THE STUDY OF CHILD
DEVELOPMENT
January 9, 2023
Overview
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Developmental Science
A Historical Perspective
The Central Issues of Developmental
Science
Ways of Gathering Data
I. Developmental Science
• an interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on the
changes that children undergo from conception
onward.
•
Five periods:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The Prenatal Period (conception to birth)
Infancy (birth - age 2)
Early Childhood (ages 2 - 6)
Middle Childhood (ages 6 - 12)
Adolescence (ages 12 - 18)
Domains of Development
1.
2.
3.
4.
Social
Emotional
Cognitive (intellectual)
Physical
Developmental Science
• Goals:
1. To understand the basic biological and
cultural processes that account for the
complexities of development.
2. To devise ways of safeguarding / improving
children’s health and well-being.
Who Benefits from
Developmental Psychology?
• 1. Parents
• 2. Teachers & Educators
• 3. Social Policy Makers
II. Historical Perspectives of Childhood
Development
A Historical Perspective
Childhood in Premodern Times
• children had few rights
• viewed as family possessions whom
parents could exploit as saw fit
• Medieval law: children culpable for
criminal offences
A Historical Perspective
Early Philosophical Perspectives:
• Issue: are children inherently good or bad?
• Hobbes (1651): original sin
– Children inherently selfish; must be restrained by
society
• Rousseau (1752): innate purity
– Children born with intuitive sense of right / wrong;
often corrupted by society
A Historical Perspective
• Issue: Nature vs. nurture
• John Locke (1690): tabula rasa
• Children have no inborn tendencies;
how they turn out depends on
experiences
• Parents can mould child in any way
they wish
A Historical Perspective
• Charles Darwin: understood
development of human species
by studying child development
• Baby biography
• Problem: often based on single
case; highly subjective
A Historical Perspective
• G. Stanley Hall – a founder of dev.
psychology
• identified norms, the average ages at
which milestones happen
• Identified adolescence as unique
phase
Theoretical Perspectives
•
I’m not going to cover theories of development
here, as the textbook does a sufficient job of this in
Module 1.2, with a summary table on page 18;
make sure that you are familiar with these theories,
and the major figures associated with them
•
We will be looking at several of these theories in
greater depth in upcoming chapters
III. RECURRING THEMES OF
DEVELOPMENT SCIENCE
1. Sources of Development
•
Nature:
– Refers to the individual’s inherited biological
predispositions
•
Nurture:
– Refers to the influences on the individual of
the social and cultural environment and of
the individual’s experience.
2. Plasticity
– To what degree, and under what conditions, is
development open to change and intervention?
2. Plasticity
•
Critical Periods:
– A period during which specific biological or
environmental events are required for normal
development to occur.
•
E.g., Imprinting
3. Continuity/Discontinuity
•
Continuous Development:
– Involves gradual accumulation of small changes
•
•
Quantitative Changes
Discontinuity:
– Involves a series of abrupt, radical transformations
•
Qualitative Changes
3. Continuity/Discontinuity
Ex. of Discontinuity in Thinking
• 4-5 year-olds have many improbable
beliefs (e.g., a person on TV could
jump out into living room)
• 6-7 year-olds certain this couldn’t
happen
4. Active vs. Passive
• To what extent do children’s actions
shape their own development?
• How responsible are parents for their
children’s actions?
5. Individual Differences
– What combination of nature and nurture makes
individuals different from one another?
– Siblings often have very different personalities!
Case Study: Genie
• Extreme social isolation
• Locked in bedroom for first 13
years of life
• Very limited verbal ability
• Watch video at this link:
• https://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=VjZolHCrC8E
• Fundamental issue: What are
the implications for child
development?
Case Study: Genie
• Conclusion: humans have a critical
period for language development
• Won’t develop properly without
adequate stimulation from child’s
environment
IV. WAYS OF GATHERING DATA
Ways of Gathering Data
• A. Systematic Observation
• Involves watching people and carefully recording
what they do or say
• i. naturalistic observation – takes place in natural
environment (e.g., at school, on a playground)
– E.g., Haskett & Kistner (1991)
– Social behaviours of abused vs. non-abused preschool
children during playtime
Ways of Gathering Data
• A. Systematic Observation
• Involves watching people and carefully recording
what they do or say
• ii. structured observation – researcher creates
setting designed to elicit behaviour of interest
– E.g., Mischel’s “marshmallow experiment”
Ways of Gathering Data
• B. Sampling Behaviour with Tasks
• Used when a behaviour is not directly
observable
• E.g., Williams et al. (1975), gender
stereotypes in children
Ways of Gathering Data
• C. Self-Reports
• Questionnaires or interviews
• E.g., reasoning about moral
dilemmas
• Convenient, but may not always be
accurate
Studying Age-Related Changes
•
In cross-sectional designs, groups of
subjects are selected at each of a series of
ages at one point in time
•
•
•
•
E.g., Evans et al. (2011)
Development of lying in children
3 groups (aged 3, 4, 5)
Lies of 5-yr-olds were more clever than
those of 3-yr-olds
Studying Age-Related Changes
•
In cross-sectional designs, groups of
subjects are selected at each of a series of
ages at one point in time
•
Advantages:
–
–
•
Quick and easy
Allows for immediate comparisons
Disadvantages:
–
–
Fails to gather information on individual patterns
of development
Confounds age with cohort
Studying Age-Related Changes
• Longitudinal designs follow the
individual(s) over a period of time.
same
• E.g., Brendgen et al., 2001
• Tracked children’s popularity with classmates over 5
years (age 7 to 12)
• Most children were stable;
idiosyncratic patterns of change
some
showed
Studying Age-Related Changes
• Longitudinal designs follow the
individual(s) over a period of time.
same
• Advantages:
– Establishes patterns of individual growth and
change
• Disadvantages:
– Costly, time-consuming
– attrition
Studying Age-Related Changes
• A sequential design begins with at
least two age groups and follows
each over a number of years
1.age-group comparisons
2.comparisons of each group to itself at
an earlier testing point
Studying Age-Related Changes
• Multiple approaches to studying
developmental changes
• Each method comes with its own
strengths and drawbacks