Chapter 1 – History, Theory and Research Strategies

The Field of Developmental Science

• The study of constancy and change throughout the lifespan
• The field of Developmental Science
  • Scientific
  • Applied
  • Interdisciplinary
• Theory – an orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains and predicts behavior
•  Basic issues in development
  • Continuous or discontinuous?
  • One course of development or many?
  • Relative influence of nature and nurture?
• Contexts of Development
  • Unique combinations
    of personal and environmental circumstances can result in different
    paths of change
• Basic Issues: Nature vs. Nurture
  • Nature: Hereditary information, Received from parents at conception
  • Nurture: Physical and social forces, influences biological and psychological development
• Stability and Plasticity
  • Stability – Persistence of individual differences; and lifelong patterns established by early experiences
  • Plasticity – Development is open to lifelong change; Change occurs based on influential experiences
• Development as a dynamic system
  • Ongoing process from conception to death
  • Molded by network of influences:
    • biological
    • psychological
    • social
• Lifespan Perspective
  • Development is:
    • lifelong
    • multidimensional and multidirectional
    • highly plastic
    • influenced by multiple, interacting forces
• Periods of Development
  • Prenatal – Conception to birth
  • Infancy and  – Toddlerhood – Birth to 2 years
  • Early Childhood – 2 to 6 years
  • Middle Childhood – 6 to 11 years
  • Adolescence – 11 to 18 years
  • Early Adulthood – 18 to 40 years
  • Middle Adulthood – 40 to 65 years
  • Late Adulthood – 65 years to death
• Major Domains of Development:
  • Physical development – Changes in body size, proportions, appearance, functioning of body systems, perceptual and motor capacities, and physical health
  • Cognitive Development – Changes in intellectual abilities, including attention, memory, academic and everyday knowledge, problem solving, imagination, creativity, and language
  • Emotional and Social Development – Changes in emotional communication, self-understanding, knowledge about other people, interpersonal skills, friendships, intimate relationships, and moral reasoning and behavior.
• Influences on Development
  • Multiple, interacting forces:
    • Age-graded
    • History-graded
    • Nonnormative
• Resilience
  • Ability to adapt effectively in the face of threats to development
  • Factors in Resilience
    • personal characteristics
    • warm parental relationship
    • social support outside family
    • community resources and opportunities

Lifespan View of Development

• Scientific beginnings:
  • Darwin – Theory of Evolution
  • Hall; Gesell – Normative Approach
  • Binet – Mental Testing Movement
• Early Scientific Theories
  • Theory of Evolution
    • Natural Selection
    • Survival of the Fittest
• Normative Approach
  • Child study movement
  • Development as a maturational process
• Mental testing movement
  • First successful intelligence test
  • In forefront of nature – nurture controversy

Psychoanalytic Perspective: Freud and Erikson

• Emphasis on individual’s unique life history
• Conflicts between biological drives and social expectations
• Freud’s 3 Parts of the Personality
  • Id
    • Largest portion of the mind
    • Source of biological needs/desires
  • Ego
    • Conscious, rational part of personality
    • Emerges in early infancy
    • Redirects id impulses in acceptable ways
  • Superego
    • The conscience
    • Develops from ages 3 to 6 through interactions with caregivers

Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

• Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital.

Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages

• Basic Trust vs. Mistrust – Birth to 1 year
• Autonomy vs. shame/doubt – 1 to 3 years
• Initiative vs. guilt – 3 to years
• Industry vs. inferiority – 6 to 11 years
• Identity vs. role confusion – Adolescence
• Intimacy vs. isolation – Early Adulthood
• Generativity vs. stagnation – Middle Adulthood
• Integrity vs. despair – Late Adulthood

Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory

• Classical Conditioning – Stimulus – response
• Operant Conditioning – Reinforcers and punishments
• Social learning theory – Social-cognitive approach
• Contributions
  • behavior modification
  • modeling, observational learning
• Limitations
  • narrow view of environmental influences
  • underestimates individual’s active role

Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory

• Children actively construct knowledge by manipulating and exploring their world.
• Mental structures adapt to better fit with environment.
• Development moves through four broad stages.
• Piaget’s Stages: Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational,  Formal Operational

Information Processing

• View of the human mind as a symbol-manipulating system
• Development as a continuous process
• Use of rigorous research methods
• Little insight into creativity or imagination

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

• Relationship of brain changes to cognitive processing and behavior patterns
• Brings together researchers from
  • psychology
  • biology
  • neuroscience
  • medicine
• Practical Applications

Ethology

• Adaptive value and evolutionary history of behavior
• Acquisition of adaptive behaviors:
  • Critical Period
  • Sensitive Period

Evolutionary Developmental Psychology

• Adaptive value of
  • cognitive
  • emotional
  • social
• Person–environment system throughout the lifespan

Vygotsky’s
Sociocultural Theory

• Transmission to the next generation of a culture’s
  • values
  • beliefs
  • customs
  • skills
• Cooperative dialogues between children and more expert members of the society

Ecological Systems Theory

• Layers of the environment:
  • Microsystem
  • Mesosystem
  • Exosystem
  • Macrosystem
• Chronosystem: temporal dimension

Common Research Methods

• Systematic observation:
  • Naturalistic observation
  • Structured observation
• Self-reports:
  • Clinical interview
  • Structured interview, questionnaires, tests
• Clinical, or case study, method
• Ethnography
• Systematic Observation
  • Naturalistic Observation
    • Observation of behavior in natural contexts
    • Reflects participants’ everyday lives
  • Structured Observation
    • Observation of behavior in laboratory
    • Gives all participants opportunity to display behavior

• Self-Reports
  • Clinical
    Interview
    • Conversational style
    • Probes for participant’s viewpoint
    • Provides large amount of information in brief period
  • Structured Interview
    • All participants are asked the same questions in the same way
    • Permits comparisons and efficient data collection
• Clinical/Case Study Method
  • Full picture of individual’s psychological functioning
  • Combines information from
    • interviews
    • observations
    • test scores
• Ethnography
  • Participant observation of culture or social group
  • Rich, descriptive insights
  • Does not permit generalization from findings
• General Research Designs
  • Correlational
    • Reveals relationships between participants’ characteristics and behavior
    • Does not permit cause-and-effect inferences
  • Experimental
    • Participants randomly assigned to treatment conditions
    • Detects cause-and-effect relationships
    • Findings may not apply in real-world conditions
• Experimental Design
  • Independent Variable
    • Manipulated by experimenter
    • Expected to cause changes in another variable
  • Dependent
    Variable
    • Measured, but not manipulated, by experimenter
    • Expected to be influenced by independent variable
• Random Assignment
  • Unbiased procedure used to assign participants to treatment conditions
  • Increases chances that characteristics will be equally distributed across conditions
• Modified Experiments
  • Field Experiment
    • Conducted in natural settings
    • Capitalizes on existing opportunities
      for random assignment
  • Natural/Quasi-Experiment
    • Compares existing differences in treatment
    • Participant groups matched as much as possible

Developmental Research Designs

• Longitudinal – Same group studied at different times
• Cross-sectional – Different groups studied at the same time
• Sequential – Compares similar cross-sectional or longitudinal studies (sequences)
• Problems in Conducting Longitudinal Research
  • Participant dropout
  • Practice effects
  • Cohort effects

Improving Developmental Designs

• Sequential designs
  • Compare several similar cross-sectional or longitudinal studies
  • Permit longitudinal and cross-sectional comparisons
• Combining experimental and developmental designs
  • Experimental manipulation of experiences
  • Provides evidence of causal association between experiences and development

Rights of Research Participants

• Protection from harm
• Informed consent
• Privacy
• Knowledge of results
• Beneficial treatments