Developmental Psychology of the Child - Midterm 1

Physical

the way the brain, body, and senses grow

Gross Motor Skills

large muscle movements, such as walking, running, dancing, throwing, skipping, jumping, riding a bike, etc.

Fine Motor Skills

small muscle movements, such as writing, paintinig, drawing, brushing teeth, picking up objects, tying shoes, and buttoning clothes

Social

the way a person develops relationships with others and understands others’ behaviours

Emotional

the way a person experiences and develops an understanding of their own and others’ emotions

Motor

the way someone develops control over their body’s movements

Cognitive

how a person thinks, reasons, explores, and understands the world around them

Domains of Psychology

Physical

Motor

Social

Emotional

Cognitive

Environment - also plays a key role

Environment

our physical place, the people we spend our time with, our culture(s), etc

Dynamic Systems

one of the foundations of Developmental Psychology

Plato

believed that we’re all born with internal knowledge about the world, but our sensory experiences after birth “wake up” our knowledge

• encoded knowledge shared through the world

Aristotle

• we aren’t born with any internal knowledge, and everything we know in life is learned through our experiences

  • you learn things as you go, experience things and are told

John Locke

• referred to infants as a ‘tabula rasa,’ or a ‘blank state’ saying that children grow into individuals based on their experiences. He used this to make statements baout the responsibilities of parents and discipline

  • children grow into thinks based on their experience

  • parenthood - what the parents do/say to enlighten their children

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• we are all born with an internal sense of justice and morality, which develops naturally as we grow up. He used to this argue that parents should be attentive and receptive to their childrens’ needs.

  • we are born with some sense - we do not know everything, but there are some sort of morality compass born within

Nature vs Nurture

Do we enter the world with innate knowledge, or do we learn as we experience the world?

Western Europe in the Mid-1700s

Children started working around age 5 or so. Before the industrial revolution, most children were working at home or on farms. As England moved to urban factory-based work, many children went to work in dangerous factories and worked in bad conditions

• Most children were working but doing things in relatively safe conditions, and relatively close to home: sewing, milking a cow, etc.

Mid-1800

• Concerns about the work day length and conditions for adults to the danger for children. Reformers argued for the wellbeing of children, which brought child development into a new light

  • What are children? Who are children? As a child growing up, what should they be doing → playing or working?

In 1933

The Society for Research in Child Development (srcd) an interdisciplinary research group, came together

Society for Research in Child Development (srcd)

A group of people who focused on childhood well-being, one of the most important places where research is conducted

In 1939

The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) was founded

In the 1940s

most research stopped as psychologists had to shift into war-related work

In the 1950s

More women in the work-field and therefore developmental science

G. Stanley Hall

Based his work and studies in evolutionary theory (building off of Charles Darwin’s work)

• Major contributions: founded the first English-language scientific journal where scientists could publish their findings on child development, first president of the American Psychological Association, founded a child study institute

Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalytic Theory (early experiences are important!)

• Major contributions: stuff that happens in childhood is important, the unconscious shapes our thoughts & behaviors

  • Early childhood development is extremely important

  • Dream research (unconscious)

• Major oversight: he thought development ends after childhood, amongst other generally disregarded things

John. B Watson

Founder of behaviourism

• Major contributions: applied Locke’s “tabula rasa” theory to child development, expanded on conditioning

• Major oversight: didn’t account much for the “nature” side of the debate

  • Learning, conditioning nurture guy

James Mark Baldwin

Set up the first psychology lab in Canada

• Major contributions: believed that there should be a balance between theory and research, because previous baby studies done purely through observations were not theoretically sound and didn’t help advance theory

  • Theory and research should inform one another

Jean Piaget

Major theories in cognitive development (much more on this later!)

• Major contributions: suggested that cognitive development happens in stages, children think differently than adults, used observation research

• Major oversight: his stages stopped at 18, and we know now that cognitive development keeps going

Erik Erikson

Theory of 8 psychosocial crises (much more on this later!)

