1. Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION TO DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS RESEARCH STRATEGIES

2. WHAT IS DEVELOPMENT?
Systematic continuities and changes between conception to death
Orderly, patterned and relatively enduring
Stability, continues to reflect the past
Developmentalist – anyone who studies the process of development (represent many disciplines)

3. WHAT CAUSES US TO DEVELOP?
Maturation: biological unfolding of an individual
Species-typical biological inheritance
Individual person’s biological inheritance
Learning: experiences producing relatively permanent changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

4. WHAT GOALS DO DEVELOPMENTALISTS PURSUE?
To Describe: based on observation
Normative development – typical patterns
Ideographic development – individual differences
To Explain: addresses the “why” of development
To Optimize: to help people develop in positive directions

5. SOME BASIC OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE CHARACTER OF DEVELOPMENT
A continual and cumulative process
Change at any phase of life impacts future
A holistic process: development is due to a combination of changes in
Physical growth
Cognitive aspects of development
Psychosocial aspects of development

6. Table 1.1 A Chronological Overview of Human Development

7. SOME BASIC OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE CHARACTER OF DEVELOPMENT
Plasticity: capacity for change in response to positive or negative life experiences
Historical/Cultural context
Historical events may influence development
Culture also influences development

8. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Child in Premodern Times
Active infanticide was practiced prior to 4th century A.D.
Were seen as possessions having no rights
Medieval times – although recognized as a distinct phase of life, little legal distinction was made

9. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Toward Modern-Day Views on Childhood
Schooling for moral and religious education
Reading and writing also important
Treat children with warmth and affection
Adolescence recognized in the 20th century
Child labor laws passed in late 19th century
Education now compulsory

10. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Early philosophical perspectives on childhood
Original sin (Hobbes): Children are selfish and must be restrained by society
Innate purity (Rousseau): Children know right and wrong, but society corrupts them
Tabula rasa (Locke): Children are a “blank slate” – experiences determine outcomes

11. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Children as subjects of study: The baby biographies
Late 19th century, investigators began to observe own children and publish the data
Difficult to compare to each other
Objectivity is questionable
Assumptions may have produced bias
Based on 1 child

12. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Origins of a Science of Development
G. Stanley Hall – founder of developmental psychology as a research discipline
First large-scale studies of children
Developed the questionnaire
Produced first work to call attention to adolescence as a unique phase of life
Sigmund Freud – psychoanalytic theory

13. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Origins of a Science of Development
Theory: set of concepts and propositions and describe and explain some aspect of behavior
Hypotheses – theoretical predictions which can be tested by collecting data

14. RESEARCH STRATEGIES: BASIC METHODS AND DESIGNS
Careful observation of subjects
Analysis of collected information
Use of data to draw conclusions about how people develop

15. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
The Scientific Method
Objective: merits of thinking are based on data
Gathering Data: Basic Fact-Finding Strategies – (measuring what interests us)
Reliability: consistent information over time and across observers
Validity: measures what it is supposed to

16. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Gathering Data
Self-report methodologies
Interviews/questionnaires
Structured: Same questions in the same order
Allows comparison of responses

17. Table 1.2 Items Comprising Measures of Attitudes Regarding Family Obligations

18. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Interviews/Questionnaires
Limitations:
Ability to read/comprehend speech
Issues of honesty and accuracy
Interpretation of questions
Strengths
Gathering large amounts of data
Confidentiality improves accuracy

19. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
The clinical method
Present a task or a stimulus, invite a response.
Follow with a tailored question or task clarifying the response
Flexible approach considering each participant to be unique

20. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
The clinical method
Strengths
Large amounts of data collected in relatively brief periods
Flexibility
Limitations
Comparison of responses
Subjective interpretation of data

21. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Gathering Data
Observational Methodologies
Naturalistic observation – observing in common (natural) settings
Strengths:
Very easy
Shows behavior in everyday life

22. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Naturalistic Observation
Limitations
Rare or socially undesirable behaviors may not occur
Difficult to isolate cause of action or developmental trend
Observer may change behavior (videotape/time may reduce this)

23. Figure 1.1 Social initiations and negative behaviors of abused and nonabused preschool children. Compared with their nonabused companions, abused youngsters initiate far fewer social interactions with peers and behave more negatively toward them.

24. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Structured observations
Conducted in the laboratory
Exposed to a setting
Observed surreptitiously
Strength – all participants exposed to same environment
Limitations – results may not represent real life

25. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Gathering Data
Case study: a detailed portrait of a single individual; can also describe groups
Strength – depth of information
Limitations
Difficult to compare subjects
Lack of generalizability (results may not apply to others)

26. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Gathering Data
Ethnography: collect data by living within the cultural community for an extended period
Strengths: understanding cultural conflicts and impacts on development
Limitations: subjective, may not be generalizable

27. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Gathering Data
Psychophysiological methods: examine relationship between physiological responses and behavior
Heart Rate – compared to baseline, decrease may indicate interest
EEG – brain wave activity, showing arousal states; stimulus detection

28. RESEARCH METHODS IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Psychophysiological methods
Limitations
What aspect of stimulus caught attention?
Change in physiology may be hunger, fatigue, or reaction to equipment, not the stimuli.

29. Table 1.3 Strengths and Limitations of Seven Common Research Methods

30. DETECTING RELATIONSHIPS: GENERAL RESEARCH DESIGNS
The Correlational Design
2 or more variables meaningfully related
Correlation coefficient (r)
Value, to -1.00, indicates strength
Sign indicates direction
Positive (+) both variables increase
Negative (-) one variable increases, other decreases

31. Figure 1.2 Plot of a hypothetical positive correlation between the amount of violence that children see on television and the number of aggressive responses they display. Each dot represents a specific child who views a particular level of televised violence (shown on the horizontal axis) and commits a particular number of aggressive acts (shown on the vertical axis). Although the correlation is less than perfect, we see that the more acts of violence a child watches on TV, the more inclined he or she is to behave aggressively toward peers.

