Chapter 1 Developmental Psychology PDF

MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY (INTRODUCTION TO DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ) A. Identify the term Development in the human aspect B. Determine the characters of Development C. Explore the different research...

MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY (INTRODUCTION TO DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ) A. Identify the term Development in the human aspect B. Determine the characters of Development C. Explore the different research designs use in Developmental Psychology Development refers to systematic continuities and changes in the individual that occur between conception (when the father’s sperm penetrates the mother’s ovum, creating a new organism) and death. By describing changes as “systematic” we imply that they are orderly, patterned, and relatively enduring, so that temporary mood swings and other transitory changes in our appearances, thoughts, and behaviors are therefore excluded. We are also interested in “continuities” in development, or ways in which we remain the same or continue to reflect our past. If development represents the continuities and changes an individual experiences from “womb to tomb,” the developmental sciences refer to the study of these phenomena and are a multidisciplinary enterprise. Although developmental psychology is the largest of these disciplines, many biologists, sociologists, anthropologists, educators, physicians, and even historians share an interest in developmental continuity and change and have contributed in important ways to our understanding of both human and animal development. Because the science of development is multidisciplinary, we use the term developmentalist to refer to any scholar—regardless of discipline—who seeks to understand the developmental process. Some Basic Observations about the Character of Development Now that we have defined development and talked very briefly about the goals that developmentalists pursue, let’s consider some of the conclusions they have drawn about the character of development. A Continual and Cumulative Process. Although no one can specify precisely what adulthood holds in store from even the most meticulous examination of a person’s childhood 1  MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY developmentalists have learned that the first 12 years are extremely important years that sets the stage for adolescence and adulthood. Who we are as adolescents and adults also depends on the experiences we have later in life. Obviously, you are not the same person you were at age 10 or at age 15. You have probably grown somewhat, acquired new academic skills, and developed very different interests and aspirations from those you had as a fifth-grader or a high-school sophomore. And the path of such developmental change stretches ever onward, through middle age and beyond, culminating in the final change that occurs when we die. In sum, human development is best described as a continual and cumulative process. The one constant is change, and the changes that occur at each major phase of life can have important implications for the future. Table 1 presents a chronological overview of the life span as developmentalists see it. Our focus in this text is on development during the first five periods of life—prenatal development, infancy and toddlerhood, preschool, middle childhood, and adolescence. By examining how children develop from the moment they are conceived until they reach young adulthood, we will learn about ourselves and the determinants of our behavior. Our survey will also provide some insight as to why no two individuals are ever exactly alike. Our survey won’t provide answers to every important question you may have about developing children and adolescents. The study of human development is still a relatively young discipline with many unresolved issues. But as we proceed, it should become quite clear that developmentalists have provided an enormous amount of very practical information about young people that can help us to become better educators, child/adolescent practitioners, and parents. A Holistic Process. It was once fashionable to divide developmentalists into three camps: (1) those who studied physical growth and development, including bodily changes and the sequencing of motor skills; (2) those who studied cognitive aspects of development, including perception, language, learning, and thinking; and (3) those who concentrated on psychosocial aspects of 2  MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY development, including emotions, personality, and the growth of interpersonal relationships. Today we know that this classification is misleading, for researchers who work in any of these areas have found that changes in one aspect of development have important implications for other aspects. Let’s consider an example. If you were to say that social skills are important, you would be right. Social skills such as warmth, friendliness, and willing- ness to cooperate are characteristics that popular children typically display. Yet there is much more to popularity than meets the eye. We now have some indication that the age at which a child reaches puberty, an important milestone in physical development, has an effect on social life. For example, boys who reach puberty early enjoy better relations with their peers than do boys who reach puberty later (Livson & Peskin, 1980). Children who do well in school also tend to be more popular with their peers than children who perform somewhat less well in school. We see, then, that popularity depends not only on the growth of social skills but also on various aspects of both cognitive and physical development. As this example illustrates, development is not piecemeal but holistic—humans are physical, cognitive, and social beings, and each of these components of self depends, in part, on changes taking place in other areas of development. Many researchers now incorporate this holistic theme into their theories and research. For example, in reviewing the literature on sex differences in science and mathematics, Halpern and her colleagues adopted a biopsychosocial approach in which they considered all aspects of the child in understanding sex differences and similarities (Halpern, Benbow, Geary, Cur, Hyde, & Gernsbacher, 2007). This holistic perspective is one of the dominant themes of human development today, around which this book is organized. Plasticity refers to a capacity for change in response to positive or negative life experiences. Although we have described development as a continual and cumulative process and noted that past events often have implications for the future, developmentalists know that the course of development can change abruptly if important aspects of one’s life change. For example, somber babies living in barren, understaffed orphanages often become quite cheerful and affectionate when placed in socially stimulating adoptive homes (Rutter, 1981). Highly aggressive children who are intensely disliked by peers often improve their social status after learning and practicing the social skills that popular children display (Mize & Ladd, 1990; Shure, 1989). It is indeed fortunate that human development is so 3  MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY plastic, for children who have horrible starts can often be helped to