He built this idea off of Freud’s, but refined it a lot. In his theory, if the “crisis” of a life stage is not overcome, a person will face future obstacles.

• Took the stage idea, and modified it to explain the various crisis’ arrived at each stage

• Major contributions: development happens across the lifespan

Urie Brofenbrenner

Sociocultural model of development

Ecological Systems Theory

Major Contribution: Everything influences everything, interactional and intersectional approach

Still hugely popular today! Much more on this later

Kimberle Crenshaw

Leading scholar of Critical Race Theory, Professor at UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School

Developed the theory of Intersectionality in her 1989 law paper as a way to examine the unique experiences of Black women within American systems

• Intersectionality at this core base was the idea that multiple identities create unique intersections between the two

  • Black women have different experiences from people who are not black

  • Black women have different experiences from people who are not women

  • How a group is affected?

Major Contributions: her Intersectionality theory is highly integrated into contemporary developmental science! It has contemporary developmental science! It has grown beyond its original field and area of study and is now used to look at other intersections between marginalised identities

Foundational Theories

Biological

Ethological

Psychdynamic

Learning

Cognitive-Developmental

Contextual

Biological Theory

Development follows biologically ingrained patterns

• Based on Maturational Theory, which states that child develpment follows a specific and prearranged plan that is contained biologically within the body. However, this theory doesn’t account for experience!

  • Specific, DNA based knowledge - does not account for experiences

Ethological Theory

Simular to maturational theory but adds that many of our behaviours give us some evolutionary advantage

• Reflexes (grasp) - if you gently touch the palm of a baby’s hand, it will wrap its fingers around it

• This idea of a critical period comes from this, which mean that there are periods of development where certain skills can be learned. After that period, it’s difficult or impossible to learn

  • Language development - it is easier to learn a language before the age of 7 compared to someone learning a language later on

Psychodynamic Theory

Early experiences are important in shaping development

• Based on Freud’s research, this is the oldest scientific perspective on child development. Development is based on how well people resolve certain conflicts as they grow up

• This theory is famous for its use of the id (primitive needs), ego (rational), and superego (moral)

• While much of his work is not used today, his theory contributed two key things we use today

  • Early experiences are important

  • Children experience conflict between what they want to do and what they know they should do

Learning Theory

Humans develop and learn through experience and social factors

• Early learning theories were based off of Pavlov’s classical conditioning theory. John B. Watson used Pavlov’s dog research design and applied it to humans through his Little Alber study. B.F Skinner expanded classical conditioning into operant conditioning, where reinforcement (positive or negative) or punishment is used to strengthen or discourage a behaviour

  • Pavlov → dog salivation upon hearing a bell, Watson applied it to humans (trained toddler’s to fear any small white creatures - rats)

  • Skinner expanded on that by using reinforcements (positive - giving something, negative - taking something)

• This has also led to social learning theory, which shows that children also learn through watching others and imitating others. These behaviours have also been found in other species

  • Behaviours will spread amongst a group after witnessing the same behaviour

Cognitive-Developmental Theory

Children’s though processes develop in a stage-like way

• The cognitive-developmental perspective examines how thought processes change as children grow up

• Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is the best-known theory in this perspective. He argued that children are “little scientists” who explore the world around them through developmental “experiments” that help them gain an understanding of how the world works. When a child’s theory doesn’t work out, they revise. When it does work out, their theory grows stronger. And they test again and again and again (which explains children’s repetitive behaviours)!

  • They are in a highchair and are experimenting with throwing food on the floor

    • If they throw over the chair, and it successfully spills on the floor, they will continue to repeat actions so that they may understand the concepts; ex. gravity

Contextual Theory

All human development must be viewed within each person’s unique culture and the overarching systems that impact them

• Based on Lev Vygotsky (Russian, 1896-1934) who argued that every child’s development must be considered against their unique cultural background. Not every child is going to be learning the same skills and values!

• This has expanded into Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems theory, which states that every developing child is part of a series of complex and interactive systems. We’ll talk more about this soon!

