Introduction To Methods In developmental psychology

Question 1

What is physical development

Answer 1

Body size and proportions
Physical health
Perceptual and motor development

Question 2

What is cognitive development

Answer 2

Intellectual abilities including attention and memory
Imagination and creativity
Language

Question 3

What is social and emotional development

Answer 3

Understanding self and others
Emotional understanding and regulation
Moral reasoning and behaviour
Intimate relationships

Question 4

What are the different periods of development

Answer 4

Pre-natal: conception to birth
Infancy and toddlerhood: birth to 2 years
Early childhood: 2-6 years old
Middle childhood: 7-11 years old
Adolescence: 11-18 years old

Question 5

What is normative development

Answer 5

Species normal development over time
Focus on similarities
Example: Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

Question 6

What is Individual differences

Answer 6

Differences observed between children at a given age/time/place
Example: temperament differences

Question 7

What is continuous development

Answer 7

Development is continuous
Development involves quantitative change
Example: Information processing theories

Question 8

What is discontinuous development

Answer 8

Development is discontinuous
Development involves qualitative changes
Example: Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Question 9

Common development Curve (Increase)

Answer 9

Height and weight and age
Age and vocabulary size

Question 10

Common development curve (Decrease)

Answer 10

Age and hours of sleep needed
Age and hearing (late life decline)
Learning a new language (Johnson and Newport, 1991)

Question 11

Development curves (stage like)

Answer 11

Qualitative or discontinuous
Cognitive development according to Piaget (1954)
Moral development according to Kohlberg 1981)

Question 12

What is Nature (side of the debate)

Answer 12

Biological instincts
Innate behaviour traits
Genetic influences

Question 13

What is the nurture (side of the debate)

Answer 13

Environment
Culture
Context
Family influences
Environmental influences

Question 14

Observational Research (naturalistic)

Answer 14

In the natural environment where behaviour happens
E.g. Farver and Branstetter (1994)
* youtube vid

Question 15

Observational Research (structured)

Answer 15

Laboratory situations set up evoke behaviour of interest
All participants have equal chance to display behaviour
E.g. Mischel, Ebbsen ad Zeiss (1972)
*youtube vid

Question 16

Collecting systematic observations (two types)

Answer 16

Event sampling: Observer records all instances of a specific behaviour during a given time period

Time sampling: Observer records whether certain behaviours occur during a sample of short time intervals

Question 17

Limitations of observational research (two types)

Answer 17

Observer Influence: Participants may react in unnatural ways, can minimise using camera or observer familiar to children.
Observer Bias: Observer record what they expect, rather than what really happens

Question 18

Interview limitations with parents and children

Answer 18

Children: may not understand due to level of language and understanding.
Children may be influenced by desire to please

Parents: may want to achieve and avoid diagnosis for their child.
Distortions in recall or judgment

Question 19

Whats a Clinical/Case study method

Answer 19

Gathers a wide range of information on one child.
Observations
Parent/caregiver interviews
Test scores
Psychophysiological measures

Question 20

Experiments outside the lab (two types)

Answer 20

Field Experiment: Natural setting i.e. observing children in the playground.
Natural Experiment: Quasi experiment
Compare differences
i.e. observing children playing at state vs private school

Question 21

Lab experiments - Infants

Answer 21

Methodologies: Novelty preference, Preferential looking paradigms, Habituation paradigms

Operant Conditioning: Eye movements, Psychophysiological measures (e.g. heart rate), Neuroimaging

Question 22

Preferential Looking - Frantz’s looking chamber (1961)

Answer 22

• infant can see two displays on the ceiling above their head
• researcher observes them through a peep whole to see if they fixate on a specific image
• Infant looks longer at a pattern than uniform visual display

Question 23

Modern Preferential looking

Answer 23

• when a baby has a tendency to view one particular image over another
• Visual and auditory stimuli

Question 24

Habituation Paradigms

Answer 24

• Babies are attracted to contrasts between light and shadow which look like human face (when they are 6 weeks)
• When ten weeks they start to look at images like the face and ignore the contrast

Question 25

What is operant conditioning (two types)

Answer 25

Reinforcer: increases probability occurring again i.e. presenting desirable stimulus and removing unpleasant stimulus Punishment: Reduces probability of behaviour occurring again i.e.presenting unpleasant and removing desirable.

Question 26

Carolyn Rovee-Collier (e.g. 1999)

Answer 26

- Babies' ankle attached to mobile by ribbon - Babies soon learn to kick vigorously - Memory of how to activate mobile context dependent in 3-6 months olds

Question 27

Psychophysiological methods

Answer 27

- Measures of autonomic nervous system activity - Heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, pupils, stress, hormones (sensitive to psychological state)

Question 28

EEG

Answer 28

young children, non invasive measures ongoing, spontaneous electrical activity

Question 29

ERP

Answer 29

Records brain electrical response to given stimuli Used with infants

Question 30

MRI

Answer 30

Imaging the morphology of brain structures Older children on children who are sedated

Question 31

What is a longitudinal research design

Answer 31

1 sample studied repeatedly at different ages Comparing same sample at different times

Question 32

Cross-sectional research designs

Answer 32

More than one sample (age group studied) Comparing different samples at the same time

Question 33

Limitations of longitudinal desings

Answer 33

- Biased sample - Some people more likely to withdraw than others - Practise Effects - Cohort effects i.e. covid

Question 34

Sequential research designs

Answer 34

Same groups of different aged people studied repeatedly as they can change ages Cross section and longitudinal informs us of age related trends

Question 35

Challenges for developmental science

Answer 35

- sample size - subtle differences between labs - High costs

Question 36

Many Babies project

Answer 36

Input predictors: A few hours of annotated video, or artificial data Scientific hypothesis about learning Outcomes: A handful of binary experimental results - This needs more data

Question 37

What are the ethics of research with children

Answer 37

- more vulnerable to harm - Issue of informed consent (they may not understand) - right to withdraw (they desire to please) BPS (2014), children under 16 parents should be fully informed of nature of study and be able to withdraw child.