An Introduction to Developmental psychology by A. Slater and G. Bremner (third edition) - Chapter 2
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Increasing age, by itself, contributes nothing to development. The maturation and changes resulting from experience that intervene between different ages and stages of childhood are important. Maturation aspects are aspects of development that are largely under genetic control and hence largely uninfluenced by environmental factors.
Folk theories of development are ideas held about development that is not based upon scientific investigation There are two main folk theories:
A paradigm is a world view or a world hypothesis. There are two main paradigms in many developmental theories:
There are three main ways of studying age-related changes:
Design | Definition | Strong aspects | Weak aspects |
Cross-sectional designs | Children of different ages are observed at a single point in time. | It is not expensive and not that time-consuming. | It only describes age differences and there is no estimate of continuity. |
Longitudinal designs | Children are observed multiple times in their development. | It is possible to assess within-person and between-person differences in age changes. An estimate of continuity is possible. | Very expensive, very time-consuming and drop-out rate can be high which can lead to a bias and practice effects may occur. |
Microgenetic method | A method of examining change as it occurs. Children are being tested repeatedly over a short period of time. | Detailed information about an individual over a period of transition. | Practice effects may occur because of the repeated trials over a short period of time. |
Sequential designs | These studies are a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional designs that examines the development of individuals from different age cohorts. People are tested multiple times over a long period of time, giving a sequential design. | It combines the strong aspects of both the cross-sectional design and the longitudinal design. This design reveals whether cross-sectional and longitudinal results agree. | It is very time-consuming and very expensive. |
The results of the cross-sectional design and the longitudinal design can differ because of two effects:
There are several research methods used in order to investigate development. Observational studies are studies in which the behaviour is observed and recorded, but the research does not attempt to influence the behaviour in any way. Case studies are an example of observational studies, as one individual is measured multiple times over time. Baby biographies are diaries detailing an infant’s development. The strengths of baby biographies are that it can lead to the production of theories of child development and that the biographer can give a detailed account of subtle changes in behaviour because of their intimate knowledge of the child.
Time sampling is an observational method that records an individual’s behaviour at frequent intervals of time. Two criticisms of time sampling are that the observer might not get an accurate record of the amount of time spent in different behaviours and that some behaviours might be missed. Event sampling is an alternative method that avoids these problems. One or multiple events are selected and this event is recorded throughout its time period.
The clinical method is a research method whereby natural behaviour is observed and then the individual’s environment is changed in order to understand the behaviour of interest better. Infants grasp pictures of objects because the objects can be too enticing for them. Structured observation is an observational study in which the independent variable is systematically controlled and varied and the investigator then observes the child’s behaviour. The degree is less than in an experimental setting.
Psychological tests are instruments for the quantitative assessment of some psychological attribute or attributes of a person. These tests are usually standardised on large samples of children of the appropriate age groups. The type of test items included in a particular test will depend both on the age group and what is being measured. Personality traits are difficult to measure and are not always good predictors in infancy for adulthood, although aggression, shyness and boldness tend to stay the time.
There are two useful types of correlational studies for developmental psychology:
There are several methods for neurodevelopmental studies. The marker tasks are a method designed to elicit a behaviour with a known neural basis. It is used to find analogous brain areas between animals and humans. There are several imaging methods for brain activity in humans:
The catharsis hypothesis is the argument that watching aggressive tendencies in others will reduce your own feelings of aggression, but this argument is false. There are many examples of folk theories being proven wrong with systematic observations or experiments. Developmental research has also implications in social policies, as is shown by the Head Start programme in the USA and the Sure Start programme in the UK.
Developmental functions are typical trends in development (e.g: we get more intelligent as we age). Developmental functions are presented in graphs and they can be used to detect unusual patterns of behaviour. There are different types of graphs:
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This bundle contains a summary for the course "Developmental Psychology" taught at the University of Amsterdam. This contains the book: "An Introduction to Developmental psychology by A. Slater and G. Bremner (third edition)" and several articles.
The following
...This bundle makes use of the book: "An Introduction to Developmental psychology by A. Slater and G. Bremner (third edition)" and several articles.
The following chapters of the book are used:
- 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 , 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21.
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