Chapter 1

Question 1

Historical Views of Children and Childhood

Answer 1

Plato (428-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) believed that schools and parents had the responsibility for teaching children the self-control that would make them effective citizens. But both philosophers, particularly Aristotle, also worried that too much self-discipline would stifle children’s initiative and individuality, making them unfit as leaders.

Question 2

Historical people - education

Answer 2

Plato believed that experience could not be the source of knowledge because human senses are too fallible. He argued, instead, that children are born with innate knowledge of many concrete objects, such as animals and people, as well as with knowledge of abstractions such as courage, love, and goodness. In Plato’s view, children’s sensory experiences simply trigger knowledge they’ve had since birth.

In contrast, Aristotle denied the existence of innate knowledge; instead, knowledge is rooted in perceptual experience. Children acquire knowledge piece by piece, based on the information provided by their senses.

Question 3

Age of Enlightenment - John Locke

Answer 3

The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), asserting that the human infant is a tabula rasa or “blank slate,” claimed that experience molds the infant, child, adolescent, and adult into a unique individual. According to Locke, parents should instruct, reward, and discipline young children, gradually relaxing their authority as children grow.

Locke, like Aristotle 2,000 years before him, believed that children begin these journeys very lightly packed but pick up necessary knowledge along the way, through experience

Question 4

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Answer 4

Locke’s view was challenged by the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who believed that newborns are endowed with an innate sense of justice and morality that unfolds naturally as children grow. In this unfolding, children move through the developmental stages that we recognize today - infancy, childhood, and adolescence. And instead of emphasizing parental discipline, Rousseau argued that parents should be responsive and receptive to their children’s needs.

Rousseau shared Plato’s view that children begin their developmental journeys well prepared with a stockpile of knowledge.

Question 5

The push toward child development as a science came from two unexpected events in England in the 19th century.

Answer 5

1. Industrial Revolution
   - in the mid-1700s, England was transformed from rural, relying on agriculture, to an urban-oriented society organized around factories, including textile mills that produced cotton cloth.
   - Children moved with their families to cities and worked long hours in factories under horrendous conditions and for little pay.
   - Accidents were common and many children were maimed or killed.
   - Reformers were appalled at these conditions and worked to enact laws that would limit child labor and put more children in schools.
2. Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking work on evolution
   - He argued that individuals within a species differ; some individuals are better adapted to an environment, making them more likely to survive and to pass along their characteristics to future generations.
   - Some scientists of the day noted similarities between Darwin’s description of evo- lutionary change in species and age-related changes in human behavior.
   - This prompted many scientists-including Darwin himself-to write what became known as baby biographies, detailed, systematic observations of individual children.
   - The observations in the biographies were often subjective and conclusions were sometimes reached on the basis of minimal evidence.
   - Nevertheless, the systematic and extensive records in baby biographies paved the way for objective, analytic research.

Question 6

G. Stanley Hall

Answer 6

Taking the lead in the new science at the dawn of the 20th century was G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924), who generated theories of child development based on evolutionary theory and conducted many studies to determine age trends in children’s beliefs and feelings about a range of topics.

Hall founded the first scientific journal in English where scientists could publish findings from child-development research.

Hall founded a child-study institute at Clark University and was the first president of the American Psychological Association.

Question 7

Other scientist interests in studying children

Answer 7

Alfred Binet (1857-1911) had begun to devise the first mental tests

In Austria, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) had suggestion that the experiences of early childhood seemed to account for patterns of behavior in adulthood

in the United States John B. Watson (1878-1958), the founder of behaviorism, had begun to write and lecture on the importance of reward and punishment for child-rearing practices.

Question 8

the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)

Answer 8

In 1933, these emerging scientific forces came together in a new interdisciplinary organization, the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). Among its members were psychologists, physicians, educators, anthropologists, and biologists

SRCD has grown to a membership of more than 5,000 scientists and is now the main professional organization for child-development researchers. It continues to promote multidisciplinary research and to encourage application of research findings to improve children’s lives.

Question 9

World War II

Answer 9

Progress in the field was halted by World War II, when most child-development scientists in the United States abandoned their research to assist the war effort

But by the 1950s and 1960s, the field was thriving, marking the beginning of the modern era of child-development research.

Question 10

Applied developmental science

Answer 10

Child-development researchers have learned much during these 50 years.
- Because of this success, a new branch of child-development research has emerged.

