Theories and methods

Question 1

What three ways do we study development?

Answer 1

• Casual observation.
• Naturalistic observation/field studies.
• Experiments in lab conditions.

Question 2

What are cross-sectional designs?

Answer 2

Sample data from different age groups.
e.g., infants and toddlers… simultaneously.

Question 3

What are the strengths and limitations to cross-sectional designs?

Answer 3

:) Quick, cheap, easy to do.
:) Appropriate when looking at behaviours at certain age.
:( Cannot truly assess developmental change.

Question 4

What are longitudinal designs?

Answer 4

Sample data from certain individuals at multiple time points.

Question 5

What are the strengths and limitations to longitudinal designs?

Answer 5

:) Good for looking at change over time, or the relationships between earlier and later behaviour.
:( Time-consuming with high attrition rates.

Question 6

What are selecting methods?

Answer 6

• Dependent on the nature of the question e.g., observation.
• Taken through ethical concerns.

Question 7

Define a good ‘theory’.

Answer 7

• A good theory is a set of related explanations from which we can generate testable hypotheses.
• Tested via falsifiable hypothesis.

Question 8

What is social constructivism?

Answer 8

Knowledge and reality that is constructed within individuals.

Question 9

(social construction) What did Gutterman (2006) state?

Answer 9

Although both constructivism and social constructionism endorse a subjectivist view of knowledge, the former emphasis individuals ‘biological and cognitive processes, whereas the latter places knowledge the domain of social interchange”

Question 10

(social construction and ADHD) What did Conrad and Barker (2010) state?

Answer 10

“When difficulties in children’s attention and behaviour get defined as ADHD, school policies encourage the use of medication and special accommodations for learning disabled students; yet these responses fail to address the social and nonmedical causes of children’s classroom inattention and agitation.

Question 11

What is biological determinism?

Answer 11

Belief that human behaviour is controlled by individual genes or some component of their psychology.
e.g., ADHD is 74% heritable ‘Faraone and Larsson 2019’

Question 12

What did Coppen (1967) suggest?

Answer 12

Depression is caused by low serotonin levels.

Question 13

What makes a good scientist?

Answer 13

• Always consider alternative explanations.
• Engage with people who hold different views.
• Listen to people who disagree and try to understand why.
• Embrace right and wrongs.

Question 14

Cells:

Answer 14

’ As neurons are created, their physical structure and connections are influenced by the presence or absence of chemicals.
e.g., the immediate environment of the neurons determines how they develop.

Question 15

The brain:

Answer 15

• Brain functions associated with regions re influenced by surrounding regions.
• Interactive specialisation is increased tuning and selectively of function in a brain region.
• Plasticity is retained when a function is not fully specialised.

Question 16

What did Finney, Fine, & Dobkins (2001) state?

Answer 16

Visual stimuli activate auditory cortex in congenitally deaf people.

Question 17

What did Ballard et al (1997) state?

Answer 17

• The role of the brain is to coordinate inner and outer worlds.
• We only have partial representations, sufficient to support behaviour, with those partial representations being complemented by what comes through our senses.

Question 18

What is the social infant?

Answer 18

• At birth, there is no full representations of a face, but a partial representation that affords adaptive behaviour, learning about faces, and orientating to people.
• Initial bias ensures sensory input for brain regions that will become specialised for faces: have a blob-region, not a face region.