overcome their deficiencies. Research Strategies: Basic Methods and Designs Research Methods in Child andAdolescent Development Our focus in this section is on the methods researchers use to gather information about developing children and adolescents. Our first task is to understand why developmentalists consider it essential to collect all these facts. We will then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different fact-finding strategies: self-report methodologies, systematic observation, case studies, ethnography, and psychophysiological methods. Finally, we will consider the ways developmentalists might design their research to detect and explain age-related changes in children’s feelings, thoughts, abilities, and behaviors The Scientific Method Modern developmental psychology is appropriately labeled a scientific enterprise because those who study development have adopted the scientific method, which guides their attempts at understanding. There is nothing mysterious about the scientific method. It refers to the use of objective and replicable methods to gather data for the purpose of testing a theory or hypothesis. By objective we mean that everyone who examines the data will come to the same conclusions, that is, it is not a subjective opinion. By replicable we mean that every time the method is used, it results in the same data and conclusions. Thus, the scientific method dictates that, above all, investigators must be objective and must allow their data to decide the merits of their thinking. Based on this theory, a researcher might hypothesize that if par- ents grant girls and boys the same freedoms, the two sexes will be similarly independent, whereas if parents allow boys to do many things that girls are prohibited from doing, boys will be more independent than girls. Suppose, though, that the study designed to test this hypothesis indicates that boys are more independent than girls, no mat- ter how their parents treat them. Then the hypothesis would be 4  MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY disconfirmed by the research data, and the researcher would want to rethink this theory of sex-linked differences. If other hypotheses based on this theory were also inconsistent with the facts, the theory would have to be significantly revised or abandoned entirely in favor of a better theory. This, then, is the heart of the scientific method—a persistent effort to put ideas to the test, to retain ideas that care- fully gathered facts support, and to abandon those that carefully gathered facts contradict. Theories generate hypotheses that are tested through observations of behavior, and new observations indicate which theories are worth keeping. Now let’s look at the more specific ways in which re- searchers study development—at the types of data they collect, the techniques they use to describe how change occurs with age, and the methods they use to explain development. Gathering Data: Basic Fact-Finding Strategies No matter what aspect of development we hope to study—be it the perceptual capabilities of newborn infants, the growth of friendships among grade-school children, or the reasons some adolescents begin to use drugs—we must find ways to measure what interests us. Today researchers are fortunate in having many tried-and-true procedures they might use to measure behavior and test their hypotheses about human development. But regardless of the technique one employs, scientifically useful measures must always display two important qualities: reliability and validity. A measure is reliable if it yields consistent information over time and across observers. Suppose you go into a classroom and record the number of times each child behaves aggressively toward others, but your research assistant, using the same scheme to ob- serve the same children, does not agree with your measurements. Or, you measure each child’s aggressiveness one week but come up with very different aggressiveness scores while applying the same measure to the same children a week later. Clearly, your observational measure of aggression is unreliable because it yields highly inconsistent information. To be reliable, and thus useful for scientific purposes, your measure would have to produce comparable estimates of children’s aggression from independent observers (interrater reliability), and yield similar scores for individual children from one testing to another shortly thereafter (temporal stability). A measure is valid if it measures what it is supposed to measure. An instrument must be reliable before it can possibly be valid. Yet reliability, by itself, does not guarantee validity (Creasey, 2006). For example, a highly reliable observational scheme intended as a measure of children’s aggression may provide grossly overinflated estimates of 5  MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY aggressive behavior if the investigator simply classifies all acts of physical force as examples of aggression. What the researcher has failed to recognize is that much high- intensity behavior may simply represent enjoyable forms of rough-and-tumble play without harmful or aggressive intent. Researchers must demonstrate they are measuring the attribute they say they are measuring before we can have much faith in the data they collect or the conclusions they reach. Common Research Methods 1. Interviews and Questionnaires. Researchers who opt for interview or questionnaire techniques will ask the child, or the child’s parents, a series of questions pertaining to such aspects of development as the child’s behavior, feelings, beliefs, or characteristic methods of thinking. Collecting data via a questionnaire (and most psychological tests) simply involves putting questions on paper and asking participants to respond to them in writing, whereas interviews require participants to respond orally to the investigator’s queries. If the procedure is a structured interview or structured questionnaire, all who participate in the study are asked the same questions in the same order. The purpose of this standardized or structured format is to treat each person alike so the responses of different participants can be compared. 2. The Clinical Method. The clinical method is very similar to the interview technique. The investigator is usually interested in testing a hypothesis by presenting the research participant with a task or stimulus of some sort and then inviting a response. After the participant responds, the investigator typically asks a second question or introduces a new task to clarify the participant’s original answer. Although participants are often asked the same questions initially, each participant’s answer determines what he or she is asked next. Thus, the clinical method is a flexible approach that considers each participant to be unique. 