Week 1 Developmental psychology Flashcards
Quantitative research
Quantitative research:”
This method involves the generation of quantitative data, which are things that can be measured, like numbers or quantities. This type of research is useful to test theories when measuring the relationship between variables. Quantitative data is commonly used within experimental designs, as discussed, where one variable is manipulated
- To do with finding measurement, numbers, quantity etc
Qualitative research method:
Qualitative research method:
The type of data you get from a qualitative research study is more likely to be things like words and phrases from an interview or observations. This type of research is about describing the qualities of an experience or a situation and understanding the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the human experience, rather than collecting quantities of data.
- Understanding the HOW and WHY
Mixed methods research:
Mixed methods research:
There’s also research that uses both of these methods of data collection, referred to as mixed methods research. This type of research has elements of quantitative data collection as well as qualitative data collection.
Cross-sectional design:
Cross-sectional design:
- Factor of interest in sample of individuals with different ages
- Can be influenced by time and context when recruited
- e.g. Research question: How does age influence IQ?
A cross-sectional study is a type of research design in which you collect data from many different individuals at a single point in time. In cross-sectional research, you observe variables without influencing them.
Longitudinal design:
Longitudinal
- Same group of participants followed over time
- Time-consuming, slow, selective attrition
- Can link early and later behaviour and look at environment
- e.g. Research Question: Is IQ stable over time?
A longitudinal study is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time. It is often a type of observational study, although it can also be structured as longitudinal randomized experiment.
Time-lag studies
Time-lag studies
- Assessing individuals of the same age from the same community at multiple points in time
- Can examine influence of cultural context on development
- e.g. Research Question: Is IQ stable over time?
Time-lag studies illustrate how historical changes in culture affect individuals. Recent research and theory in psychology have recognized that environments vary between countries and regions, producing differences in personality, emotion, perception, and behaviour.
Organic-maturational model
Organic-maturational model (Nature)
Also knows as our ‘nature’, this model is focused on understanding the biological and neurobiological changes that drive our development. These are the programs that are biologically wired into the physical and biological elements of our bodies. They influence our function and our development over time.
The elements of nature might include:
- Changes in our physical body.
- Changes in our brain development, cells, genes.
- Changes in the physical ageing process.
Environmental-mechanistic model
Environmental-mechanistic model (Nurture)
Also known as ‘nurture’, this model is focused on how our environment and our context shapes and influences our development. For example, research has looked at twins who have the same genetics and many of the same biological characteristics, yet are different people. There are also studies that look at how our environment and context actually might influence how our genes are expressed.
The elements of nurture might include:
- Socio-cultural context for development.
- The broader environment we grow up in.
- Cultural context and time in history.
Psychoanalytic theory
Posits that there are three aspects of personality:
- The id (unconscious desires)
- The ego (unconscious guide to achieving desires in reality)
- The superego (conscious moral limit to the id and ego)
Notes on cognitive development
Effects on cognitive development is influenced by social interactions (Nurture)
- Learning can be affected by social upbringing
- A child that is emotionally well put together and social will have a positive learning experience
- A child that has anxiety /stress – no matter how gifted will have an impaired learning experience
Brains are born and developed in a way that are prepared to be shaped.
- Overall nature and nurture can influence how the brain circuits develop.
Things such as Uncertainty, anxiety, Good upbringing can affect how the brain circuits develop, good or bad.
This in turn can then affect the following, good and bad:
- Immune system
Excessive prolonged stress early in life is associated with difficulties in the following:
- Learning
- Behaviour
- Physical
- Mental health
Development of Parent–Adolescent Relationships: Conflict Interactions as a Mechanism of Change READINGS - Take away note:
- Parents should learn to guide adolescents to express, share, and regulate a range of positive and negative emotions
- Emotional variability KEY WORD
Overall this was about the conflict between adolescents and parents
- Adolescents who said their parents exerted restrictive control over issues in the personal domain perceived their mothers as more controlling psychologically, whereas adolescents who said their parents exerted restrictive control over issues in the social domain did not say their mothers were controlling psychologically
- The greater diversity of emotions enables more flexible parent–child dyads to adapt to the relational challenges of early adolescence and reorganize interaction patterns toward more horizontality and equality.
- Mother–child dyads with less variability that have a smaller and more rigid emotional repertoire may not be reorganizing their patterns of interaction resulting in lower relationship quality later in adolescence
Description research:
This sort of research tries to describe development. Sometimes this is at one point in time, or can be over a longer period of time. This research might identify age based norms so that we might, for example, know the average number of words that a two year old might speak compared with a five year old. Description research tries to describe development in a general population or an element of development for a specific population
Some examples of description research questions include:
What is the working memory capacity in adolescents? Does temperament change across early childhood?
Explanation research:
This research involves trying to understand how patterns of development happen and what factors might influence development, such as biology, environment or culture. This research considers what came before or after where a person is in their life to explain how that person has come to be who they are at any point in time.
Some examples of explanation research questions might be.
Does gender predict personality in adolescence?
How do children describe how their school and home experiences influence how
they make friends?
