Child development Psych Chapter 1

Plato's view on children

argued that children are born with innate knowledge of many concrete objects (animals, people etc), as well with abstractions (courage, love etc). Children's sensory experiences simply trigger knowledge they've and since birth

-ex: first time child sees a dog, her innate knowledge allows her to recognize it as such, no learning is required

Aristotle view on children

denied the existence of innate knowledge. Instead theorized that knowledge is rooted in perceptual experience. Children acquire knowledge piece by piece, based on the information provided by their senses

Aries View

viewed children as smaller versions of adults, there were no children's books, toys, clothes, it was all same as adults just smaller sizes.

-middle ages

colonial times (500-600's) view on children

harsh treatment of children

-limited medical knowledge so there was a high infant mortality (75% of children died before age 5)

-beatings were common, puritans believed kids had "original sin," they were born evil.

-adults preoccupied with breaking childs will

-crawling was viewed as animal like

events that lead to push toward child development

1. Industrial revolution (1700's)-child labor laws as families move from rural to urban

2. Darwins work on evolution and how it relates to human behavior

baby biography

detailed, systematic observations of individual children, "diary of childs' life"

-darwin wrote one

-weakness: bias, subjective, each is based on 1 child not a group

-contributions: lead to ideas about what kids could be like, reflects the idea that scientist saw kids as subjects for scientific inquiry

Stanley Hall

-took the lead in the 20th century, generated theories of child development based on evolutionary theory.

-founded the first scientific journal in english where scientist could publish child dev. findings

-1st president of the APA

-founded child study institute at Clark U

John Locke

-late 1600's to 1700's

-believed human was a blank state, or "tabula rasa"

-experience molds the child into an individual

-parents should instruct, reward, and discipline young children

-essentially kids turn out good or bad depending on how the parents raise them

Jean Jacques Rousseau

-early 1700's

-believed newborns are endowed with innate sense of justice and morality that unfolds as the child grows (child learns from experience)

-didn't emphasize parental role in dev. of child

-kids are born good natured and savage like because they are immature

Rousseaus's new ideas he introduced

1. theres a natural order to which children develop-infancy, childhood, and adolescence

2. Children play active role in own development

3. adults should not try to teach adult concepts/skills until the child is ready

Important "firsts"

-mid 1700's to early 1800's was when books, children's games, hospitals, clothing, and labor laws

-dev. psychology in the late 1800/early 1900's began

France Alfred Binet

first to devise mental tests

Sigmund Freud

-1856-1939

-suggested that experiences children have seem to account for patterns of behavior in adulthood

-"more interested in whats going on in the head"

-emphasized the unconscious, past events, and emotions

John Watson

-founder of behaviorism

-parents should play very active role in child dev.

-classical conditioning

applied developmental science

uses developmental research to promote healthy development, particularly for vulnerable children and families

-advocate for the child, and provide knowledge and info on child for policy makers

theory

an organized set of ideas that is designed to explain and make predictions about development

the biological perspective

-development is determine primarily by biological forces

maturational theory

-within biological perspective

-child dev, reelects a specify and pre-arranged scheme or plan within the body (was quickly discarded though)

Ethological theory

-within biological perspective

-views development from evolutionary perspective, so many behaviors are adaptive, that is they have a survival value.

-critical period

critical period

the time in development when a specific type of learning can take place; before or after the critical period the same learning is difficult or even impossible

-well known ex: Lorenz and the chicks who followed him bc they are biologically programmed to follow the first large moving object they see

imprinting

creating an emotional bond with the mother

psychodynamic perspective

-oldest scientific perspective

-Freud

development is largely determined by how well people resolve conflicts they face at different ages

3 components of personality

id-pleasure principle (primitive instincts and drives), child is born with this

ego-reality principle, practical and rational (how to best satisfy the id, works to resolve conflicts)

superego-perfection principle, "moral agent" in child's personality. Once kid has this, the environment isn't as big of a factor

psychosocial theory

-ericksons, believed development consists of a sequin of stages, each defined by a unique crisis or challenge

1. basic trust vs. mistrust

2. autonomy vs shame and doubt

3. initiative vs guilt

4. industry vs inferiority

5. identity vs identity confusion

6. intimacy vs isolation

7.generativity vs stagnation

8. integrity vs despair

the learning perspective

-emphasizes the role of experience in children's development

operant conditioning

-B.F Skinner

-consequences of a behavior determine whether a behavior is repeated in the future

