Introduction and Methodology Developmental Domains Social Dad in crib with baby Physical baby dancing to Beyonc Cognitive talking twin babies What is development Learning vs Development Orderly goes in a sequence predictable Directional moving forward Stable mostly stable but regression can occur Issues in Developmental Psychology Quantitative or Qualitative Quantitative Adults know more than babies Facts 2X2 4 Qualitative learn a new skill tying a shoelace development baby going from babbling to learning words I have this you have that apples and pizza Children think there is more food when cut into four pieces instead of two logical thinking Continuous or Discontinuous Kids don t understand death or mourning don t understand it is permanent Continuous Linear Discontinuous Quantitative view Steps Stages Qualitative view Freud Piaget Both are important Genetic or Environmental factors influence behavior and development Organismic vs Mechanistic Theories World Views Organismic Qualitative change Starts as egg turns to caterpillar turns to butterfly Starts as tadpole grows legs turns to frog Active development Freud Piaget Movement towards a goal Starts as egg goal is to be a butterfly Mechanistic Human life always changing and developing e g learning theory No qualitative change only quantitative Passive reaction everything done is a reaction to something else No movement towards a goal no end state to development never get to the end Contextual where were from where we live your take on the world time you were born look at context before anything else Behaviorism Mechanistic Classical conditioning Watson and conditioned stimulus Not learning a new behavior learning an association between unconditioned stimulus Feel sick in a certain room every time you enter that room afterwards you feel sick Unconditioned stimulus loud noise Unconditioned Response Fear crying Conditioned Stimulus rat Conditioned Response Fear Crying Mechanistic World View Operant Instrumental Conditioning Behavior Modification Ex Teaching a dog new tricks by giving them a treat Positive Reinforcement add something in behavior increases Negative Reinforcement take something away behavior decreases Positive Punishment add something in behavior decreases Negative Punishment add something in behavior increases Can be used on children with ADD Not seen as much as used to medication is used more now Takes too long for people Social Learning Theory Bandura the same thing as the adult did Ex Bobo Doll clip child watches adult assault a bobo doll on TV afterwards the child does Ethology Mechanistic Contextual Emphasis on the relevance of environmental contexts Biologically driven behaviors that are adaptive to our survival These behaviors increased likelihood that our ancestors would survive and have descendants Important Concepts Imprinting grow an attachment Lorenz when ducks hatch they imprint on the closest moving thing to them imprinted on Konrad Lorenz time sensitive Sensitive Critical Periods the time when imprinting occurs Bonding certain time after birth when babies attach to their parents and parents attach to their babies Babies given the opportunity to bond developed much better than those not given the opportunity to bond Species specific response behavior laugh when tickled monkey Babyness Round headed shape Large eyes below middle of head Protruding forehead An exaggeration of the Babyness cues creates supernormal stimuli E g Bambi Ecological Approach From this perspective it can be said that much of developmental psychology as it now exists is the science of the strange behavior of children in strange situations with strange adults for the briefest possible periods of time Urie Bronfenbrenner Must study development in context E g if studying attachment of babies instead of bringing them into the lab for 15 minutes you must study at their house for a while to truly know everything about Keep getting bigger as you go down list within one another 1 Microsystem individuals immediate surroundings we have multiple microsystems sometimes overlap Ex Our classroom our dorm room our friends our family 2 Mesosystems connections among microsystems when microsystems come together Ex Boyfriend meets friends for first time take your child to work day 3 Exosystem doesn t directly contain individual but influences them Ex Boyfriends friends influence him but affects me 4 Macrosystem values ideals customs and laws of a particular culture Ex Messages from TV views as a society pro guns strong gender roles 5 Chronosystem temporal time affects you differently depending on age Ex Parents get divorced when you re 6 as opposed to 16 first romantic partner Important Terms Independent Variable Dependent Variable Reliability consistency measuring what its supposed to measure consistently QUIZ Scale one day says you weigh 140 then 110 then 180 not reliable Validity is it measuring the correct thing if you have a measure that is supposed to assess depression is it really assessing depression Is your bathroom scale actually measuring your height Design Experiments QUIZ Cross sectional Design Pick ages 1yr old 2yr old 4 yr old 6yr old Assess something about them how they share toys Advantages Disadvantages Quick don t have to wait years to test the same child throughout the years Differences in behavior at different points in development can compare Inexpensive No information about past determinants of age related changes No information about individual development No information about developmental process Cohorts people born at the same time could be same year same month same day same generation etc Longitudinal Design same subjects assessed repeatedly Person assessed at age 2 wait 2 years assessed at age 4 wait 2 years assessed at age 6 Stability of a behavior can be determined Impact of early events on later behavior can be investigated Differences in behavior at different points in development can be studied Advantages Disadvantages Cost Subject loss people drop out of study worry that people who drop out are different than the people that stay in people die move away Changes in people cohorts if Chronosystem changes dramatically it can affect the relevance of the study Inflexibility Test retest effects if you give the same subjects the same test they can get better worse at the test due to practice or boredom instead of development Sequential Design combines cross sectional and longitudinal Pick people at different ages age 5