This document is a detailed compilation of lecture notes from a Childhood and Adolescence class at UBC. It encompasses various topics related to developmental stages from infancy through adolescence, highlighting critical aspects such as cognitive development and emotional regulation. The notes exp...
PSYC315 – Childhood and Adolescence Lecture Notes
Week 1 - Development for Psychology & Methods of Cognitive Development
Reliability
- Reliability: the degree to which independent measurements of a given behaviour are consistent
Interrater reliability: amount of agreement in the observations of different raters
Test-retest reliability: attained when measures of performance are similar on two or more
occasions
Validity
- Validity: the degree to which a test or experiment measures what it is intended to measure
- Two types of validity:
1. Internal validity: degree to which effects observed within experiments can be attributed to the
variables that the researcher intentionally manipulated
2. External validity: degree to which results can be generalized beyond the particulars of the
research
Gathering Data
- Interviews
Structured interview: procedure where all participants answer the same questions
Clinical interview: procedure in which questions are adjusted in accord with answers participants
provide
Advantages:
o Reveals children’s subjective experience
o Inexpensive/easy means of data collection
o Can be geared to specific individuals
Disadvantages:
o Reports are often biased in a positive direction
o Memory is often inaccurate or incomplete
o Ability to predict own actions are often inaccurate
o Subject to experimenter bias
- Naturalistic observation used when the priory goal is to describe how children behave in their usual
environments
Advantages
o Useful for studying social interactions and other types of behaviour not studied in a lab
e.g., how a child’s behaviour changes after a new sibling is brought home, how a
child reacts when parents are fighting
Disadvantages
o Cannot control all variables, making it very hard to determine what variables are
influencing behaviour
o Observer might influence behaviour
o Behaviour in interest may occur rarely
o Subject to experimenter bias
- Structured observation researchers design specific tasks or situations that will elicit the behaviour
relevant to their hypothesis
Advantages
o Ensures all children experience the same thing allowing for direct comparison of
different children/groups
Disadvantages
o Reveals less info about subjective information than interviews
o Not the child’s natural environment
,Correlational & Causation
- Primary goal of correlational designs is to determine how variables are related to one another
- Correlation: association between two variables
Direction and strength of correlation is measured by a statistic called the correlation coefficient
- Direction of causation problem it is not possible to tell from a correlation what variable is the cause
and what is the effect
- Third variable problem correlation between two variables may arise from both being influenced by
some third variable
Experimental Designs
- Experimental control: the ability of the researcher to determine the specific experiences that children have
during the course of an experiment
Children in experimental group receive an experience of interest (IV)
Those in control group do not receive experience
DV: behaviour that is hypothesized to be affected by the IV
Design Features Advantages Disadvantages
Correlational Comparison of existing Only way to compare many Third variable problem
groups of children or groups of interest
examination of relations Only way to establish
among each child’s scores relations among many
on different variables variables of interest
Experimental Random assignment of Allows casual inferences, Artificial experimental
children to groups and designs rule out third variable situations, cannot be
experimental control of problem, naturalistic used to study many
procedures presented to experiment demonstrate different variables
each group connections in natural
settings
Designs
1. Cross-Sectional
Children of different ages studied at single time
Advantages
o Useful data about differences
o Quick and easy
Disadvantages
o Uninformative about stability of differences over time
o Uninformative about patterns of change
2. Longitudinal
Children are examined repeatedly over a prolonged period of time
Advantages
o Reveals information about stability of differences or patterns of change
o Avoids cohorts effects
Disadvantages
o Time-consuming, expensive
o Subject loss (attrition) may influence results
3. Microgenetic
Used to provide in-depth depictions of processes that produce change
Children thought to be on verge of developmental change are provided with heightened exposure
to experience believed to produce change while being studied intensely
,Week 2 - Theories of Cognitive Development Part I
Philosophical Roots
- Roots in philosophy 4th Century B.C. nature nurture debate
Plato: we are born with knowledge (nativism)
Aristotle: knowledge is learned through experience (empiricism)
- John Locke (1600s)
Tabula rasa blank slate
Emphasized nurture
Importance of strict parenting progressive freedom
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Greater emphasis on nature
Children are innately good
Children learn through spontaneous interactions with objects and people rather than instructions
Study of Child Development
- The field of Child Development as a scientific enterprise began during the 19th and early 20th century.
