1. What is development?
Domains of development
Questions about Development: Normative Development and Individual Differences
Goals of developmental psychology
Themes/Issues in developmental psychology

2. What is development?
Development refers to systematic changes in the individual that occur over time from conception to death

3. Domains of Development
Physical Development
Changes in the body and brain
Cognitive Development
Changes in thought, intelligence, and language
Socioemotional Development
Changes in relationships, emotions, and personality

4. Questions About Development Normative development
Involves typical or average patterns of change

5. Individual differences
Involves differences between individuals of approximately the same age

6. Goals of Developmental Psychology
Describe behavior and how it changes across development
Explain development
Identify the underlying processes or causes of change
Apply knowledge to help children develop in positive directions

7. Themes/Issues in Developmental Psychology
How do genetic/biological and environmental factors work together to shape development?

8. Is development continuous or discontinuous?

9. Continuous (Quantitative)
Gradual, small, steady increases in skills/abilities

10. Discontinuous (Qualitative)
Relatively fast changes that involve a major re-organization of skills/abilities (new stage of development)

12. How important is early experience in affecting later development?

13. Research Methods in Developmental Psychology
Hypotheses
Data Collection Techniques
Systematic Observation
Naturalistic Observation
Structured Observation
Self-report Measures
Clinical Interviews
Structured Interviews and Questionnaires
General Research Designs
Correlational
Experimental
Designs for Studying Development
Longitudinal Designs
Cross-sectional Designs

14. Research Methods in Developmental Psychology
Hypothesis: A specific prediction that can be tested

15. Data Collection Techniques Systematic Observation (2 Types)
Naturalistic Observation
Observe child’s behavior in a natural environment
Exs: playground, school, home

16. Structured Observation:
Design a situation that will elicit relevant behavior(s)
Typically conducted in a laboratory setting
Observe different children in the same situation

17. General Disadvantages (Observation):

18. Self-report Measures Clinical Interviews
More “open-ended” questions—response choices are not limited
Ex: “Tell me about that”
Participants may be asked different questions (depending on their answers)

19. Structured interviews and questionnaires
More “close-ended” questions—response choices are limited
Ex: yes/no questions, rating scales, multiple choice questions
All participants are asked the same questions

20. General Disadvantage (self-report or report by others):

21. General Research Designs
Correlational Designs
Examine the relationship between two (or more) variables
Variable: Characteristic or experience that varies across individuals
Exs: age, gender, IQ, personality traits

22. Correlation Coefficient
Indicates how strongly two measures (variables) are related
Can range from to +1.00

23. Size of the coefficient
Zero correlation

24. Sign of the coefficient
 Positive
Negative

26. For example, one study found that a measure of maternal language stimulation at 13 months was positively correlated with the size of children’s vocabularies at 20 months (i.e., the more mothers spoke to their infants, the more advanced their children were in spoken language during the second year of life).
In another study, a researcher reported that the extent to which mothers ignored their 10-month-olds’ bids for attention was negatively correlated with children’s willingness to comply with parental demands 1 year later (the more mothers ignored their babies, the less cooperative their children were during the second year of life).
MAJOR LIMITATION??

27. Major limitation
Why not?

28. Experimental Designs
Independent Variable
Dependent Variable

29. Groups in an experiment should be equivalent except for their exposure to the independent variable
But individuals are different in a lot of ways
So how can the researcher be sure the groups are the same at the start of the experiment?

30. Random Assignment: Participants have an equal chance of being assigned to each group/condition in an experiment
Advantage: Participants’ pre-existing characteristics should be equally distributed across groups/conditions
Ex: Should be same number of highly aggressive kids in each group/condition—so the groups are the same when the experiment starts
Can infer that the independent variable causes changes in the dependent variable

31. Designs for Studying Development
Purpose: Can examine developmental (age-related) change

32. Longitudinal Design

33. Advantages
Can examine stability and change in individual children’s characteristics or behavior over time

34. Disadvantages Non-random participant loss Practice effects
Participants who finish the study differ in systematic ways from participants who drop out
Final sample is not representative of the group (population) researcher wanted to study—findings may not generalize to the whole group
Practice effects
Change due to familiarity with data collection procedures rather than change due to development

35. Time-consuming and expensive

36. Cross-Sectional Design

37. Advantages
More efficient than a longitudinal design (faster, less expensive)
No participant loss
No practice effects

38. Disadvantages
Cannot examine stability and change in individual children’s characteristics or behavior over time