Applied developmental science uses developmental research to promote healthy development, particularly for vulnerable children and families

Scientists with this research interest contribute to sound family policy through a number of distinct pathways:
- Some ensure that consideration of policy issues and options is based on factual knowledge derived from child-development research: When government officials need to address problems affecting children, child-development experts can provide useful information about children and their develop- ment
- Others contribute by serving as advocates for children. Working with a child-advocacy group, child-development researchers can alert policymakers to children’s needs and can argue for family policy that addresses those needs.
- Still other child-development experts evaluate the impact of government policies (e.g., the No Child Left Behind Act) on children and families.
- one of the best ways to sway policymakers is to create an actual program that works. When researchers create a program that effectively combats problems affecting children or adolescents (e.g., sudden infant death syndrome or teenage pregnancy), this can become powerful ammunition for influencing policy.

Question 11

A theory

Answer 11

In child development, a THEORY is an organized set of ideas that is designed to explain and make predictions about development.

A theory leads to hypotheses that we can test in research; in the process, each hypothesis is confirmed or rejected.

When the outcomes of research are as hypothesized, the theory gains support.

When results run counter to the hypothesis, the theory is incorrect and is revised. These revised theories then provide the basis for new hypotheses, which lead to new research, and the cycle continues.

With each step along the way, the theory comes closer to becoming a complete account

Question 12

Many early theories shared assumptions and ideas about children and development; grouped together they form five major theoretical perspectives in child-development research

Answer 12

biological, psychodynamic, learning, cognitive- developmental, and contextual perspectives

Question 13

The Biological Perspective

Answer 13

The Biological Perspective - intellectual and personality development, as well as physical and motor development, are rooted in biology

Maturational theory, was proposed by Arnold Gesell (1880-1961).
- child development reflects a specific and pre-arranged scheme or plan within the body.
- In Gesell’s view, development is simply a natural unfolding of a biological plan; experience matters little.
- Like Jean Jacques Rousseau 200 years before him, Gesell encouraged parents to let their children develop naturally.
- behaviors as speech, play, and reasoning would emerge spontaneously according to a predetermined developmental timetable
- Maturational theory was discarded because it had little to say about the impact of the environment on children’s development.

other biological theories give greater weight to experience.

Ethological theory views development from an evolutionary perspective.
- many behaviors are adaptive - they have survival value.
- For example, clinging, grasping, and crying are adaptive for infants because they elicit caregiving from adults.
- Ethological theorists assume that people inherit many of these adaptive behaviors
- Ethologists believe that all animals are biologically programmed so that some kinds of learning occur only at certain ages
- A critical period is the time in development when a specific type of learning can take place; before or after the critical period, the same learning is difficult or even impossible.
- One well-known example of a critical period comes from the work of Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989), a zoologist who noticed that newly hatched chicks follow their mother about. He theorized that chicks are biologically programmed to follow the first moving object that they see. Usually this was the mother, so following her was the first step in imprinting, creating an emotional bond with the mother.

Question 14

The Psychodynamic Perspective

Answer 14

The psychodynamic perspective is the oldest scientific perspective on child develop- ment, originating in the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Freud was a physician who specialized in diseases of the nervous system.
- Many of his patients were adults who suffered from ailments that seemed to have no obvious biological causes.
- As Freud listened to his patients describe their problems and their lives, he became convinced that early experiences establish pat- terns that endure throughout a person’s life.
- Using his patients’ case histories, Freud created the first psychodynamic theory, which holds that development is largely determined by how well people resolve conflicts they face at different ages.

The role of conflict is evident in Freud’s description of the three primary components of personality.
- The id is a reservoir of primitive instincts and drives.
— Present at birth, the id presses for immediate gratification of bodily needs and wants.
- The ego is the practical, rational component of personality.
— The ego begins to emerge during the first year of life, as infants learn that they cannot always have what they want.
— The ego tries to resolve conflicts that occur when the instinctive desires of the id encounter the obstacles of the real world.
— The ego often tries to channel the id’s impulsive demands into socially more acceptable channels.
- The third component of personality, the superego, is the “moral agent” in the child’s personality.
— It emerges during the preschool years as children begin to internalize adult standards of right and wrong.
- Today, scientists recognize many shortcomings that undermine Freud’s theory as a whole
- two of Freud’s insights have had lasting impact on child-development research and theory. First, he noted that early experiences can have enduring ef- fects on children’s development. Second, he suggested that children often experience conflict between what they want to do and what they know they should do.