3. Observational Methodologies. Often researchers prefer to observe people’s behavior directly rather than asking them questions about it. One method that many developmen- talists favor is naturalistic observation—observing people in their common, everyday (that is, natural) surroundings (Pellegrini, 1996). To observe children, this usually means going into homes, schools, or public parks and playgrounds and carefully recording what they do. Rarely will investigators try to record every event that occurs; they are usually testing a specific hypothesis about one type of behavior, such as cooperation or aggression, and will focus their attention and data collection exclusively on acts of this kind. One strength of naturalistic observation is the ease 6  MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY with which it can be applied to infants and toddlers, who often cannot be studied through methods that demand verbal skills. A second strength of naturalistic observation is that it illustrates how people actually behave in everyday life (Willems & Alexander, 1982). Another is structured observational study wherein each participant is exposed to a setting that might cue the behavior in question and is then surreptitiously observed (via a hidden camera or through a one-way mirror) to see if he or she performs the behavior. For example, Leon Kuczynski (1983) got children to promise to help him with a boring task and then left them alone to work in a room where attractive toys were present. This procedure enabled Kuczynski to determine whether children would break a promise to work when they thought there was no one present to observe their transgression. Kuczynski found that some of the children did break the promise to work (so that they could play with the toys), whereas others continued with the work even when they thought no one was watching. 4. Case Studies. Any or all of the methods we have discussed—structured interviews, questionnaires, clinical methods, and behavioral observations—can be used to compile a detailed portrait of a single individual’s development through the case study method. In preparing an individualized record, or “case,” the investigator typically seeks many kinds of information about the participant, such as his or her family background, socioeconomic status, health records, academic or work history, and performance on psychological tests. Much of the information included in any case history comes from interviews with and observations of the individual, although the questions asked and observations made are typically not standardized and may vary considerably from case to case. 5. Ethnography. A form of participant observation often used in the field of anthropology—is becoming increasingly popular among researchers who hope to understand ethnography method in which the researcher seeks to understand the unique values, traditions, and social processes of a culture or subculture by living with its members and making extensive observations and notes. the effects of culture on developing children and adolescents. To collect their data, ethnographers often live within the cultural or subcultural community they are studying for periods of months, or even years. The data they collect is typically diverse and extensive, consisting largely of naturalistic observations, notes made from conversations with members of the culture, and interpretations of these events. These data are eventually used to compile a detailed portrait of the cultural community and draw conclusions about how the community’s unique values and traditions influence aspects of the 7  MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY development of its children and adolescents 6. Psychophysiological Methods. In recent years, developmentalists have turned to psychophysiological methods—techniques that measure the relationship between physiological responses and behavior—to explore the biological underpinnings of children’s perceptual, cognitive, and emotional responses. Psychophysiological methods are particularly useful for interpreting the mental and emotional experiences of infants and toddlers who are unable to report such events (Bornstein, 1992). Detecting Relationships: Correlational, Experimental, and Cross-Cultural Designs Once researchers have decided what they want to study, they must then devise a research plan, or design, that permits them to identify relationships among events and behaviors and to specify the causes of these relationships. Here we consider the three general re- search designs that investigators might employ: correlational, experimental, and cross- cultural designs The Correlational Design In a correlational design, the investigator gathers information to determine whether two or more variables of interest are meaningfully related. If the researcher is testing a specific hypothesis (rather than conducting preliminary descriptive or exploratory research), he or she will be checking to see whether these variables are related as the hypothesis specifies they should be. No attempts are made to structure or to manipulate the participants’ environment in any way. Instead, correlational researchers take people as they find them—already “manipulated” by natural life experiences—and try to determine whether variations in people’s life experiences are associated with differences in their behaviors or patterns of development. The Experimental Design In contrast to correlational studies, experimental designs permit a precise assessment of the cause-and-effect relationship that may exist between two variables. Let’s return to the issue of whether viewing violent television programming causes children to become more aggressively inclined. In conducting a laboratory experiment to test this (or any) hypothesis, we would bring participants to the lab, expose them to different 8  MODULE: (OLPROPSY3) – DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY treatments, and record their responses to these treatments as data. The Field Experiment How can we be more certain that a conclusion drawn from a laboratory experiment also applies in the real world? One way is to seek converging evidence for that conclusion by conducting a similar experiment in a natural setting— that is, a field experiment. This approach combines all the advantages of naturalistic observation with the more rigorous control that experimentation allows. In addition, participants are typically not apprehensive about participating in a “strange” experiment because all the activities they undertake are everyday activities. They may not even be aware that they are participating in an experiment. The Natural (or Quasi-) Experiment There are many is- sues to which an experimental design either cannot be applied or should not be used for ethical reasons. Suppose, for example, that we wish to study the effects of social deprivation in infancy on children’s intellectual development. Clearly we can- not ask one group of parents to subject their infants to social deprivation for 2 years so that we can collect the data we need. However, we might be able to accomplish our research objectives through a natural (or quasi-) experiment in which we observe the consequences of a natural event that participants have experienced. If we were able to locate a group of children who had been raised in impoverished institutions with very limited contact with caregivers over the first 2 years, we could compare their intellectual development with that of children raised at home with their families. This comparison would provide valuable information about the likely effect of early social deprivation on children’s intellectual development. The “independent variable” in a natural experiment is the “event” that participants experience (in our example, the social deprivation experienced by institutionalized infants). The “dependent variable” is whatever outcome measure one chooses to study (in our example, intellectual development). https://www.studocu.com/ph/document/cap-college-foundation/. 9