• This is very similar to Indigenous people in Canada’s holistic view of life structures, where each person is embedded within their cultural and social environment

  • Everything is intertwined and related

Lev Vgotsky

Argued that every child’s development must be considered against their unique cultural background.

Pavlov

Classical Conditioning Theory

• Dogs’ saliva w/ the noise of a bell

B.F Skinner

Operant Conditioning Theory

• Positive and negative treatment is distributed to strengthen or discourage behaviour

The Scientific Method

1. Observation

2. Question

3. Hypothesis

4. Experiment

5. Conclusion

6. Result

Hypothesis

a proposed explanation for a phenomenon that’s based on limited evidence and observation, used as a starting point for gathering more information

Observation

Most studies fill in “gaps” in the existing literature and build off of previous studies. Gaps create opportunities for further exploration because the gaps are outdated, haven’t been explored yet, or have been explored very little.

Experiment

1. A study has to be approved by the institution’s ethics review board. This makes sure that the study is not going to harm any of the participants involved.

   • Is this experiment ethical? What will you say, what will you send, etc.

   • Usually two boards– one for animals and one for humans

2. Recruitment of participants or collection of animals (subjects)

3. Data collection

• Multiple research methods, such as observations, bio data, measuring behaviour on tasks, surveys, etc

4. Data analysis

• Quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods

Observation

observing and carefully recording

Behaviour Tasks

creating tasks to measure a behaviour

Self-Report

having participants fill out surveys

Biophysio Data

measuring physical, biological data

Systematic Observation

Watching children and carefully recording what they do or say, usually through audio/video recordings

Naturalistic Observation

when you watch children in real-life situations, such as observing a classroom

Observer Bias

when a researcher pays more attention to the behaviours that confirm the hypothesis and discount the ones that don’t, or they interpret results in a way that confirms the hypothesis

Observer Influence

happens when a participant changes their behaviour based on the researcher who’s watching them

Theory of Mind

our understanding that other people have their own perspectives

Response Bias

someone might respond in a way they see as more socially acceptable

Behavioural Sampling

Given that psychology cannot be directly measured, we can create tasks that demonstrate the expression of an abstract concept, through something that can be measured more directly like a behaviour

Self-Reports

any measures where a participant is asked to give their own responseto a question

• Questionnaire data are written surveys

• Oral reports are interviews

Biophysio Data

Measuring any biological, physical data, such as heart rate, hormones (such as cortisol to measure stress), skin conductance, breathing, neurological data, etc.

• When used alongside other measures, biophysio data can help corroborrate conclusions and lead to stronger results

Reliability

• The results are consistent and can be attained repeatedly over time

  • We measure test _____ for all measures, and it’s measured differently depending on the measure that’s being used

  • For surveys (self report questionnaires), we calculate a statistic called a “Cronbach’s alpha” for the study. The same statistic is also published by the researchers who made the survey, so we as researchers want to make sure our study’s alpha is similar to the researchers’ who made it

  • For many behavioural measures or categorical measures, we calculate a Cohen’s kappa

  • For interviews, we track inter-rater ______ through percentage of agreement between coders

Validity

• A measure is truly measuring what it’s supposed to measure.

  • Construct _____ means that a measure is measuring the concept in question, not a different concept

  • Concurrent _______ means that two forms of measurement correspond with each other. Usually a newer measurement is paired against a well-established one

Construct Validity

A measure is measuring the concept in question, not a different concept

Concurrent Validity

Two forms of measurement correspond with each other. Usually a newer measurement is paired against a well-established one

Populations

Broad groups

Sampling

Smaller groups within the populations

Types of Research Design

Correlational

Longitudinal

Experimental

Cross-Sectional

Correlational Research

looking at naturally-occurring relationships

Experimental Research

manipulating factors and measuring outcomes

Longitudinal Research

studying one group over a longer time

Cross-Sectional Research

studying multiple groups over a shorter time

Correlational Research

• Often, we can’t manipulate our topic ethically, so we measure two variables as they happen naturally and compare the two

  • Measured using a correlation coefficient, r unrelated. Closer to -1 or +1 means more related, with+1 meaning a positive correlation and -1 meaning a negative correlation

  • Remember: positive and negative don’t mean “good” or “bad” here, they just mean the direction of the relationship

  • We can’t understand cause when we look at correlations. Correlation does not equal causation!