-reinforcement and punishment

reinforcement

a consequence that increases the future likelihood of the behavior that it follows

positive reinforcement

giving a reward to increase the likelihood of repeating a previous behavior

negative reinforcement

rewarding people by taking away unpleasant things

punishment

consequence that decreases the future of likelihood of the behavior that it follows

-suppresses behavior by either adding something unpleasant or taking away something pleasant

imitational/observational learning

children learn best this way, bye attaching those around them

social cognitive theory

-albert bandura

-based it on more complex view of reward, punishment, and imitation

-children actively trying to understand what goes on in their world

-experience gives children sense of self -efficacy

self-efficacy

beliefs about ones own abilities and talents

ex: children who sees himself as athletic will try to imitate Lebron james, but those who aren't will not

cognitive-developmental perspective

focuses on how children think and how their tinkling changes as they grow

-piaget who emphasized different stages of thinking

Piagets four stages of cognitive dev.

1. sensorimotor

2. preoperational

3. concrete operational

4. formal operational

sensorimotor

-0-2 years

infant knowledge of world is based on sensory and motor skills

preoperational

-2-6

-child learns numbers and symbols etc

concrete operational

-7-11

-logical operations now

formal operational

adolescence and beyond

-abstract thinking

contextual perspective

-development is influenced by immediate and more distant environments, which typically influence each other

-Vygotskys theory

Vygotsky's theory

emphasizes role of parents (and other adults) in conveying culture to the next generation

continuity-discontinuity

issue about the relatedness of development, "are early aspects of development consistently related to later aspects?"

-early development is related to later but not perfectly

nature-nurture issue

what roles do biology (nature) and the environment (nurture) play in child development?

-all aspects of development are determined by the combined forces o heredity and the environment

active-passive child issue

are children simply at the mercy of their environment (passive child), or do children actively influence their own development through their own unique individual characteristics (active child)?

-passive corresponds with Locke's view on the blank slate

-active corresponds with rousseau as development as a natural unfolding taking place within child

-we know the child's interpretation of his/her experiences plays a large role in development

connections

development in different domains is connected

systematic observation

involves watching children and carefully recording what they say or what they do

-two types are naturalistic observation and structured observation

naturalistic observation

children are observed as they behave spontaneously in some real life situation

-pro: captures child's behavior in natural settings

-con: difficult to use with behaviors that are rare or that typically occur in private settings

structured observation

researcher creates a setting likely to elicit the behavior of interest

-pro: can study behaviors that are difficult to observe naturally (ex: staging an emergency)

-con:may be invalid if the structured setting distorts the behavior

sampling behavior with tasks

convenient and can be used to study most behaviors, , a problem with it is determining if the task really samples he behavior of interest

self report

third approach to measuring behavior and is simply a child answering questions about the topic of interest

-questionnaire

-interview

-sometimes not accurate because of response bias

response bias

some responses may be more socially acceptable than others and children are more likely to select those than socially unacceptable answers

physiological measures

less common but very powerful and measures children's physiological measures: heart rate used to measure children's attention level, hormone cortisol levels to determine when child experiences stress.

-only con: that the responses may be too specific to one thing and cannot be used for multiple variable

-pro:can provide independent and converging evidence to confirm behavioral measures.

4 ways to measure behavior in child development research

1. systematic

2. sampling behavior with tasks

3. self reports

4. physiological

reliable

a measure is reliable if the results are consistent over time

(same results occur after repeated testing)

valid

a measure is valid if it really measures what researchers think it measures

populations

what researchers are usually interested in, and is a broad group of children (ex: 7 year old caucasions)

sample

a subset of the population

child research designs

1. correlational

2. experimental

correlational study

investigators look at relations between variables as they exist in the natural world

-does not determine cause and effect!

correlational coefficient

how the results of a correlational study are expressed, usually is abbreviated as r

"r" in correlational study

stands for the direction and strength of a relationship between two variables

-if r=0, the variables are not related

-if r>0, the scores are positively related

-if r<0, the scores are inversely related

-the sign indicates the direction of the relation of variables

positive correlation

larger values on one variable are associated with larger values on the second variable

negative correlation

larger values on one variable are associated with smaller values on the other variable

strength of correlation

-measured by how much it differs from 0

ex: -.75 is strong negative correlation

ex: .25 is a weak positive correlation

interpreting correlational studies

1. first variable causes the second

2. seconds variable causes the first

3. neither variable is caused by the other but are both instead caused by a third variable not measured

*any of these could be true so cause and effect can not be determined, only a relationship between the 2 is determined

experimental study

in an experiment, an investigator systematically varies the factors thought to cause a particular behavior

-can show cause and effect relationships

independent variable

factor that is changed on purpose

dependent variable

the factor that is actually measured in the experiment

Experimental study steps

1. randomly assign participants to the different conditions (control v independent variable)

2. create standardized setting

3. manipulate independent variable

4. measure dependent variable

5. compare the results

6. conclusion reached about cause and effect

field experiment

researcher manipulates independent variables in a natural setting so that the results are more likely to be a representation of their behavior in real world settings.