ERIKSON’S PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORY
- Erik Erikson (1902-1994), Freud’s student, embraced Freud’s idea of conflict, but he emphasized the psychological and social aspects of conflict rather than the biological and physical aspects.
- In Erikson’s psychosocial theory, development consists of a sequence of stages, each defined by a unique crisis or challenge.
- The name of each stage reflects the challenge that individuals face at a particular age.
- Erikson also argued that the earlier stages of psychosocial development provide the foundation for the later stages.
- When children overcome early obstacles easily, they are better able to handle the later ones.
- Psychosocial stage: basic trust vs mistrust. Birth to 1 year. Challenge: to develop a sense that the world is safe and a good place
- Stage: autonomy vs shame and doubt. 1 to 3 years. Challenge: To realize that one is an independent person who can make decisions
- Stage: initiative vs guilt. 3 to 6 years. Challenge: to develop a willingness to try new things and to handle failure
- Stage: industry vs inferiority. 6 years to adolescence. Challenge: to learn basic skills and to work with others
- Stage: Identity versus identity confusion. Adolescence. Challenge: to develop a lasting, integrated sense of self
- Stage: intimacy vs isolation. Young adulthood. Challenge: to commit to another in a loving relationship
- Stage: generativity vs stagnation. Middle adulthood. Challenge: to contribute to younger people, through child rearing, child care, or other productive work
- Stage: integrity vs despair. Late life. Challenge: to view one’s life as satisfactory and worth living

Question 15

The Learning Perspective

Answer 15

Learning theorists endorse John Locke’s view that the infant’s mind is a blank slate on which experience writes.

John Watson (1878-1958) was the first theorist to apply this approach to child development.
- He argued that learning determines what children will be.
- For Watson, experience was all that mattered in determining the course of development.

1. EARLY LEARNING THEORIES.
2. SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY

Question 16

EARLY LEARNING THEORIES

Answer 16

B. F. Skinner studied operant conditioning, in which the consequences of a behavior determine whether a behavior is repeated in the future.
- A reinforcement is a consequence that increases the future likelihood of the behavior that it follows.
— Positive reinforcement consists of giving a reward to increase the likelihood of repeating a previous behavior.
— Negative reinforcement consists of rewarding people by taking away unpleasant things.
- A punishment is a consequence that decreases the future likelihood of the be- havior that it follows.
— Punishment suppresses a behavior by either adding something aversive or by withholding a pleasant event.

However, researchers discovered that children sometimes learn without rein- forcement or punishment.
- Children learn much simply by watching those around them, which is known as imitation or observational learning.

Question 17

SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY

Answer 17

Children do not always imitate what they see around them.
- Children are more likely to imitate if the person they see is popular, smart, or talented.
- They’re also more likely to imitate when the behavior they see is rewarded than when it is punished.

Albert Bandura (1925-) based his social cognitive theory on this more complex view of reward, punishment, and imitation
- Bandura calls his theory “cognitive” because he believes that children are actively trying to understand what goes on in their world; the theory is “social” because, along with reinforcement and punishment, what other people do is an important source of information about the world

Bandura also argues that experience gives children a sense of self- efficacy, beliefs about their own abilities and talents.
- Self-efficacy beliefs help determine when children will imitate others.
- whether children imitate others depends on who the other person is, whether that person’s behavior is rewarded, and the children’s beliefs about their own talents.

Question 18

The Cognitive-Developmental Perspective

Answer 18

The cognitive-developmental perspective focuses on how children think and on how their thinking changes as they grow.

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) proposed the best known of these theories.
- He believed that children naturally try to make sense of their world.
- Throughout infancy, childhood, and adolescence, youngsters want to understand the workings of both the physical and the social world.
- Piaget argued that as children try to comprehend their world, they act like sci- entists in creating theories about the physical and social worlds.
- As with real scientific theories, when the predicted events occur, a child’s belief in her theory grows stronger.
- When the predicted events do not occur, the child must revise her theory.
- Piaget also believed that at a few critical points in development, children real- ize their theories have basic flaws. When this happens, they revise their theories radically.
- radical revisions occur three times in development: once at about age 2, a second time at about age 7, and a third time just before adolescence. These radical changes mean children go through four distinct stages in cognitive development. Each stage represents a fundamental change in how children understand and organize their envi- ronment, and each stage is characterized by more sophisticated types of reasoning.
- According to Piaget, children’s thinking becomes more sophisticated as they develop, reflecting the more sophisticated theories that children create.

Stage: sensorimotor. Birth to 2 years. Infant’s knowledge of the world is based on sense and motor skills. By the end of the period, infant uses mental represenations

Stage: Preoperational. 2 to 6 years. Child learns how to use symbols such as words and numbers to represent aspects of the world, but relates to the world only through his or her perspective

Stage: concrete operation. 7 to 11 years. Child understands and applies logical operations to experiences, provided they are focused on the here and now.

