Introduction To Methods In developmental psychology Flashcards

1
Q

What is physical development

A

Body size and proportions
Physical health
Perceptual and motor development

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2
Q

What is cognitive development

A

Intellectual abilities including attention and memory
Imagination and creativity
Language

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3
Q

What is social and emotional development

A

Understanding self and others
Emotional understanding and regulation
Moral reasoning and behaviour
Intimate relationships

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4
Q

What are the different periods of development

A

Pre-natal: conception to birth
Infancy and toddlerhood: birth to 2 years
Early childhood: 2-6 years old
Middle childhood: 7-11 years old
Adolescence: 11-18 years old

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5
Q

What is normative development

A

Species normal development over time
Focus on similarities
Example: Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

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6
Q

What is Individual differences

A

Differences observed between children at a given age/time/place
Example: temperament differences

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7
Q

What is continuous development

A

Development is continuous
Development involves quantitative change
Example: Information processing theories

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8
Q

What is discontinuous development

A

Development is discontinuous
Development involves qualitative changes
Example: Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

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9
Q

Common development Curve (Increase)

A

Height and weight and age
Age and vocabulary size

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10
Q

Common development curve (Decrease)

A

Age and hours of sleep needed
Age and hearing (late life decline)
Learning a new language (Johnson and Newport, 1991)

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11
Q

Development curves (stage like)

A

Qualitative or discontinuous
Cognitive development according to Piaget (1954)
Moral development according to Kohlberg 1981)

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12
Q

What is Nature (side of the debate)

A

Biological instincts
Innate behaviour traits
Genetic influences

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13
Q

What is the nurture (side of the debate)

A

Environment
Culture
Context
Family influences
Environmental influences

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14
Q

Observational Research (naturalistic)

A

In the natural environment where behaviour happens
E.g. Farver and Branstetter (1994)
* youtube vid

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15
Q

Observational Research (structured)

A

Laboratory situations set up evoke behaviour of interest
All participants have equal chance to display behaviour
E.g. Mischel, Ebbsen ad Zeiss (1972)
*youtube vid

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16
Q

Collecting systematic observations (two types)

A

Event sampling: Observer records all instances of a specific behaviour during a given time period

Time sampling: Observer records whether certain behaviours occur during a sample of short time intervals

17
Q

Limitations of observational research (two types)

A

Observer Influence: Participants may react in unnatural ways, can minimise using camera or observer familiar to children.
Observer Bias: Observer record what they expect, rather than what really happens

18
Q

Interview limitations with parents and children

A

Children: may not understand due to level of language and understanding.
Children may be influenced by desire to please

Parents: may want to achieve and avoid diagnosis for their child.
Distortions in recall or judgment

19
Q

Whats a Clinical/Case study method

A

Gathers a wide range of information on one child.
Observations
Parent/caregiver interviews
Test scores
Psychophysiological measures

20
Q

Experiments outside the lab (two types)

A

Field Experiment: Natural setting i.e. observing children in the playground.
Natural Experiment: Quasi experiment
Compare differences
i.e. observing children playing at state vs private school

21
Q

Lab experiments - Infants

A

Methodologies: Novelty preference, Preferential looking paradigms, Habituation paradigms

Operant Conditioning: Eye movements, Psychophysiological measures (e.g. heart rate), Neuroimaging

22
Q

Preferential Looking - Frantz’s looking chamber (1961)

A
  • infant can see two displays on the ceiling above their head
  • researcher observes them through a peep whole to see if they fixate on a specific image
  • Infant looks longer at a pattern than uniform visual display
23
Q

Modern Preferential looking

A
  • when a baby has a tendency to view one particular image over another
  • Visual and auditory stimuli
24
Q

Habituation Paradigms

A
  • Babies are attracted to contrasts between light and shadow which look like human face (when they are 6 weeks)
  • When ten weeks they start to look at images like the face and ignore the contrast
25
Q

What is operant conditioning (two types)

A

Reinforcer: increases probability occurring again i.e. presenting desirable stimulus and removing unpleasant stimulus

Punishment: Reduces probability of behaviour occurring again i.e.presenting unpleasant and removing desirable.

26
Q

Carolyn Rovee-Collier (e.g. 1999)

A
  • Babies’ ankle attached to mobile by ribbon
  • Babies soon learn to kick vigorously
  • Memory of how to activate mobile context dependent in 3-6 months olds
27
Q

Psychophysiological methods

A
  • Measures of autonomic nervous system activity
  • Heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, pupils, stress, hormones (sensitive to psychological state)
28
Q

EEG

A

young children, non invasive
measures ongoing, spontaneous electrical activity

29
Q

ERP

A

Records brain electrical response to given stimuli
Used with infants

30
Q

MRI

A

Imaging the morphology of brain structures
Older children on children who are sedated

31
Q

What is a longitudinal research design

A

1 sample studied repeatedly at different ages
Comparing same sample at different times

32
Q

Cross-sectional research designs

A

More than one sample (age group studied)
Comparing different samples at the same time

33
Q

Limitations of longitudinal desings

A
  • Biased sample
  • Some people more likely to withdraw than others
  • Practise Effects
  • Cohort effects i.e. covid
34
Q

Sequential research designs

A

Same groups of different aged people studied repeatedly as they can change ages

Cross section and longitudinal
informs us of age related trends

35
Q

Challenges for developmental science

A
  • sample size
  • subtle differences between labs
  • High costs
36
Q

Many Babies project

A

Input predictors: A few hours of annotated video, or artificial data
Scientific hypothesis about learning
Outcomes: A handful of binary experimental results
- This needs more data

37
Q

What are the ethics of research with children

A
  • more vulnerable to harm
  • Issue of informed consent (they may not understand)
  • right to withdraw (they desire to please)
    BPS (2014), children under 16 parents should be fully informed of nature of study and be able to withdraw child.