Developmental Lesson One - Intro -

Question 1

What did Ancient Greek Philosophers believe the long term welfare of society depended on?

Answer 1

The proper raising of children.

Question 2

What did Plato propose?

Answer 2

Nature - some children are born with innate knowledge

Question 3

What did Aristotle propose?

Answer 3

Nurture - all knowledge comes from experience

Question 4

Who reignited the discussion 2000 years later, proposing that children were blank slates and their development reflected nurture from parents and society?

Answer 4

John Locke proposed children were blank slates and their development reflected nurture from parents and society

Question 5

Who’s research on evolution inspired scientists to think studying children could provide insights into human nature?

Answer 5

Charles Darwin in 19th century

Question 6

Who published a paper in 1877 presenting what?

Answer 6

Charles Darwin, presenting careful and intensive observations of his son William’s motor, sensory and emotional development. Case study approach

Question 7

Who ran some of the first systematic studies on child development 1896-1980?

Answer 7

Jean Piaget ran some of the first systematic studies on child development to get an insight into their thinking. Studied groups of children. He is seen as the founding father of Developmental psychology.

Question 8

What do systematic studies involve?

Answer 8

a structured process to identify, select, and evaluate multiple studies that meet specific criteria: Formulating a research question, Identifying studies, Searching databases, Describing and appraising studies, and Synthesis and systematic maps

Question 9

What is the definition of Developmental Psychology?

Answer 9

The study of change and stability over the lifespan.
What skills remain stable and what changes over their lifespan
How we change physically, cognitively, behaviourally, and socially over time is due to biological, individual and environmental differences.

Question 10

What are the developmental periods in order?

Answer 10

PIPCAYML (PIP CAYML)
Prenatal, Infancy, Preschool, Childhood, Adolescence, Young Adulthood, Middle Adulthood, Late Adulthood.
Prenatal (Conception to birth)
Infancy (Birth -2 years)
Preschool (2-4 years)
Childhood (5-12 years)
Adolescence (12 -18 years)
Young Adulthood (18 - 40 years)
Middle Adulthood (40 - 65 years)
Late Adulthood (65 years and over)

Question 11

What are the developmental periods including age ranges?

Answer 11

Prenatal (Conception to birth)
Infancy (Birth -2 years)
Preschool (2-4 years)
Childhood (5-12 years)
Adolescence (12 -18 years)
Young Adulthood (18 - 40 years)
Middle Adulthood (40 - 65 years)
Late Adulthood (65 years and over)

Question 12

What are the types of development?

Answer 12

OMP
Ontogenetic Development , Microgenetic Development, Phylogenetic Development

Question 13

What is Ontogenetic development?

Answer 13

Development of an individual over their lifetime/span

Question 14

What is Microgenetic development?

Answer 14

Changes occurring over very brief periods of time. Timeframe includes days/weeks/months

Question 15

What is Phylogenetic development?

Answer 15

Changes over evolutionary time.
Timeframe includes thousands and millions of years.

Question 16

What are the levels of explanations in psychology?

Answer 16

The brain (neuroscience). Mental processes (cog psychology). Individual differences and environment (Social psychology). Macrostructure level.

Question 17

How do you examine development in different domains?

Answer 17

Physically, Cognitively, and Psychosocially.

Question 18

How do you examine development physically?

Answer 18

Body, brain, senses, motor skills such as crawling.

Question 19

How do you examine development cognitively?

Answer 19

Learning, memory, language, reasoning. Thinking.

Question 20

How do you examine development psychosocially?

Answer 20

Personally, emotions and social relationships. Temperament emotional relationships

Question 21

How do you study development or change?

Answer 21

Quantitively through quantitative changes - easily measurable and quantifiable aspects OF development.
Age, height.

Qualitatively through quantitative changes - changes in functions or processes. Harder to put into categories or make into a number.
Beliefs, conceptual changes in children’s understanding

Question 22

What is stability in development?

Answer 22

Stability - Not all development is change. Some processes remain stable and are more enduring characteristics (eg temperament).
Temperament remains stable throughout lifespan, however life circumstances might shift it but normally remains stable.

Question 23

What are the factors that affect development?

Answer 23

Nature and nurture.

Question 24

What is nature?

Answer 24

Nature involve genetics and biological maturation (eg growth, as its biologically determined, another example is foetus that grows in womb).

Question 25

What is nurture?

Answer 25

The environment including parents/ caregivers, family, friends, social-culture, nutrition, physical activity, and institutions such as government or school. stress is an example

Question 26

What is continuous development?