Stage: formal operational. Adolescence and beyond. Adolescent or adult thinks abstractly, speculates on hypothetical situations, and reasons deductively about what may be possible

Question 19

The Contextual Perspective

Answer 19

environment is an important force in development

All these people and institutions fit together to form a person’s culture - the knowledge, attitudes, and behavior associated with a group of people.
- Culture can refer to a particular country or people (e.g., French culture), to a specific point in time (e.g., popular culture of the 1990s), or to groups of individuals who maintain specific, identifiable cultural traditions
- A culture provides the context in which a child develops and thus is a source of many important influences on development throughout childhood and adolescence.

One of the first theorists to emphasize cultural context in children’s development was Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). A Russian psychologist, Vygotsky focused on ways that adults convey to children the beliefs, customs, and skills of their culture.

Question 20

Early Development Is Related to Later Development but Not Perfectly

Answer 20

Thus, the continuity-discontinuity issue is really about the “relatedness” of development: Are early aspects of development consistently related to later aspects?
- Do you believe development is a continuous process: According to this view, once a child begins down a particular developmental path, he or she stays on that path throughout life.
- Or do you believe the other view, that development is not continuous?

In reality, neither of these views is accurate. Development is not perfectly pre- dictable.

Question 21

Development Is Always Jointly Influenced by Heredity and Environment

Answer 21

Virtually all aspects of development are determined by the combined forces of heredity and environment.

What roles do biology (nature) and environment (nurture) play in child development?

Today, we know that virtually no aspects of child development are due exclusively to either heredity or environment. Instead, development is always shaped by both-na- ture and nurture interact.

Question 22

Children Influence Their Own Development

Answer 22

Children shaped the way in which parents parented.

These two points ofview illustrate the active-passive child issue: Are children simply at the mercy of the environment (passive child) or do children actively influence their own development through their own unique individual characteristics (active child)?

The passive view corresponds to Locke’s description of the child as a blank slate on which experience writes; the active view corresponds to Rousseau’s view of development as a natural unfolding that takes place within the child.

Today, we know that experiences are indeed crucial but not always in the way Locke envisioned.

Often, it’s a child’s interpretation of experiences that shapes his or her development.

Question 23

Development in Different Domains Is Connected

Answer 23

development in different domains is always intertwined.

Question 24

Themes

Answer 24

• Continuity: Early development is related to later development but not perfectly.
• Nature and nurture: Development is always jointly influenced by heredity and environment.
• Active children: Children influence their own development.
• Connections: Development in different domains is connected.

Question 25

child-development researchers follow the scientific method, which involves several steps

Answer 25

* Identify a question to be answered or a phenomenon to be understood. * Form a hypothesis that is a tentative answer to the question or a tentative explanation of the phenomenon. * Select a method for collecting data that can be used to evaluate the hypothesis.

Question 26

Measurement in Child-Development Research

Answer 26

observing systematically, using tasks to sample behavior, asking children for self reports, and measuring physiological responses

Question 27

SYSTEMATIC OBSERVATION

Answer 27

Systematic observation involves watching children and carefully recording what they do or say. Two forms of systematic observation are common. 1. In naturalistic observation, children are observed as they behave spontaneously in some real-life situation. - Of course, researchers can't keep track of everything that a child does. - Beforehand they must decide which variables to record. Naturalistic observation is illustrated in research by Ensor and Hughes (2008), who studied conversations between mothers and their 2-year-olds. They used video cameras to record mother-child conversations before or during a meal 2. In structured observation, the researcher creates a setting likely to elicit the behavior of interest. - Structured observations are particularly useful for studying behaviors that are difficult to observe naturally. - Other behaviors are difficult for researchers to observe because they occur in private settings, not public ones. - or things that happen in rare situations like emergencies A good example of structured observation comes from a study by Belsky et al. (2005) of parenting strategies. These researchers had mothers and their 3-year-olds sit in a room that included many attractive toys. The child was given one toy, then mothers were asked to complete a questionnaire and simultaneously make sure that her child did not play with any of the other toys - The lO-minute session was videotaped and later the researchers used the tapes to measure parental behavior

Question 28

SAMPLING BEHAVIOR WITH TASKS

Answer 28

When investigators can't observe a behavior directly, an alternative is to create tasks that are thought to sample the behavior of interest. Sampling behavior with tasks is popular with child-development researchers because it is so convenient. A major problem with this approach, however, is whether the task really samples the behavior of interest.

Question 29

SELF REPORTS

Answer 29

Self reports are simply children's answers to questions about the topic of interest. When questions are posed in written form, the report is a questionnaire; when questions are posed orally, the report is an interview. In either format, questions are created that probe different aspects of the topic of interest. Can use rating scale Self reports are useful because they can lead directly to information on the topic of interest. They are also relatively convenient, particularly when they can be administered to groups of children or adolescents. However, self reports are not always valid measures of children's behavior, because children's answers are sometimes inaccurate. Why? When asked about past events, children may not remember them accurately. Also, children sometimes answer incorrectly due to response bias - some responses may be more socially acceptable than others, and children are more likely to select those than socially unacceptable answers.

