week 1 Flashcards
nature vs nurture
- contribution varies on trait eg height is more genes than environment
- certain disorders have greater genetic heritability eg bipolar disorder
why study developmental psychology?
- universal experience, lots of heterogeneity
- can inform decision making, is my child normal? is __ a good thing to do?
- can help training for those who work with children
- policy, eg lunch programs, eyewitness testimony (leading questions/memory)
are children active or passive in their developmet?
- used to think children passively influenced by everything around them, not true
- depends what and when more passive vs active
- early development children regulate themselves via gaze and eye movements, negative reaction , disengaging/ looking away, smiling with bonded caregivers
- children are NOT passive contributors to their environment
behavioural inhibition
- how a child reacts to new situations
- fear/ sensitivity to new stimuli
- increased risk for developing anxiety
is development continuous or discontinuous?
- early work was stage based (discontinous)
- feels more continuous seeing day to day vs discontinuous year to year
externalizing disorders/behaviours
- challenging behaviours, often directed towards someone else eg rule breaking
- ability to control behaviour develops later, low control high emotionality = lots of externalizing behaviours in children
- early development outward externalising behaviours
- later development covert externalising behaviours
internalizing disorders
challenging behaviours, often directed inwards eg depression
heterotypic continuity
- behaviour changes, underlying psychological processes remain the same
homotypic continuity
psychological processes and behaviour remain the same
phenotypic continuity
- behaviour remains the same but not underlying processes
discontinuity
- behaviour changes, meaning changes
how do children become so different from one another?
- different genes
- different treatments
- different reactions to same treatment
- environmental selection
interrater reliability
- consistently across time/people
- agreement between raters to ensure our definition is specific
validity
- is what we say we are measuring actually the thing we are measuring, experimental control
internal - what measuring in the lab actually reflects what is happening outside the lab
external - how much does the thing represent the construct in the real world, more control = less external validity
- better to do lab first and then real life to see if you can find the same pattern
relationship between validity and reliability
- validity requires reliability but reliability alone doesn’t guarantee validity
interviews and questionaires
- children answer questions
asked either in person or
on a questionnaire
pros
- can reveal subjective experience
- inexpensive, in depth
- interviews, flexibility
cons
- biased to represent themselves in a better light
- inaccurate/incomplete memories
naturalistic observations
- children’s activities in one
or more everyday settings
are observed
pros
- behaviour in everyday settings
- shows social interaction processes
cons
- hard to control
- limited value for infrequent behaviours
structured observation
- Children are brought to
laboratory and presented
prearranged tasks
pros
- all children’s behaviour is observed in the same context
- controlled comparisons in different situations
cons
- less natural
- less about subjective experience than interviews
inhibitory control and task examples
- ability to inhibit a prepotent response in favour of activating a less dominant response
flanker task (structured observation)
- cool inhibitory control task (not emotion based)
- give preschoolers ipad with specific instructions, select as quickly and accurately the arrow that is consistent to the way the middle fish is pointing
dickey toys task (structured observation)
- desire, emotion
- interesting box filled with toys
- tell children they did so amazing, they get a prize
- need to put their hands on their lap and say what toy they want, difficult they want to grab it
- score from 0 (grabbed the toy) low inhibitory control task- 5 (hands nicely on lap) high inhibitory control
- how quickly children talk after raising their hands, waiting to open up presents, waiting in line (motivation) (naturalistic observation)
- marshmallow study (debunked) 1 now vs 2 later
correlational designs
- without manipulation, relationship between 2 variables
- can’t manipulate a lot of things such as gender and inhibitory control
- unethical to design for maltreatment etc
- can’t infer causation
- third variable problem
- secret other variable that is the real cause, unknown
- directionality problem
- don’t know what effects what
experimental designs
- minimum 2 different groups have different treatment/conditions
- random assignment
- experimental control
- iv: what is being manipulated
- dv: what stays the same
test retest reliability
- same test to 2 different groups at different times, correlation
