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Developmental Psychology Notes
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Just notes I have taken for year 2 developmental psychology about the course in order to do my exam
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Issues in developmental psychologyTERRY TIPS:
“Review – history , development and psychology (within 5 – 10 years),” beyond 10 years not recommended
Developmental psychologists
Practice old questions, once a week/ every 2 weeks?
Module structure:
Introductions, definitions and overview
The research methods of developmental psychology
Influential grand developmental theories
Early knowledge – the object concept
Social development and attachment
Language development
Understanding of mind
Cognitive development 1 – conservation
Cognitive development 2 – transitivity
Educational skills – reading
Conclusions and summary
What is Human Development?
The field of human development is the scientific study of age-related changes in behaviour, thinking, emotion and personality.
Key Psychologists in Development Psychology:
BINET – experimental approach, developmental norms, special education needs, defining child intelligence and measuring it. Development
of everyone within their capacity (in terms of intellect), IQ TEST, studied quickness of mind.
WATSON – behaviourist, role of the environment, first theory of child learning and behaviour, LITTLEALBERT EXPERIMENT WITH BELL
GESELL – looked at norms, looked at groups rather than individuals, maturational perspective, infant perception is biologically wired, motor
abilities unfold in time-locked manner.
PIAGET – child and infant intelligence, failures tell us more than successes, first comprehensive theory of child development, gave
significant roles both to biology and environment, showed how learning is both passive and active, showed how nature and nurture
interact, introduced concepts and schemas.
VYGOTSKY – established role of cultural tools in development, first alternative to notion of stages of development, establishes importance
of language to intelligence, also development differs with culture.
Emerging developmental science:
Charles Darwin and his baby biographies.
Stanley Hall (1891) and the first questionnaire.
It took another 40 years before the term maturation entered the scientific lexicon, which suggested that development was
generically predetermined pattern of change.
Many of development milestones we use to define typical development were defined by Arnold Gesell.
Philosophy viewpoint – theories of moral development:
Original Sin - everyone is born selfish, etc
Innate goodness - Rousseau believed that all children have the ability to develop, it is only when the environment interferes
with their innate goodness. ( we are all good, it’s the surroundings that make us bad by interrupting)
Blank slate - we are only a sum of our experiences
GESELL – maturational-Developmental theory - Milestones: (2months – 5 years)
Predictable sequences
While an individual progresses through these stages at his or her own pace, the sequence remains the same
According to Gesell, growth can be thought of as a cyclical spiral
Gesell’s cycles of development are divided into six well-defined stages which are repeated throughout life
Social and emotional
Language and communication
Cognitive – learning, thinking and problem solving
Movement and physical
,Types of change:
Normative age-graded changes – fixed, firm, and true of all humans
Normative historical changes – variable by generation, eg older generation more nationalist generally or younger more socialist
Non normative change – unique, specific unshared events leading to changes at the individual level
Critical vs sensitive periods and the problem of age
Canalisation and niche-picking
Oversimplification of change:
Quantitative change (slow steady progress)
Qualitative change (bursts of change and periods of stability)
Childhood change vs adult change
Key factors of development:
CONCRETE
- genes (phenotypes, development, heritable factors)
- the family (direct, indirect, adaptation)
- affluence (socioeconomic status, affluence, poverty)
ABSTRACT
- neighbourhoods ( postcodes, towns, cities, country)
- cultural (collectivism vs individualism, subculture belief sets or beliefs not shared by the majority)
- policies (child, education, welfare, elderly, future planning)
Lecture 2 – research methods
Learning objectives:
How can we look at developmental changes scientifically? - Research strategy/ research setting. How can we compare across
ages (practically)?
Challenges in developmental research – how can we compare across ages (conceptually)? Techniques for infant research.
Levels of research methods:
1. Research perspective
2. Research strategy/design
3. Study type
4. Data assessment
5. Responses indicator
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, Research strategy – experimental research
Why don’t we always use experiments?
Logically impossible
Ethically impossible
Unrealistic!
Research strategy – correlation research:
Does an association/relationship between 2 factors exist?
Correlation CANNOT determine whether one factor causes changes in the other
But they do provide important information
What kind of words and techniques are associated with correlational studies?