Answer 26

Continuity - to what extent is development a SERIES OF GRADUAL SMALL CONTINUOUS CHANGES? Definition - gradually adding more of the same skill or characteristic. Series of small / no continuous change. LIKE SIMS ADDING SKILLS SAME SKILL GRADUALLY . small continuous changes

Question 27

What is discontinuous development?

Answer 27

Discontinuity - to what extent development involves ABRUPT transformations or discontinuous stages? DEFINITION - A process in which new ways of thinking or responding emerge at specific times

Question 28

Are children passive or active recipients in sharing their own development and how others respond to them?

Answer 28

ACTIVE recipients in sharing their own development and how others respond to them.

Question 29

What are the scientific methods used in developmental psychology?

Answer 29

OHT Observation - when children start school , some are better at maths than other children Hypothesis - perhaps children who are better at maths did more maths activities with their caregivers at home? Test hypothesis - Select a group of children, test their maths ability. Ask their caregivers to fill in a questionnaire on maths activities they did or do at home Consider possible variables, operationalise the age group of children being tested. Are our measures reliable and valid? IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS - WEIRD samples Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic.

Question 30

What are developmental psychologists interested in understanding?

Answer 30

What processes/mechanisms drive change eg is it nature or nurture

Question 31

What is one way to look at change over a period of time?

Answer 31

Run studies w diff age groups and compare whether results change across age. Track one group of children over time as they age

Question 32

What are 3 methods for understanding change?

Answer 32

CLM Cross sectional studies, longitudinal studies, and microgenetic studies

Question 33

What is a cross sectional study?

Answer 33

Researchers get children of different ages studied at the same time

Question 34

What is a longitudinal study?

Answer 34

The same children are tested repeatedly at multiple time periods as they grow older.

Question 35

What is a microgenetic study?

Answer 35

An extreme version of a longitudinal study where changes are examined AS they occur. Involves individual children being tested repeatedly over A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.

Question 36

Strength and weakness of a cross sectional study?

Answer 36

Least time consuming (dont have to wait for child to grow older) But cant look at how individual children change as a performance is averaged over different individuals at each age

Question 37

Strength and weakness of longitudinal study?

Answer 37

Can look at both individual change and across children change But intensive to run, costly in time and money and dropout rates are high. Children may also show change just bc theyre getting practice on the tasks (practice effects)

Question 38

Strength and weakness of a microgenetic study?

Answer 38

Very precise descriptions are taken due to the high intensity of measurements But extremely intensive to run, so often only results in small samples of children. Practice effects too

Question 39

How may experimental designs be used by researchers to test the effect of variables on children's skills / abilities?

Answer 39

May use experimental design in controlled env to rigorously test whether one variable that the researcher manipulates (IV) influences another variable (the DV)

Question 40

What is an independent variable?

Answer 40

The variable the researcher manipulates or changes

Question 41

What is a dependent variable?

Answer 41

The variable that is measured and expected to be influenced by the independent variable.

Question 42

How can you gather data about children?

Answer 42

Through indirect and observational methods 1. Interviews / questionnaires w parents ab children. 2. Naturalistic observations in natural env or field where the behaviour occurs 3. Structured observation in a LAB situation set up to evoke the behaviour of interest

Question 43

What are cognitive measures?

Answer 43

Tasks designed to measure the process of interest such as IQ tests or memory measures. Accuracy and reaction time can be measured

Question 44

What are psychophysical measures?

Answer 44

Methods to uncover basic biological processes can sometimes help us to infer perception and cognition EG eye tracking, looking at eye movements and pupil dilations, heart rate and stress response. When surprised children's eyes dilate

Question 45

What are cognitive neuroscience techniques

Answer 45

fMRI - Functional magnetic resonance imaging - scanners have magnetic fields that can detect differences in oxygen within the brain Reveals then which parts of the brain were activated when ps were engaged in a task (specific)

Question 46

What are some challenges of working w children?

Answer 46

Limited language abilities, attention spans and motor skills. So hard to engage w them and design tasks that truly capture their capabilities

Question 47

What questions do you ask yourself when trying to choose what methods and measures to use?

Answer 47

What do u wanna understand? - behaviour, the role of experience or of the env, cognition , or the neural underpinnings of a process What context do you wish to understand it - in a controlled env w control over effects of other variables, or whether u wanna measure development that reflects how these processes play out in day to day life The age and abilities of the child