-allow strong conclusions to be made on cause and effect relationships bc they are in natural settings

-con: have to sacrifice some control and logistics with getting other adults to comply etc

quasi-experiment

involves examining the impact of an independent variable by using groups that were not created with random assignment

-ex: want to know how smoking can effect child development, can't assign a child to a parent that smokes but can compare a child who has a parent that does and one that does not.

designs for age related changes

1. longitudinal

2. cross-sectional

3. longitudinal-sequential

longitudinal study

same individuals are tested or observed repeatedly at different points in their lives (age 6, 12, and 17)

-pro:only way to see an individuals growth and look at the continuity of behavior over time

-con: expensive, child may drop out, takes long time, repeated testing can distort behavior

-not as heavily used as cross-sectional

microgenetic study

special kind of longitudinal study in which the children are tested repeatedly over a span of days or weeks, typically wight he aim of observing change directly as it occurs. Usually helpful for a specific period of life

cohort effects

occur when in a longitudinal study, children are observed over a period of several years, the developmental change may be specific to a specific generation of people.

cross sectional design

-more convenient than longitudinal

-identify developmental changes by testing children of different ages at one point in their development (ex: testing groups of 6, 9, and 12 year olds)

-problem is you can't measure continuity

-pro: solves most problems with longitudinal studies

longitudinal-sequential

different sequences (groups of children ages 6, 9, and 12) are tested longitudinally (same groups are all tested again in 3 years)

-this allows for researchers to measure the continuity, and can determine which effects are cohort and which are practice)

-con: more time than cross sectional, not enough continuity for longitudinal

meta analysis

allows researchers to integrate the findings form many similar studies, making impossible to determine the generality and consistency of research results (essentially analyzing many studies done in the past on similar topics to come to a conclusion)

ethical research guideline (4 things)

1. minimize risks to research participants

2. describe the research to potential participants so they can determine if they wish to participate (or ask parents for permission, aka informed consent)

3. Avoid deception (if some deception is necessary, provide full story as soon as possible)

4. keep results anonymous and confidential

*must convince a review board the researcher has done all these before proceeding with the study

communicating research results

researchers communicate their results by publishing them in scientific journals

Pavlov

classical conditioning

-unconditioned stimulus (food) with unconditioned response (saliva) then add the bell as the conditioned stimulus to the food and you get unconditioned response (saliva). then all conditioned stimulus (bell) to conditioned response (bell)

chromosomes

each egg and sperm cell contain 23 chromosomes which are tiny structures in the nucleus that contain genetic material

invitro-fertilization

mixing sperm and egg together in a laboratory dish and then placing several fertilized eggs in a women's uterus

-only 1/3 of these are successful

-often times mom has twins/triplets

genotype

genetic makeup of a child

phenotype

how the genes are expressed, outward appearance of them

behavioral genetics

branch of genetics that deals with inheritance of the behavioral and psychological traits

epigenesis

the influences of genes on behavior always depends on the environment in which the genetic instructions are carried out

niche picking

process of deliberately seeking out an environment that meets child heredity (ex: outgoing kid likes to surround himself with outgoing people)

environmental forces

environmental forces that make siblings different from one another

Brofenbrenners study

cultural/contextual study

-importance of family, school, peers, neighborhood, cultural beliefs, etc ) can effect child development

scaffolding

teaching style that matches the amount of assistance to the learners needs

zone of proximal development

difference between what a child can do with and without assistance when he/she is alone

ethology

branch of biology focusing on inborn patterns of behavior that help an animal to adapt to its environment

teratogen

non genetic agents that cause malformations during prenatal development

teratology

study of teratogens and their effects

greek mythology connection to teratogens

-tera means monster so term literally means maker of monsters

-creatures from greek mythology

middle ages teratogens

believed that malformed babies were bad omens, often put to death, the mothers sometimes put on trials for witchcraft. this gave way to thoughts that maternal fright or bad thoughts created monster births. also believed in ancient beliefs that mothers food and drinks affected fetus

x rays

-1930's

-when mom is exposed to these they can lead to microcephely

microcephely

baby with small head and brain

rubella

german measles

-1940s

-caused abnormalities of eye, ear, heart, and brain