Chapter 1
Developmental psychology can be defned as the discipline that atempts to describe and explain the changes
that occur over tme in the thought, behaviour, reasoning and functoning of a person due to biological,
individual and environmental infuences.
Many developments we fnd as childhood progresses aren’t a result of age; increasing age doesn’t contribute
anything to development. Maturation does. This refers to those aspects of development that are primarily
under genetc control (such as puberty), and which are relatvely uninfuenced by the environment (Changes
that occur during puberty are primarily genetcally determined).
Folk theories of development are ideas held about development that are not based upon scientfc research.
Richard Lerner (development psychologist) – defnes a world view, also called a paradigm/model, as a
philosophical system of ideas that serves to organize a set or family or scientfc theories and associated
scientfc methods. They are beliefs we adopt, which are ofen not open to empirical test.
Lerner and others note that many developmental theories appear to fall under one of two basic world views:
- Organismic world view
- Mechanistic world view
Organismic world view: a person is represented as a biological organism that is inherently actve and
contnually interactng with the environment, and therefore helping to shape its own development.
Interacton between maturaton and experience.
Best example of this view Piaget suggested that cognitve development occurs in stages and that the
reasoning of the child at one stage is qualitatvely diferent from that at the earlier and later stages.
Job determines when diferent psychological stages operate and what the diferences between stages are.
Mechanistic world view: a person can be represented as being like a machine, which is inherently passive untl
stmulated by the environment. The frequency of behaviors can increase with age due to various learning
processes and they can decrease with age when they no longer have any functonal consequence, or lead to
negatve consequences.
Job study environmental factors which determine the way organisms respond to stimulationo and which
result in increaseso decreaseso and changes in behavior.
Designs for studying age-related changes
Cross-sectional designs: a study where children of diferent ages are observed at a single point in tme.
Longitudinal design: a study where more than one observaton of the same group of children is made at
diferent points in their development.
-Cohort: a group of people who were raised in the same environment/share certain demographic ----
characteristcs.
Microgenetic methods: examine change as it occurso and involve individual children being tested repeatedly,
typically over a short period of tme, so that the density of observatons is high compared with the typical
longitudinal study.
When cross-sectonal and longitudinal give dramatcally diferent results:
- Length of time between measures: the tme between tests can be very diferent in diferent designs.
Physical growth in infants for example, only takes place 5-10% during infancy. This is because there are
bursts of growth. This means that even though there might be a contnuous line going upwards
(measure every month), while 90% of the line actually goes horizontal (measure every day).
- Cohort efects: these are efects where there are changes across generatons in the characteristcs one
is interested in: height, attudes, actvites, everyday life, and intelligence.
Sequential designs: these studies involve a combinaton of designs, high cost and tme involved. Examines the
development of individuals from diferent age cohorts.
-Flynn efect: an increase in the average intelligence over generatons.
,Research methods:
Observational studies: behaviour is observed and recorded. Researcher doesn’t infuence behavior in any way.
Experimental studies: control an individual’s environment in systematc ways, testng variables.
Psychological tests: instruments for the quanttatve assessment of some psychological atribute(s) of a person.
Correlational studies: examine whether two variables vary systematcally in relaton to each other.
Two interrelated critcisms of time sampling:
1. The researcher may not get an accurate record of the amount of tme spent in diferent behaviors,
since they may not be happening at the tme a sample is taken.
2. Many behaviors of interest may simply not occur, or might be missed, during the period that recording
is taking place.
In event sampling the researcher actvely selects the type of event that he wants to observe.
Jean Piget – Clinical method – used this method on his own 3 children
Natural behavior is observed and then the individual’s environment is changed in order to understand beter
the behavior of interest. It’s a combinaton of observaton and loosely structured experimentaton.
Experimental methods
- Independent variable; can be systematcally controlled and varied by experimenter.
- Dependent variable; the behavior that is measured or observed in a study.
A correlation coefcient is a statstc between i1 and -1 which indicates the extent to which 2 variables tend to
be related or to vary together. 2 types of correlaton studies:
1. Concurrent: where we are interested in the relatonship between variables that are measures at the
same tme.
2. Predictive: where we are interested in fnding whether individuals retain their relatve standing, or
rank order, relatve to others, over tme. or example: does the bright kid at 5 years old turn out to be
the gifed student at 20.
