L4: Developmental Trajectories

Question 1

What are developmental trajectories?

Answer 1

Describes the progression of a given behavior as individuals age.
Method of designing research studies which enables researchers to identify the role development plays in the origin of cognitive abilities

Question 2

What did Dadvand et al., 2016 study regarding developmental trajectories of working memory

Answer 2

One important reason to study predictor variable outcome relations need to understand before we have any form of intervention
Used lots of diff Ways of quantifying children’s access to green spaces & looked at impact- predictor study
Use language of hypothesis
Curve shows accelerated difference across time
Shows predictor outcomes and also developmental trajectories
Increase of working memory between ages 3-7

Question 3

What did Pelegrina et al., (2016) measure about developmental trajectories?

Answer 3

Aimed to gather normative data from adults & adolescents using the N- Back task (measure of working memory)
With adults response time and accuracy is a trade-off
With developmental, there’s a shift
Age-related increase in performance for the different levels of difficulty

Question 4

What did Lopez-Vicente et al., (2016) measure about developmental trajectories?

Answer 4

Developmental trajectories in primary school children using the N - Back task
n-back task detected age-related trajectories in primary schoolchildren from the general population
This task showed different developmental patterns by sex and ADHD symptoms

Question 5

What did Murphy’s (1999) study of emotionality & regulation measure?

Answer 5

Longitudinal study
Looked at consistency of change and stability of children’s emotionality and regulation
Used parent & teacher report measures to measure both
peak of emotionality at ages 5-7 (both positive & negative emotionality)
Expression of these intense emotions decreases
Increase in emotional regulation
Identified trends and found developmental trajectories by testing these trends

Question 6

What does Lopez-Vicente et al., (2016) shape of change study show?

Answer 6

Looked at developmental trajectories in school children using n-Back task
Multilevel modelling to show the shape of change
Shows different ways to account variance
Accounted for individual differences, mixed & random effects
Accounts for variance due to the age at some particular data point was collected

Question 7

What is continuity?

Answer 7

Developmental changes occur gradually & performance is based on similar processes
Linear graph (zigzag pattern is example of time sampling)

Question 8

What is discontinuity?

Answer 8

Developmental changes occur in large shifts & performance draws on different processes
U-shaped graph

Question 9

What does the shape of change show us?

Answer 9

We are able to draw on inferences based on the shape of change

Question 10

What is change?

Answer 10

Age related changes in development e.g., based on environment interactions
Change can be studied for just 2 points of time (Cross-sectional)
DOES NOT imply discontinuity
Group level data

Question 11

What is stability?

Answer 11

Dev. psychologists study the ways in which behaviour and biology remain constant across time for children
You must know info about the individual in order to talk about stability
Studying stability requires detailed pictures of individual differences across time (Must be longitudinal)
DOES NOT imply continuity

Question 12

What types of designs allow us to study change?

Answer 12

Cross-sectional designs allow us to identify some patterns from data
Longitudinal designs allows us to consider individual effects
Time sampling influences identification of change

Question 13

What is group level data?

Answer 13

Group of subjects are clustered together within time and place

Question 14

What is rank-order stability?

Answer 14

Individuals scoring the highest (or lowest) on a particular personality trait will continue to score high (or low) on this personality trait over time
e.g. intelligence

Question 15

How does Murphy et al., (1999) show stability in children’s emotionality & regulation?

Answer 15

High correlations for some time point for children’s emotionality and regulation

Question 16

What is the child behaviour checklist?

Answer 16

A caregiver report measure designed to provide a detailed assessment of children’s temperament from 3 - 7
Factor Analysis identified 3 broad dimensions of temperament
1. Extraversion/surgency
2. Negative affectivity
3. Effortful control

Question 17

What did Rothbart et al., (2001) aim to identify using the CBQ?

Answer 17

Aimed to identify how well their instrument measured stability
Conduct a factor analysis which identifies 3 broad dimensions of temperament
Collected data from mothers & fathers
Looked at how these correlated over time
Looked at mothers & fathers ratings separately
Pretty high correlation
Common study of stability in children
Some of these may indicate developmental issues later in life

Question 18

What did Hay et al., (2006) show about the stability of self control?

Answer 18

Study of development of self-control
Looked at stability (individual’s score) and the extent to which it stays the same
If the rank order stays high then the correlation would be very high
The larger groups demonstrate stability over time as they are relatively stable
Developmental trajectories will not be the same for everyone
Things such as trauma & developmental disorders can impact this
EX. High Decreasing group of self control score shows us that this is only 1.22% of the children studied but this groups needs to be shown in the graph even though it’s a very different pattern

Question 19

What did Fernard et al., (2013) show regarding stability & change?

Answer 19

Looked at children’s language (vocab) and economic status
Higher SES showed steeper line for better vocab

Question 20

What is measurement equivalence?

Answer 20

Measurement procedures and tools must be fair and equal for all participants involved
This should be addressed at design and results section

Question 21

What are dynamic systems?

Answer 21

Accounts of development emphasize that behaviour depends on context and state
Focus on variability between and within individuals
Focus shifts from time1 to time2 variability to shifts between instability and stability
E.g., an infant learning how to walk
Stability will be influenced buy many factors (slope they’re walking on, if they’re wearing a nappy etc)
-this shows the variance impacting their ability to learn to walk

Question 22

What are longitudinal designs?

Answer 22

Research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over short or long periods of time (i.e., uses longitudinal data)
Allow inferences about stability and change

Question 23

What is an analytic approach?

Answer 23

Focuses on understanding the cause & effect relationships between 2 or more variables
Any method based on breaking down a complex process into its parts so as to better understand the whole
EX. A researcher studying cognition in preschool children might identify such component skills as problem solving, reasoning, judgment, imagination, and memory; examine each item in turn; and then determine how they interact.

Question 24

What are cross-sectional designs?

Answer 24

test different people at different times
Data is collected at one time point to test age and experience related hypotheses
“snapshot of sample”
Allow inferences of some inferences of change depending on the study but do not allow strong inferences of change
DO NOT allow any inferences about stability

Question 25

What did DeLuca et al., (2003) find regarding cross sectional data by measuring executive function?

Answer 25

Aim: To measure executive function
Put age into equal size chunk groups
Decline in performance for all tasks for 50-64 years old ppts
Allows inferences of change from cross-sectional data

Question 26

What are correlational approaches?

Answer 26

Use of various types of correlational analyses to identify coherent patterns of individual differences between people at a single point in time
EX. Correlations, multiple regression

Question 27

What is an analysis of variance approach? (ANOVA)

Answer 27

Using ANOVA to identify effects of an IV on the DV despite differences between individuals
Just as researchers use analysis of variance researchers can also repeated measures ANOVA to identify change across age in longitudinal studies
Considers the variance that an individual contributes to the data at T1, T2, T3

Question 28

What is multi-level modelling? (mixed effects)

Answer 28

Allows researchers to consider differences between individuals as well as across time & variable differences between individuals across time

Question 29

What are goals of psychological research?

Answer 29

Prediction is rarely mentioned as a legitimate goal of psychological research
Need to think about prediction & description before undertaking a logitudinal study design