Question 30

PHYSIOLOGICAL MEASURES

Answer 30

A final approach is less common but can be very powerful-measuring children's physiological responses. Heart rate, for example, often slows down when children are paying close attention to something interesting the hormone cortisol is often secreted in response to stress. By measuring cortisol levels in children's saliva, scientists can determine when children are experiencing stress Another important group of physiological measures includes those used to study brain activity. Techniques developed during the past 25 years allow modern scientists to record many facets of brain functioning in real time-as children are performing specific tasks.

Question 31

EVALUATING MEASURES

Answer 31

After researchers choose a method of measurement, they must show that it is both reliable and valid. A measure is reliable if the results are consistent over time. A measure is valid if it really measures what researchers think it measures. - Validity is often established by showing that the measure is closely related to another measure known to be valid.

Question 32

REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLING

Answer 32

Researchers are usually interested in broad groups of children called populations. Virtually all studies include only a sample of children, a subset of the population. Researchers must take care that their sample really represents the population of interest.

Question 33

General Designs for Research

Answer 33

Child-development researchers usually use one of two designs: correlational or experimental studies.

Question 34

CORRELATIONAL STUDIES

Answer 34

In a correlational study, investigators look at relations between variables as they exist naturally in the world. The results of a correlational study are usually expressed as a correlation co- efficient, abbreviated r, which stands for the direction and strength of a relation between two variables. Correlations can range from -1.0 to +1.0: * When r equals 0, two variables are completely unrelated * When r is greater than 0, scores are related positively * When r is less than 0, scores are related, but inversely In interpreting a correlation coefficient, you need to consider both the sign and the size of the correlation. The sign indicates the direction of the relation between variables. A positive correlation means that larger values on one variable are associated with larger values on the second variable; a negative correlation means that larger values on one variable are associated with smaller values on a second variable. The strength of a relation is measured by how much the correlation differs from 0, either positively or negatively. - If the correlation between intelligence and number of friends were .75, the relation between these variables would be very strong - If, instead, the correlation were .25, the link between intelligence and number of friends would be relatively weak - Similarly, a correlation of -.75 would indicate a strong negative relation between intelligence and number of friends, but a correlation of -.25 would indicate a weak negative relation.

Question 35

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES

Answer 35

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES. In an experiment an investigator systematically varies the factors thought to cause a particular behavior. The factor that is varied is called the independent variable; the behavior that is measured is called the dependent variable. In an experiment, the investigator randomly assigns children to different groups or conditions that are treated exactly alike except for the single factor that varies across groups (i.e., the independent variable). Then, the dependent variable is measured in all groups. Any differences between the groups can then be attributed to the differential treatment the children received in the experiment In a field experiment, the researcher manipulates independent variables in a natural setting so that the results are more likely to be representative of behavior in real-world settings. - Field experiments allow investigators to draw strong conclusions about cause and effect because they embed manipulation of an independent variable in a natural setting. However, field experiments are often impractical because of logistical problems.

Question 36

Designs for Studying Age-Related Change

Answer 36

the longitudinal approach, the cross-sectional approach, and the longitudinal-sequential approach. Each of the three designs for studying development (longitudinal, cross-sectional, longitudinal-sequential) can be combined with the two general research designs (observational, experimental), resulting in six prototypic designs.

Question 37

LONGITUDINAL DESIGN

Answer 37

In a longitudinal design, the same individuals are observed or tested repeatedly at different points in their lives. As the name implies, the longitudinal approach takes a lengthwise view of development and is the most direct way to watch growth occur. Usually the repeated testing of longitudinal studies extends over years, but not always. In a microgenetic study, a special type of longitudinal design, children are tested repeatedly over a span of days or weeks, typically with the aim of observing change directly as it occurs. The longitudinal approach, however, has disadvantages that frequently offset its strengths. An obvious one is cost: The expense of keeping up with a large sample of people can be staggering. Other problems are not so obvious: * Practice effects: When children are given the same test many times, they may become "test-wise." Improvement over time that is attributed to development may actually stem from practice with a particular test. Changing the test from one session to the next solves the practice problem but makes it difficult to compare responses to different tests. * Selective attrition: Another problem is the constancy of the sample over the course of research. Some children may drop out because they move away. Others may simply lose interest and choose not to continue. * Cohort effects: When children in a longitudinal study are observed over a period of several years, the developmental change may be specific to a specific generation of people known as a cohort. Because of these and other problems with the longitudinal method, child- development researchers often use cross-sectional studies instead.