1. Social Reform Movements (child labor laws)
o In part was a response to the times social reform around industrialization and whether
children should be made to work in factory for many hours a day.
o Public wanted to understand if this could cause harm to the child.
2. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
o Darwin’s diary of his own child’s development ignited interest in scientifically
documenting how children develop
o People were captivated by his descriptions of how his child’s thinking changed over time.
- Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
Freud emphasized the importance of early emotional experiences
o Unconscious desires could influence development
One of the first to emphasize importance of early years and emotional bonds
- G. Stanley Hall (1844 – 1904)
1878 – Earned 1st Ph.D. in Psychology in America
1887 – Founded 1st Psychological Journal in America
1892 – Founded APA
1904 – Wrote Adolescence
- John Watson (1878 – 1958)
Founded behaviourism: the study of observable and quantifiable aspects of behaviour and
excluded subjective phenomena (e.g., emotions, thoughts, motives)
o Believed knowledge developed through experience (particularly conditioning)
o Emphasized nurture development is the result of conditioning – believed he could turn
any child into any kind of person by shaping that persons experiences
Heavily influenced by Pavlov’s work on conditioning
Development is controlled by environmental conditions – particular rewards and punishments
Behaviourism (Operant Conditioning)
- Behaviour that is rewarded will increase
- Behaviour not rewarded or punished will decrease
- View of development was a response to the times view that all things must be shaped by the
environment and we can control our own destiny
- Little Albert Study:
, John B. Watson in his experiment with Little Albert (11 month old baby) studied how emotions
can be learned
He presented a white rat (CS) and a loud noise (US) to Little Albert after several pairings and
trials, Albert showed fear (CR) to the white rat.
Later, Albert generalized the fear to other stimuli that was similar to the CS such as a beard,
white rabbit, fur, etc.
Theories of Development
- How does knowledge develop?
- What is the role of experience?
- Development is not just about change in knowledge (or the content of our thoughts) but also how the
underlying cognitive processes may change
Constraints on Development
- In accounting for knowledge development we need to consider both kinds of constraints/influences.
- Sociocultural constraints examples in developmental research:
Physical = home, school, urban vs. rural neighborhood etc.
Social = parents, siblings, teachers, friends, peers, etc.
Economic = national wealth, societal wealth, family wealth
Cultural = language, values, traditions, attitudes/beliefs, laws, political structure, technology, etc.
Historical = influences all these other factors, e.g. traditional practices, policies, economy,
technology etc
- Cognitive constraints
Development is not just about operant and classical conditioning as behaviourists thought
Substantial changes across development in how a child processes information (cognitive
maturation)
Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) & Theory of Cognitive Development
- Piaget is credited with founding the field of cognitive development emphasized the importance of
study how cognitive reasoning changes.
Piaget developed the first significant theory of development that tried to account for the changes
we observe from infancy through adulthood.
Broad theory to account for changes in children’s thinking
- Piaget is an empiricist (sometimes called constructivist) thought knowledge was learned through and
by experience.
Now, what constrained what children could learn from their experience was their particularly
stage of cognitive development
- Piaget viewed children as scientists interacting with their environment in order to learn from it
- Constructivism:
1) Children “construct” knowledge on the basis of their experiences with the world
2) Children proceed through stages of development
- Constructivist theory building 3 processes Piaget said infants have from birth to help guide learning:
Assimilation: children translate information into a form they can understand
Accommodation: children revise current knowledge structures in response to new experiences
Equilibration: children balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding
o Piaget says children somehow (without specifying how) flexibly adjust being using
assimilation and accommodation when experiencing new things.
Piaget Stages of Development
Stage Age Range Description
Sensorimotor 0-2 years old Coordination of senses with motor responses, sensory curiosity about
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