or questionnaires with parents or children
- Naturalistic observation (in the environment where the behaviour happens)
-Structured observation in a lab situation to evoke the behaviour of interest
How do cognitive measures gather data about children?
Tasks specifically designed to measure a process of interest such as IQ tests
How do psychophysical methods gather data about children?
Methods to uncover basic biological processes that can sometimes help us to infer perception and cognition, ie eye tracking
How do cognitive neuroscience techniques gather data about children?
EEG - measures changes in electrical activity in the cerebral cortex
fMRI - detects differences in oxygen in the brain, and reveals what brain areas are activated when engaged in a particular task
What are the challenges of working with children?
They have limited language, attention, and motor skills making it hard to engage them and create tasks that capture their abilities. Creativity is required.