Question 38

CROSS-SECTIONAL DESIGN

Answer 38

developmental changes are identified by testing children of different ages at one point in their development. But cohort effects are still a problem: The results may apply to children who are 6, 9, and 12 years old at the time of testing (in the example in the figure, 2009) and not generalize to previous or future generations. And cross-sectional studies have a unique shortcoming: Because children are tested at only one point in their development, we learn nothing about the continuity of development.

Question 39

LONGITUDINAL-SEQUENTIAL STUDIES

Answer 39

A longitudinal-sequential study includes sequences of samples, each studied longitudinally. For example, researchers might start with 6- and 9-year-olds. As shown in Figure 1-6 on page 32, each group is tested twice-at the beginning of the study and again 3 years later. As in a pure longitudinal study, the longitudinal-sequential design provides some information about continuity of development Another advantage of the longitudinal-sequential study is that researchers can determine whether their study is plagued by practice effects or cohort effects: The key is to compare the results for the age common to both sequences - Practice and cohort effects tend to make scores different for the two groups, so if scores are the same, a researcher can be confident that practice and cohort effects are not a problem in the study.

Question 40

INTEGRATING FINDINGS FROM DIFFERENT STUDIES

Answer 40

The advantage of this approach, of course, is that conclusions are most convincing when the results are the same regardless of method In reality, though, findings are often inconsistent. Meta-analysis is a tool that allows researchers to synthesize the results of many studies to estimate relations between variables - In conducting a meta-analysis, investigators find all studies published on a topic over a substantial period of time (e.g., 10 to 20 years), then record and analyze the results and important methodological variables. Thus, meta-analysis is a particularly powerful tool because it allows scientists to determine whether a finding generalizes across many studies that used different methods. In addition, meta-analysis can reveal the impact of those different methods on results.

Question 41

Ethical Responsibilities

Answer 41

Minimize risks to research participants Describe the research to potential participants so they can determine whether they wish to participate: Prospective research participants should understand the research so they can make an educated decision about participating, which is known as obtaining informed consent. Avoid deception; if participants must be deceived, provide a thorough explanation of the true nature of the research as soon as possible Keep results anonymous or confidential

Question 42

Communicating Research Results

Answer 42

researchers write a report of their work. This report uses a standard format that usually includes four main sections: an introduction that describes the topic or question that was studied and the authors' hypotheses; a method section that describes the research design and the procedures used; a results section that presents the study's findings, verified with statistical analyses; and a discussion section in which the authors explain the links between their results and their hypotheses. Researchers submit the report to one of several scientific journals that specialize in child-development research. Some of these are Child Development, Developmental Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. The editor of the journal asks other scientists to evaluate the report, to decide whether the work was well done and the findings represent a substantial advance in scientific understanding of a topic. If the scientists recommend that the report be published, it will appear in the journal, where other child-development researchers can learn of the results.

Question 43

Developmental Science

Answer 43

an interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on the changes that children undergo from conception onward. Five periods: The Prenatal Period (conception to birth) Infancy (birth - age 2) Early Childhood (ages 2 - 6) Middle Childhood (ages 6 - 12) Adolescence (ages 12 - 18) Developmental psychologists divide the time between conception and adulthood into the five periods listed above. A lifespan development course would also cover the period from young adulthood through old age, but we will be focusing strictly on childhood development in this course.

Question 44

Domains of Development

Answer 44

Social Emotional Cognitive (intellectual) Physical For each of the five periods listed on the previous slide, we will be focusing on changes that occur within four aspects of a child’s development: social, emotional, cognitive, and physical. In most chapters, for purposes of organization, I have paired the social and emotional domains together, and the physical and cognitive domains together. 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. The first goal is essentially the crux of the so-called “nature-nurture” debate. As we will see, either explanation alone is insufficient to explain how children develop. The question that developmental psychologists wish to understand is the extent to which biological factors (“nature”) and environmental factors (“nurture”) contribute to a child’s acquisition of different traits, skills, and abilities. The second goal has a more practical or applied focus. What implications does the research conducted by developmental psychologists have for people who regularly interact with or make decisions for children, such as parents / relatives, teachers, and government policy makers? I will expand on this on the next slide.

Question 45

Who Benefits from Developmental Psychology?

