Developmental Area Flashcards
What are the key assumptions of the developmental area ?
Behaviour is caused by progression through stages of development which are largely innate.
What are the similarities of the developmental area ?
Developmental psychology grew out of social psychology (environmental influences on our behvaiour) and has also moved towards cognitive psychology (processes in the mind) as they focus on how developing factors impact behaviour. Therefore they share the same methods such as lab experiments.
What are the differences of developmental psychology ?
Only developmental psychology looks at changes in behaviour and thinking overtime therefore it can be different to social and cognitive psychology as they do not focus on the change over lifetime that occurs.
What is timing and plasticity ?
There may be certain times when certain behaviours have to develop and disruption causes long term issues.
Plasticity refers to how much a behvaiour can change and adapt or how rigid it will be once developed.
What are the applications of the developmental area ?
Bandura’s study shows that children shouldn’t be exposed to media aggression, Sesame street was developed as a result of this.
Chaney’s funhaler study shows that children’s asthma attacks can be reduced by learning how to use the funhaler.
What are the strengths of the developmental area ?
Recognising that behaviour changes over time adds to our understanding of the interaction brtweeen nature and nurture.
ChIld participants are less affected by demand characteristics as they’re not aware they’re being studied, e.g. Chaney’s funhaler.
What are the weaknesses of the developmental area ?
There are ethical concerns with using children as they cannot give informed consent and there are picture’s of bandura’s participants on the internet.
Longitudinal research can be affected by attrition (dropouts) and smaller unrepresentitive samples, e.g. Kohlberg’s study.
Which side of the…
nature/nurture
situational/individual
determinism/freewill
reductionism/holism
debate does the developmental area relate to ?
Nature and nurture
Situational
Determinism and freewill
Reductionism
How does the developmental area prove that there are nature and nurture causes of behaviour ?
Nature: The developmental area assumes that there is an innate process of the stages of development, however the developmental area also proves that there are external factors that can influence these stages of development. For example in Bandura’s study on child aggression, it is shown that if children are exposed to aggression during their developmental stages this can cause them perform aggressive actions, altering their personality.
How does the developmental area prove that there are situational causes of behaviour ?
The developmental area concludes that children’s environment can impact their stages of development, for example in Chaney’s study on the fun haler, it is shown that positive reinforcement causes the child to become more compliant to a previously boring and stressful process.
How does the developmental area provide evidence for the determinism and freewill ?
Stages of development are inevitably happening, they are determined.
However the children are able to freely make their own choices, for example in Bandura’s study on aggression, the children have a choice to act aggressively or not even if developmental stages are innate.
How is the developmental area reductionist ?
The area concludes that there specific stages of development that every child has to endure. There are no alternate explanations and no exceptions to any child.
What are the paired studies in the developmental area and their main focus ?
Bandura at al and Chaney et al - external influences on children’s behaviour
Lee et al and Kohlberg - moral development