Sofenon Incident:
50’s – 60’s medicaton against pregnancy sickness
- Children were born with several malformatons in limbs
- Plus fertlity problems second generaton
A marker task refers to a method designed to elicit a behavior with a known neural basis. Ofen the neural
basis is discovered through experiments with animals. A specifc area of the visual system known as the medial
temporal area in the monkey has an analogue in the human, and development of this area and its connectons
with other parts of the visual system is responsible for the onset of smooth pursuit in humans.
Imaging methods – methods of recording brain actvity.
There are two kinds of imaging used commonly with infants and children:
- Those that record brain actvity from the scalp
- Those that record actvity inside the head
EEG: a scalp recording done with electrical actvity produces by neurons.
ERP: scalp recordings in which brain actvity is monitored during the presentaton of specifc perceptual events.
Two imaging methods are beter suited to measuring cortcal sources:
Positron emission tomography (PET): works by measuring blood fow to tssues in the brain, blood fow is
localized to regions of high actvity.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): method measuring cortcal actvity, which works by measuring
blood fow, and involved no invasive procedures.
,Ecological validity = the results obtained from a study are ecologically valid if they are meaningful in the real
world.
Catharsis hypothesis = the argument that watching aggressive tendencies in others will reduce your own
feelings of aggression.
Social policy
Head Start and Sure Start: a federally supported program in the USA with fve components:
1. Preschool enrichment educaton
2. Health screening and referral services
3. Nutriton educaton and hot meals
4. Social services
5. Parent educaton and involvement
Developmental functions - are the ways in which humans typically grow and change with age.
Contnuous functon (a) – increasing ability: behavior that improves with age, for example reach for objects.
Contnuous functon (b) – decreasing ability: behavior that gets worse when we age, for example that infants
can distnguish non-natve speech sounds very early, this ability disappears later.
Discontnuous (step) functon: where development takes place in a series of stages, where each new stage
spears to be qualitatvely diferent from preceding stages.
Theory of mind: the understanding that diferent people may have diferent emotons, feelings etc.
Moral judgement stages:
Piaget described two stages in the development of moral reasoning:
- Heteronomous
- Autonomous
Kohlberg described fve stages:
- Punishment and obedience orientaton
- Instrumental morality
- Interpersonal normatve morality
- Social system morality
- Human right and social welfare morality
Two other types of development functons are inverted and upright U-shaped functionss
Behavior where ability is initally very good, then decreases, and then increases again follows a U-shaped
functon of development.
An inverted U-shaped function follows the opposite trend, initally poor, then getng beter and then
becoming poor again.
, Chapter 2
A theory of development is a scheme or system or ideas that is based on evidence and atempts to explain,
describe and predict behavior and development.
- A descripton
- An explanaton
- Evidence
- alsifable
- Predictve
- Makes assumptons
- Is a reducton of reality
- Generalizable
- Testable
Scientsts gather data and create order in the data, for example; Big bang, relatvity, evoluton.
A theory will be replaced when:
- it is falsifable on the basis of observatons
- a new theory explains the observatons beter
Minor theories theory about a single phenomenon learning to see in depth
Major theories broad theory development of cogniton
A good developmental theory:
- Relates to ontogenesis
- ocuses on change over tme
- Explains the emergence of new propertes
- If preferably pedagogically useful
Motor development:
Milestones motor development sequence is the same for everybody; diferences in tming
Maturational theory of Gesell 1924 – one of the frst to investigate human motor development
- Cephalocaudal trend = development proceeds from head to foot
- Proximodistal trend = from centre of the body to the outside
- Diferences in child’s temperament plays important role in pace of the development
- Role of parents is to provide the right environment.
o Criticism:
Not all children follow the same patern
Does not necessarily generalize to other cultures
Environment can play guiding role (research McGraw)
- Mcgraw 1945 – environment can shape motor development
o Twin study with Jimmy and Johnny Woods: Johnny received extra training in swimming,
skatng and climbing; his development was accelerated.
Dynamic Systems Theory (DST)
Development is a complex interacton between propertes of the system and environment. According to the
dynamic system theory all new motor development of is the result of a dynamic and contnual interacton of
three major factors:
1. Nervous system development
2. The capabilities and biomechanics of the body