Answer 45

1. Parents 2. Teachers & Educators 3. Social Policy Makers Being a good parent isn’t easy. As the father of two young daughters, I frequently find myself thinking “Am I [and my wife] doing this right?” [Perhaps even more so in recent months with the girls at home all the time during the pandemic!] Am I being supportive enough? Am I too lenient when they’re misbehaving? Are they spending too much time watching TV? Last summer, my younger daughter was struggling to learn to ride her bike; should I keep encouraging her or just wait until she’s ready to try again? Although there isn’t a singular “right” way to be a good parent, we will see later in the course that there is a certain style of parenting (known as authoritative parenting) that tends to lead to healthier development for children compared to other forms. Developmental psychology has many useful insights for teachers as well. What are the most effective ways of teaching children to read and write? What forms of discipline work best? Should children who do poorly in school be held back, made to repeat a grade, or should they be promoted to the next grade so they can stay with their same-aged friends? Social policy makers also benefit from research involving children. An issue of concern to legal practitioners is that of obtaining accurate eyewitness testimonies from children. Every year, thousands of children in Canada testify in legal cases about crimes they’ve either experienced or witnessed, many of them quite young (under 10). The stakes are very high. If, for example, a jury was to believe a child who falsely testify they were abused, an innocent person could spend years in jail. If, on the other hand, a jury doesn’t believe a child who was telling the truth about being abused, the perpetrator will go free, and likely abuse other children. Research has found that the younger children are, the more likely they are susceptible to be biased by an interviewer’s leading questions. However, when not asked leading questions, even three- to five-year-olds tend to give fairly accurate testimony.

Question 46

Childhood in Premodern Times

Answer 46

children had few rights viewed as family possessions whom parents could exploit as saw fit Medieval law: children culpable for criminal offences Nobody said that growing up is easy, but compared to our distant ancestors, most modern humans have had a much more sheltered, compassionate, and carefree childhood. In centuries past, children have been subjected to religious sacrifices, grueling child labour, and even full-fledged soldier combat. In ancient Rome, parents were legally entitled to kill children who were deformed or illegitimate. In medieval times, children were seen as miniature adults, and were subject to the same laws as their parents and other elders. In most modern societies, the law recognizes that children have yet to develop the same social and cognitive abilities as adults, and thus require different considerations when being tried in court.

Question 47

Early Philosophical Perspectives:

Answer 47

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 In the 1500s/1600s, the Puritan belief in original sin gave rise to the view that children were born evil and stubborn and had to be civilized, a view espoused by prominent English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes believed that parents must actively control their children, and try to channel their selfish interests into socially acceptable outlets. This view is consistent with traditional strict, authoritarian child-rearing practices used by parents and teachers; it wasn’t uncommon in times past for disobedient students to be beaten by their schoolmasters, something most of us would find appalling in the 21st century! Another well-known philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, took an approach that was at odds with Hobbes’ view. Rousseau believed that instead of being naturally selfish, children were born with an inherent sense of right and wrong. Rather than trying to constrain their children with strict rules, Rousseau argued that parents should give their children the freedom to follow their positive inclinations when interacting with others. A line from an old Pink Floyd song ”Hey teachers, leave the kids alone!” encapsulates Rousseau’s perspective.

Question 48

Issue: Nature vs. nurture

Answer 48

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 For eons, philosophers and laypeople alike have been intrigued by the “nature-nurture” debate. Are children driven by inborn motives and instincts, or rather, are they more the products of their environments? In contrast to Hobbes and Rousseau, English philosopher John Locke didn’t believe that children were inherently bad or good. Locke, instead, took the perspective that children were a tabula rasa (a Latin term which translates to “blank slate”). Locke believed that nurture was the key to a child’s healthy development. Parents could mould their children into decent human beings through careful instruction, setting a good example, and rewards for good behaviour (this is a forerunner to the behaviourism perspective adopted by many psychologists in the early 20th century).

Question 49

Charles Darwin

Answer 49

Charles Darwin: understood development of human species by studying child development Baby biography Problem: often based on single case; highly subjective Fast forward to the late 1800s, and the work of English biologist Charles Darwin, most famous for his theory of evolution. From his study of animals, Darwin discovered that prenatal growth was strikingly similar in many different species. Other scientists tried to chart parallels between child growth and evolution of the human species; it turned out that these processes aren’t the same, but along the way, researchers made thousands of observations about the development of children, in what came to be known as baby biographies – detailed accounts of children’s behaviour. Darwin did this himself, publishing an article titled “A Biographical Sketch of an Infant,” based on his systematic observations of his son, William. Although not as in-depth as some baby biographers, I have kept a record chronicling my daughters’ behaviours since birth (the picture above is me with baby Sophie). In their infancy, I would keep track of motor actions (e.g., sitting upright, crawling), reactions to different types of people and foods, and new words learned. Though by no means a scientific record, it is fun to share some of the earlier milestones with our daughters, and it comes in handy when my wife and I are trying to remember when a particular event occurred!