Measuring developmental change:
Experimental vs correlational strategies are generic ways to observe and measure behaviour
But what about the development of behaviour? – need to compare the same group at different ages (longitudinal ) or
different groups at different ages (cross-sectional)
What are longitudinal studies:
Measure individuals at multiple time points
Provide information about change over time
Advantages Disadvantages
Can study development over extended time period Time and expense
Subjects are their own control Attrition – people leave experiments – if there is a systematic bias
Can study continuity between different groups who stays and who leaves, this can cause problems with conclusio
Some ability to infer cause and effect Age of testing and time of testing are confounded
What are cross-sectional studies?
Measure people of different ages at same point in time.
Provide information about differences between age groups.
Advantages Disadvantages
No confound between age and time of testing No ability to examine continuity of development process
Less expensive than longitudinal No ability to discuss causality
Short time span Same age people may be at different maturation levels
No test-wise participants Groups may show selective participants
Attrition/mortality is minimised
What are sequential studies?
Combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional
Contains both cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons
Considered the best developmental stage
Advantages Disadvantages
Faster than longitudinal to assess same age range Expensive and time-consuming
Contains built-in replication of cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons Can still encounter test-retest effects
Removes age-at-test and cohort confounds
What is naturalistic observation?
Going into the field, or natural environment and record the behaviour of interest
Advantages Disadvantages
Reflects participants’ everyday behaviours Cannot control conditions under which participants are observed;
accuracy of observation may be reduced by observer influence and observer bias
What is structured observation?
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, The researcher sets up a laboratory situation that evokes the behaviour of interest so that every participant has an equal
opportunity to display the response.
Advantages Disadvantages
Grants each participant an equal opportunity to display May not yield observations typical of participants’ behaviour in
the behaviour of interest; permits study of behaviour everyday life; accuracy of observation may be reduced by observer
rarely seen in everyday life influence and observer bias. Eg kids may be afraid of new settings
Specialist techniques – Preferential looking:
Infants have spontaneous looking preference
Present kid with 2 different stimuli (things) simultaneously (eg. Mars bar and ipad )
Measure how long they look at each stimulus
Bias towards one stimulus indicates some type of preference for that stimulus
Also suggests that infant can discriminate between the 2 stimulus
Preferential looking example:
KUHL and MELTZOFF – multimodal integration
4 ½ month old infants saw a screen with 2 women’s faces – one say (a) one saying (i)
They heard one of these sounds while looking at the screen
Infant showed preference (74% of the time) for the face that corresponds to the sound
Specialist techniques – habituation:
Infants are more likely to look at a novel stimulus
One stimulus is presented repeatedly and the infant decreases the amount of time looking at the stimulus (suggests they’re learning stimulus)
Once habituation has occurred, a new stimulus is presented
If the infant can distinguish between the stimuli, they will look longer at the new stimulus – dishabituation will occur
Habituation example:
BORNSTEIN ET AL – colour perception
How do we know we see the same colour?
Results of the experiment and others show the 4 month old infants categorise colours like adults do
Specialist technique – sucking rate/ rhythm:
Infants have a fairly regular rhythm of bursts/pauses when sucking on a teat
Changes in this rhythm can indicate dishabituation or be trained
Sucking rate/ rhythm example:
DECASPER and FIFER – maternal voice preference
2 day old infants heard their mother/s or a stranger’s voice
By sucking a nipple , the infant could cause the mother’s voice to be heard more frequently, which is what the experimenters found
Specialist technique – Reaching:
Looking at whether/where infant reaches for object
Could indicate preference as they reach for one over the other
Or knowledge of properties of the world(reaches for real object rather than fake; uses environment cues to guide reaching behaviour)
Reaching example:
GRANRUD ET AL – pictorial cues to size
5 and 7 month old infants were first familiarisd with a large and small wooden object for 10 mins
During the test period the same types of objects were shown at the same distance only the size was switched
7 month olds reached for the object but the 5 month didn’t
7 month were using familiar size to provide information about depth
Specialist techniques – object following:
Infants will watch stimuli they prefer discriminate more than other stimuli in the environment
Object following example:
MORTON and JOHNSON – face perception
Stimuli were presented to new-borns an hour after birth and were moved left to right
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