What is development? Domains of development Questions about Development: Normative Development and Individual Difference

1. What is development? • Domains of development • Questions about Development: Normative Development and Individual Differences • Goals of developmental psychology • Themes/Issues in developmental psychology

2. What is development? • Development refers to systematic changes in the individual that occur over time from conception to death

3. Domains of Development • Physical Development • Changes in the body and brain • Cognitive Development • Changes in thought, intelligence, and language • Socioemotional Development • Changes in relationships, emotions, and personality

4. Questions About Development • Normative development • Involves typical or average patterns of change

5. Individual differences • Involves differences between individuals of approximately the same age

6. Goals of Developmental Psychology • Describe behavior and how it changes across development • Explain development • Identify the underlying processes or causes of change • Apply knowledge to help children develop in positive directions

7. Themes/Issues in Developmental Psychology • How do genetic/biological and environmental factors work together to shape development?

8. Is development continuous or discontinuous?

9. Continuous (Quantitative) • Gradual, small, steady increases in skills/abilities

10. Discontinuous (Qualitative) • Relatively fast changes that involve a major re-organization of skills/abilities (new stage of development)

12. How important is early experience in affecting later development?

13. Research Methods in Developmental Psychology • Hypotheses • Data Collection Techniques • Systematic Observation • Naturalistic Observation • Structured Observation • Self-report Measures • Clinical Interviews • Structured Interviews and Questionnaires • General Research Designs • Correlational • Experimental • Designs for Studying Development • Longitudinal Designs • Cross-sectional Designs

14. Research Methods in Developmental Psychology • Hypothesis: A specific prediction that can be tested

15. Data Collection Techniques •  Systematic Observation (2 Types) • Naturalistic Observation • Observe child’s behavior in a natural environment • Exs: playground, school, home

16. Structured Observation: • Design a situation that will elicit relevant behavior(s) • Typically conducted in a laboratory setting • Observe different children in the same situation

17. General Disadvantages (Observation):

18. Self-report Measures • Clinical Interviews • More “open-ended” questions—response choices are not limited • Ex: “Tell me about that” • Participants may be asked different questions (depending on their answers)

19. Structured interviews and questionnaires • More “close-ended” questions—response choices are limited • Ex: yes/no questions, rating scales, multiple choice questions • All participants are asked the same questions

20. General Disadvantage (self-report or report by others):

21. General Research Designs • Correlational Designs • Examine the relationship between two (or more) variables • Variable: Characteristic or experience that varies across individuals • Exs: age, gender, IQ, personality traits

22. Correlation Coefficient • Indicates how strongly two measures (variables) are related • Can range from -1.00 to +1.00

23. Size of the coefficient • Zero correlation

24. Sign of the coefficient • Positive • Negative

27. Major limitation • Why not?

28. Experimental Designs • Independent Variable • Dependent Variable

29. Groups in an experiment should be equivalent except for their exposure to the independent variable • But individuals are different in a lot of ways • So how can the researcher be sure the groups are the same at the start of the experiment?

30. Random Assignment: Participants have an equal chance of being assigned to each group/condition in an experiment • Advantage: Participants’ pre-existing characteristics should be equally distributed across groups/conditions • Ex: Should be same number of highly aggressive kids in each group/condition—so the groups are the same when the experiment starts • Can infer that the independent variable causes changes in the dependent variable

31. Designs for Studying Development • Purpose: Can examine developmental (age-related) change

32. Longitudinal Design

33. Advantages • Can examine stability and change in individual children’s characteristics or behavior over time

34. Disadvantages • Non-random participant loss • Participants who finish the study differ in systematic ways from participants who drop out • Final sample is not representative of the group (population) researcher wanted to study—findings may not generalize to the whole group • Practice effects • Change due to familiarity with data collection procedures rather than change due to development

35. Time-consuming and expensive

36. Cross-Sectional Design

37. Advantages • More efficient than a longitudinal design (faster, less expensive) • No participant loss • No practice effects

38. Disadvantages • Cannot examine stability and change in individual children’s characteristics or behavior over time