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The Beginnings of Adolescence

• Adolescence is a period of time, while an adolescent is an individual, and adolescents are multiple individuals.
• Adolescence is roughly between the ages of 10-25 years old, but there is some disagreement on this.
• Some argue adolescence is from the start of puberty until completion of formal education, financial independence from parents, marriage, or parenthood.
• Neuroscience provides further evidence about the nature of adolescence
• Emerging adulthood is approximately 18-29 years of age.

Developmental Psychology

• Psychology is the science of attitudes, behaviors, and mental processes; it asks why people do the things they do.
• Developmental psychology studies the systematic continuities and changes of individuals over the life course.
• It explores how and why people remain the same or change over time physically, cognitively, and socially.
• The goals of developmental psychology are to help Earth's 8.1 billion people fulfill their potential.
• Development aims to describe how people live and change, explain the origins/causes of development, predict what an individual will be like in the future, and improve the well-being of others by using developmental knowledge to create interventions.

Scope of Science

• The Dynamic Systems Approach is an ongoing and ever-changing process
• It affects and is affected by many domains of development, including biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial development.

Central Ideas in the Science

• Development is cumulative and occurs throughout the life span, with several patterns of developmental growth.
• Developmental plasticity indicates that abilities, personalities, and various other characteristics change over time.
• Some changes may need to occur in a particular time period.

Critical vs Sensitive Periods

• A Critical Period is a time when a particular type of developmental growth must happen for normal development to occur, or when an abnormality can occur if a certain stimuli is present.
• A Sensitive Period is a time when a certain type of development is most likely to occur, like language

Nature vs Nurture

• Human development is a function of both nature and nurture, accounting for 50% of development.
• Development can be continuous (gradual/additive process) or discontinuous.

Continuous vs Discontinuous development

• Continuous development occurs in small steps without any abrupt changes.
• Discontinuous development involves abrupt, distinct stages in development. These changes cause the individual to be fundamentally different from who/what they were previously.
• Comparing adolescents who are or are not sexually mature is an example of discontinuous development

Universal vs Particularistic Development

• Some aspects of development are universal, while others are particularistic.
• Universal/normative development means everyone undergoes the same developmental process such as learning to walk, talk, or attachment.
• Particularistic development outcomes vary from person to person; for example, accent/dialects, and type of attachment

Adolescent context

• Development occurs within multiple systems, and each person is affected by many social contexts and interpersonal interactions.
• Challenges in the Science of Adolescent Development include studying all the things that impact adolescents during this period of development.
• Identifying both universals and particulars of development, accounting for genetic and environmental influences, and determining the impact of social influences.

Research Methods

• Scientific method is not what one studies, but how one studies it; using 7 steps to do so.

Psychology as a Science: The Scientific Method

• Research starts with a research idea.
• Research ideas become good research questions.
• Good research questions are explored through different theories.
• Testable hypotheses are created to answer good research questions based on the theories
• Data is systematically collected and analyzed
• Conclusions are evaluated and communicated
• Results are re-tested and extended to build theory and make contributions

Research Methods in Psychology: Descriptive Research

• Descriptive research attempts to describe a certain phenomenon using naturalistic observation, surveys or interviews, and case studies

Descriptive Research: Naturalistic Observations

• Involves observing subjects/participants in a natural setting.
• It is important to take good notes and may require multiple observers.

Surveys and Interviews

• Surveys and interviews involve a standard set of questions or items designed to assess someone's self-reported attitudes or beliefs.

Case Studies

• An in-depth investigation of a single individual is a Case Study
• This is performed when aspects of an individual's life cannot be replicated for ethical reasons.
• Generalizability can be an issues when performing case studies

Research methods in Psychology: Correlations

• Correlations tell us the relationship between variables, specifically how the variables change together.
• Positive correlations are positive
• Negative correlations are negative
• Zero correlation is a flat line, meaning unrelated variables

Correlations in Research

• Correlation does not equal causation
• There may be a third variable that explains the relationship between two variables.

Research Methods in Psychology: Experimental Research

• The goal of experimental research is to determine cause and effect.
• It involves the manipulation of one or more independent variables that are believed to influence a dependent variable.
• The IV (independent Variable) is what the experimenter is manipulating, and the DV (dependent Variable) is what the experimenter is measuring
• Example relationship might be violent media related to aggression

Experimental Research: Groups

• In experimental research, participants are randomly assigned to groups: experimental and control
• An experimental group is given the manipulation.
• A control group is treated equally but receives no manipulation.

Measurements

• Measurements are observed to find is there is an effect.
• A core part of measurement is whether there is now a difference between groups on aggression.

Quasi-Experimental Research

• Quasi-experimental research includes experiments in which random assignment cannot be used.

Research Designs

• Descriptive has findings usually create foundation for later research, cannot establish cause + effect.
• Correlations describe relationship among variables, and cannot make casual conclusion & the third Variable Problem.
• Experimental allows for causal conclusion

Developmental Designs and Studies

• Basic research designs are specific to developmental research, and include cross-sectional, longitudinal, and cross-sequential research
• Focus on effects of total social isolation on adolescent development

Popular Designs for studying development Cross-Sectional Designs

• Focus on studying people of different ages (cohorts) at the same time. (3 groups compared at one time)
• Pros: Easy to conduct, shows age dif. & Cons: Cohort effects differences may be due to cultural and /or historical dif and no info on developmental of an individual.

Popular Designs for studying development Longitudinal Design

• Focus on Observing people of a given cohort repeatedly over time
• Pros: Provides info on an individual development and show how early experience can have lasting effects
• Cons: very time consuming, Practice effects and get hard to participation to remain in the study (ie attrition)

Cross-Sequential Design

• Cross Sequential designs include observing from different cohorts (cross-sectional) repeatedly over time (longitudinal)
• Pros: Best of both Cross sectional and Longitudinal design & Cons: Still relatively time consuming, can be very expensive

Research Ethics

• Researchers must follow a code of ethics and a set of moral principles including:
• Informed Consent: Parental Consent AND adolescent assent
• Benefits-to-risk Ratio
• Confidentiality
• Protection from harm
• Participation can end at any time