Lecture Week 1 Flashcards
Stability
Degree to which one’s intelligence does not change across the lifespan
Plasticity
degree to which intelligence is shaped by experience
Continuity vs discontinuity of development
-Continuity of development involved steady development on a gross scale
-discontinuity of development involves a combination of spurts and plateaus throughout development
Determinism
All events are determined completely by previous existing causes
Nativism
idea that human intelligence is entirely hereditary
Francis Galton
Believed in eugenics
- social movement for forced sterilization of ‘unfit’ traits
Empiricism
Human behavior is a product of the environment
-extreme views often result in future swing in opposite direction
Steps of the scientific method
-Form a hypothesis
-test the hypothesis
-gather evidence
-draw a conclusion
Ways to measure behaviour
BEHAVIOURAL MEASURES
-Naturalistic vs structured observation
-sampling behavior
-self-reports
PHYSIOLOGICAL MEAUSRES
Naturalistic Observations
In the child’s natural environment
-experimenter blends in
Structured Observations
In a laboratory setting
-Can effect childs behavior on small scale
-with large sample sizes environment shouldn’t effect the results
Sampling behavior
-Provide the child with an artificial task to complete
-Type of observation
Self-Reports
-Children’s own response about topic of interest
Physiological Measurements
Measuring a childs physiological responses to stimuli
Correlation Studies
Examine relations between variables as they exist naturally in the world
-can determine correlations
Correlation Coeeficient
A numerical value to represent the direction and strength of a relation between two variables
- r= 0 no correlation
- r=1 strong positive correlation
- r=-1 strong negative correlation
Experimental studies
The experimenter systematically varies factors thought to cause a particular behavior
Independent variables
controlled by the experimenter
Dependent variables
outcome variable
Types of developmental study designs
-Longitudinal design
-Cross-sectional design
-Longitudinal-sequential design
Longitudinal study design
behavior is measured in same individuals repeatedly
Cross-sectional study design
behavior is measured in individuals of different age groups
Disadvantages of longitudinal design
PRACTICE EFFECTS: with repeated testing children may simple improve form practice
SELECTIVE ATTRITION: some children will drop out of the study
COHORT EFFECTS: there may be meaningful differences between the cohort in your study compared to other cohorts
Disadvantages of cross-sectional design
COHORT EFFECTS: there may be meaningful differences between cohorts