32. DETECTING RELATIONSHIPS: GENERAL RESEARCH DESIGNS
The Correlational Design
Correlational studies do not show causation.
Causal direction of relationship is unknown
Relationship could be due to a third, unmeasured variable

33. DETECTING RELATIONSHIPS: GENERAL RESEARCH DESIGNS
The Experimental Design
Assesses cause-and-effect relationships between 2 variables
Independent Variable: modified or manipulated by experimenter to measure its impact on behavior
Dependent Variable: aspect of behavior measured in a study, under control of I.V.

34. DETECTING RELATIONSHIPS: GENERAL RESEARCH DESIGNS
The Experimental Design
Confounding variable: a factor other than the I.V. that could explain differences in the D.V.
Experimental Control
Control confounding variables
Random assignment – equal probability of exposure to each treatment

35. DETECTING RELATIONSHIPS: GENERAL RESEARCH DESIGNS
The Experimental Design
The Field Experiment: an experiment taking place in a naturalistic setting.
The Natural (or Quasi-) Experiment: measuring the impact of a naturally occurring event.
I.V. cannot be manipulated
Participants are not randomly assigned

36. Figure 1.3 Mean physical aggression scores in the evening for highly aggressive (HA) and less aggressive (LA) boys under baseline conditions and after watching violent or neutral movies. ADAPTED FROM LEVENS ET AL., 1975.

37. Table 1.4 Strengths and Limitations of General Research Designs

38. DETECTING RELATIONSHIPS: GENERAL RESEARCH DESIGNS
Cross-Cultural Designs
Participants from different cultures or subcultures are observed, tested, and compared on aspects of development.
Studies people of different nationalities, but also groups within the same nation
Guard against overgeneralization of research findings

39. BOX 1.1: FOCUS ON RESEARCH: GENDER ROLES ACROSS CULTURES
Are sex differences in behavior due to biological differences between the sexes?
Arapesh: males and females taught to be cooperative, nonaggressive, and sensitive
Mundugumor: men and women are aggressive and emotionally nonresponsive
Tchambuli: males are passive, dependent, and sensitive, females the opposite

40. RESEARCH DESIGNS FOR STUDYING DEVELOPMENT
The Cross-Sectional Design
People of different ages are studied at the same point in time
Cohort – group of the same age, exposed to similar environments and cultural events

41. Figure 1.4 Children’s ability to reproduce the behavior of a social model as a function of age and verbalization instructions. ADAPTED FROM COATES AND HARTUP, 1969.

42. RESEARCH DESIGNS FOR STUDYING DEVELOPMENT
The Cross-Sectional Design - limitations
Cohort effects – any differences observed may be due to cultural or historical factors that distinguish cohorts, not actual developmental change.
Data on individual development
Each person is measured once, so there is no data on individual development

43. RESEARCH DESIGNS FOR STUDYING DEVELOPMENT
The Longitudinal Design
Same participants are observed repeatedly over a period of time
Can assess stability of attributes
Can identify normative developmental trends
Can help understand individual differences in development

44. RESEARCH DESIGNS FOR STUDYING DEVELOPMENT
The Longitudinal Design
Limitations
Costly and time-consuming
Practice effects – improvement due to familiarity with test or interview
Selective attrition – participants remaining in the study may not be a nonrepresentative sample

45. RESEARCH DESIGNS FOR STUDYING DEVELOPMENT
The Longitudinal Design
Limitations
Cross-generational problem – due to changes in environment, conclusions may be limited to those who were growing up while the study was in progress

46. RESEARCH DESIGNS FOR STUDYING DEVELOPMENT
The Sequential Design
Selects participants of different cohorts and follows each cohort over time
Strengths
Analysis of cohort effects
Both cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons in same study
More efficient

47. Figure 1. 5 Example of a sequential design
Figure 1.5 Example of a sequential design. Two samples of children, one born in 1998, and one born in 2000 are observed longitudinally between the ages of 6 and 12. The design permits the investigator to assess cohort effects by comparing children of the same age who were born in different years. In the absence of cohort effects, the longitudinal and cross-sectional comparisons in this design also permit the researcher to make strong statements about the strength and the direction of any developmental changes.

48. RESEARCH DESIGNS FOR STUDYING DEVELOPMENT
The Microgenetic Design
Illuminate processes that promote developmental change
Repeatedly expose children ready for a developmental change to experiences thought to produce that change
Monitor behavior as it changes

49. RESEARCH DESIGNS FOR STUDYING DEVELOPMENT
The Microgenetic Design
Limitations
Time consuming to track large numbers of children in such a detailed manner
Repeated observations may affect the developmental outcomes being studied

50. Table 1.5 Strengths and Limitations of Four Developmental Designs

51. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN DEVELOPMENTAL RESEARCH
Research Ethics – standards of conduct to protect participants from harm
Informed consent – explanation of all aspects of research that may affect willingness to participate
Benefits to risks ratio – comparison of possible benefits to costs of research in terms of harm or inconvenience

52. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN DEVELOPMENTAL RESEARCH
Research Ethics
Confidentiality – concealment of identity with respect to data subjects provide
Protection from harm – research subjects have a right to protection from physical or psychological harm

53. Table 1.6 Major Rights of Children and Responsibilities of Investigators Involved in Psychological Research

54. BOX 1.2: APPLYING RESEARCH TO LIFE: BECOMING A CONSUMER OF RESEARCH
Need to know how to evaluate the new findings reported in the media
How were the data gathered?
How was the study designed?
Were the conclusions appropriate for the design?
Were participants randomly assigned?