• What is development?
• Domains of development
• Questions about Development: Normative
Development and Individual Differences
• Goals of developmental psychology
• Themes/Issues in developmental
psychology
What is development?
• Development refers to systematic changes
in the individual that occur over time from
conception to death
Domains of Development
• Physical Development
– Changes in the body and brain
• Cognitive Development
– Changes in thought, intelligence, and language
• Socioemotional Development
– Changes in relationships, emotions, and
personality
Questions about Development
•
Normative development
–
Involves typical or average patterns of change
•
Individual differences
–
Involves differences between individuals of
approximately the same age
Goals of Developmental Psychology
•
Describe behavior and how it changes across
development
•
Explain development
–
•
Identify the underlying processes or causes of change
Apply knowledge to help children develop in
positive directions
Themes/Issues in Developmental Psychology
• How do genetic/biological and environmental
factors work together to shape development?
• Is development continuous or discontinuous?
– Continuous (Quantitative)
• Gradual, small, steady increases in skills/abilities
– Discontinuous (Qualitative)
• Relatively fast changes that involve a major
re-organization of skills/abilities (new stage
of development)
• How important is early experience in
affecting later development?
• Research Methods in Developmental Psychology
– Hypotheses
– Data Collection Techniques
• Systematic Observation
– Naturalistic Observation
– Structured Observation
• Self-report Measures
– Clinical Interviews
– Structured Interviews and Questionnaires
• Psychophysiological Methods
– General Research Designs
• Correlational
• Experimental
– Designs for Studying Development
• Longitudinal Designs
• Cross-sectional Designs
Research Methods in Developmental Psychology
• Hypothesis: A specific prediction that can be
tested
Data Collection Techniques
• Systematic Observation (2 Types)
– Naturalistic Observation
• Observe child’s behavior in a natural
environment
– Exs: playground, school, home
– Structured Observation:
• Design a situation that will elicit relevant
behavior(s)
• Typically conducted in a laboratory
setting
• Observe different children in the same
situation
General Disadvantages (Observation):
• Self-report Measures
– Clinical Interviews
• More “open-ended” questions—response
choices are not limited
– Ex: “Tell me about that”
• Participants may be asked different
questions (depending on their answers)
– Structured interviews and questionnaires
• More “close-ended” questions—response
choices are limited
– Ex: yes/no questions, rating scales, multiple
choice questions
• All participants are asked the same
questions
• Parents, child care providers, and teachers
often provide information about infants and
young children (and/or about themselves)
– Ex: infant/child temperament; behavior problems;
social skills
• General Disadvantage (self-report or report
by others):
Psychophysiological Methods
• Record physiological responses
– Exs: heart rate, hormone levels (cortisol), brain
wave activity
• Infer psychological “states” from these
responses (e.g., perceptions, emotions)
Advantage:
• Can be used with preverbal infants and
young children (limited language)
Disadvantage:
• Changes in physiological responses can be
caused by many “irrelevant” factors (e.g.,
hunger, boredom, movement)
General Research Designs
• Correlational Designs
– Examine the relationship between two (or more) variables
• Variable: Characteristic or experience that varies across individuals
– Exs: age, gender, IQ, personality traits
• Correlation Coefficient
– Indicates how strongly two measures
(variables) are related
– Can range from -1.00 to +1.00
• Size of the coefficient
• Zero correlation
• Sign of the coefficient:
– Positive
– Negative
• Major limitation
• Why not?
• Experimental Designs
– Independent Variable
– Dependent Variable
• Groups in an experiment should be
equivalent except for their exposure to the
independent variable
– But individuals are different in a lot of ways
• So how can the researcher be sure the groups are the
same at the start of the experiment?
• Random Assignment: Participants have an
equal chance of being assigned to each
group/condition in an experiment
– Advantage: Participants’ pre-existing
characteristics should be equally distributed
across groups/conditions
• Ex: Should be same number of highly aggressive
kids in each group/condition—so the groups are the
same when the experiment starts
– Can infer that the independent variable
causes changes in the dependent variable
Designs for Studying Development
• Purpose: Can examine developmental (agerelated) change
• Longitudinal Design
• Advantages
– Can examine stability and change in individual
children’s characteristics or behavior over time
• Disadvantages
– Non-random participant loss
• Participants who finish the study differ in systematic ways from
participants who drop out
– Final sample is not representative of the group (population)
researcher wanted to study—findings may not generalize to
the whole group
– Practice effects
• Change due to familiarity with data collection procedures rather
than change due to development
– Time-consuming and expensive
Cross-Sectional Design
• Advantages
– More efficient than a longitudinal design (faster, less
expensive)
– No participant loss
– No practice effects
• Disadvantages
– Cannot examine stability and change in
individual children’s characteristics or behavior
over time