Question 50

G. Stanley Hall

Answer 50

G. Stanley Hall – a founder of dev. psychology identified norms, the average ages at which milestones happen Identified adolescence as unique phase G. Stanley Hall was one of most influential psychologists of the early 20th century, and is widely recognized as one of the founders of developmental psychology as a scientific field of study. Hall popularized the normative approach, according to which measures of behaviour are taken on large numbers of individuals and age-related averages are computed to represent typical development. For example, the average 6-month-old should be able to roll over by him- or herself, and make repeated sounds like “ba ba ba ba.” When assessing a 6-month-old, a pediatrician will ask a parent about these and other behaviours to make sure the child is developing normally. Hall was also one of the first researchers to view adolescence as a unique phase between childhood and adulthood.

Question 51

Recurring Themes of Development Science

Answer 51

1. Sources of Development 2. Plasticity 3. Continuity/Discontinuity 4. Active vs. Passive 5. Individual Differences

Question 52

1. Sources of Development

Answer 52

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. As previously alluded to, of great interest to developmental psychologists is examining how nature and nurture interact to produce development. Is it the case that children acquire language because they are genetically predisposed to do so, or because parents and other caregivers teach them intensively from an early age? We will come to see that this isn’t an either/or question; i.e., that both nature and nurture are vitally important. Some psychologists ascribe greater relative importance to biological factors that influence development, while others place more of an emphasis on environmental factors.

Question 53

2. Plasticity

Answer 53

To what degree, and under what conditions, is development open to change and intervention? The concept of plasticity has relevance to the nature/nurture debate. For instance, if some trait or behaviour is predominantly driven by genes, then is it of any value to provide interventions in aims of modifying a child’s behaviour? Critical Periods: A period during which specific biological or environmental events are required for normal development to occur. E.g., Imprinting Critical periods have mostly been studied in non-human animals. Imprinting ensures that young ducklings stay close to their mother, so they can be fed and protected from danger. Zoologist Konrad Lorenz discovered that if a mother duck or goose is absent, imprinting can still occur with another mother-like figure who is present, even a human being who fulfills this role! In the absence of a parent (or surrogate), however, ducks won’t learn the behavioural patterns necessary to survive.

Question 54

3. Continuity/Discontinuity

Answer 54

Continuous Development: - Involves gradual accumulation of small changes -- Quantitative Changes Discontinuity: - Involves a series of abrupt, radical transformations -- Qualitative Changes Some theorists believe that development is a smooth, continuous process – in other words, children gradually add more of the same types of skills. Others believe that development takes place in discontinuous stages, highlighted by a rapid transition from one stage to the next. These different perspectives are illustrated on the next slide.

Question 55

4. Active vs. Passive

Answer 55

To what extent do children’s actions shape their own development? How responsible are parents for their children’s actions? There are several instances of lawsuits in which adult children experiencing hardships have tried to sue their parents for having done a poor job of raising them. In other cases, defense lawyers looking for lenient sentences for their clients often cite a “bad childhood” as a contributing factor to their client’s criminal behaviour. This raises the question, just how much influence do our parents (or other caregivers) have on us as children? If you believe that parents should be held responsible for their children’s actions, then you’re taking the view that children have a passive role in their own development. If, however, you believe that any child who tries to sue his or her parents for lousy parenting is just trying to make excuses for their own bad decisions, then you would see children as having a more active role in their development. This debate also comes into play when trying to determine the effects of exposure to violence in the media on people’s aggressive behaviours. Is it the case that watching disturbingly violent slasher movies causes a person to behave more aggressively, or is it the other way around – is someone who is highly aggressive to begin with more likely to consume violent media?

Question 56

5. Individual Differences

Answer 56

What combination of nature and nurture makes individuals different from one another? Siblings often have very different personalities! Different children, even ones with the same parents, often react very differently to the same experience. My older daughter, in new situations, like learning to ride a bike or playing a new sport, tends to be cautious and hesitant. Not so for my younger daughter, who throws caution to the wind and goes full steam ahead! Examples of highly dissimilar siblings abound in popular culture. For example, in the Harry Potter stories, the Weasley twins (Fred and George) are highly mischievous, fun to be around, and have a penchant for playing practical jokes on others. Whereas their older brother Percy is very serious, a stickler for the rules, and a bit of a square (and thus generally disapproving of his brothers’ antics!) As a real life example, the late Queen Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret had very different personalities, many of which are highlighted in the Netflix show The Crown. Elizabeth was duty-bound, calm, and responsible, while Margaret was more rebellious, a person who pushed the boundaries, as she didn’t like the constraints placed on her by her royal status.   Reasons for these individual differences include genetic differences (even identical twins have some genetic differences due to mutations occurring after the time of conception), differences in treatment by others (including parents), and different choices of environments.