Experimental Research

• In an experimental design, the researcher manipulates one or more variables

  • The variable that’s being changed is called the independent variable

  • The variable that’s being measured is called the dependent variable

• Example: I want to see if taking an exam on different coloured papers will affect test scores. I split the class in three groups. One gets green paper, the next gets orange paper, and the last gets white paper. I measure the difference between the 3 groups’ test results at the end. The paper is what I’m manipulating or changing, so that’s the independent variable. The outcome that I’m measuring is the difference in test scores, so that’s the dependent variable.

Longitudinal Research

• In studying development, we often want to track changes over time

• In a longitudinal study, the same group is tested or observed multiple times at different points in their lives

• Weaknesses:

  • It’s expensive

  • People drop out of the study (known as attrition)

  • The ways in which people drop out can have a meaningful effect (selective attrition)

  • When people do the same test over and over again, they get better at it (known as the practice effect)

Cross-Sectional Research

• Instead of following the same group for a long time, researchers observe and test multiple smaller groups at one time point

• Example: let’s say I want to study development from age 5-20. I could do a 15 year long longitudinal study, or in a cross-sectional design, I would study a group of 5 year olds, 10 year olds, 15 year olds, and 20 year olds once or twice

• This is much shorter, cheaper, less attrition, less practice effects

• But we don’t know if these groups are different in any unique ways that could be skewing the results!

  • For example, children who started school before covid vs. during

Longitudinal-Sequential Research

• This is like a mix between longitudinal and cross-sectional. Instead of following the same group for a long time, researchers observe and test multiple smaller groups over a shorter time

• Example: let’s say I want to study development from age 5-20. I could do a 15 year long longitudinal study, or in a longitudinal-sequential design, I would study a group of 5 year olds, 10 year olds, and 15 year olds for 5 years.

• This has the same benefits and downsides as a cross- sectional study, but with the added benefit of having longer-running data for the participants

Methods of Data-Analysis

Qualitative

Quantitative

Mixed Methods

Quantitative

statistical analyses

Qualitative

coding interviews

Mixed Methods

Combining the quantitative and qualitative

Quantitative

• Involves statistical analyses, such as t-tests, ANOVAs, regressions,and correlations

• We calculate how likely it is that the results we have gotten were due to chance. If our results are statistically significant, it means there is a very low probability that we got these results by chance

Qualitative

• Involves coding, often based on recurring themes that come out of the interview data. Coding is based off of defined, field-wide codingtheories.

• Often multiple coders will go over the same data so that the results are more reliable

Mixed Methods

Combines the two methods, often to corroborate either method.

• For example, measuring scores on a depression inventory and interviewing the person about their depression symptoms.

Ethics Regulation

• There are three governmental research agencies in Canada that published guidelines for ethical research– the Candian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

• All research labs, colleges, and universities in Canada have to abide by these ethics guidelines.

• Each institution has an ethics board that makes sure researchers are following the guidelines and regulates research studies

  • Ensuring everyone follows the rules, and is approved - typically takes a long time

  • Could it be harmful or unethical?

Ethical Guidelines

1) Seek to do research that benefits humanity

• There has to be a benefit with supporting justification - cannot be random

2) Minimize risks to the research participants

• Keep risks as few as possible and demonstrate how you will minimize risks

  • For trauma, this can be feeling stressed out → if this happens, I will do __________ and provide ________________ as a resource

3) Describe the research to participants so they can give informed consent (make an educated decision about participating)

• A person knows what they should reasonably know before participating in the study - they are not ‘tricked’ or ‘pressured’ in anyway

4) Avoid deception, and if deception must be used, debrief as soon as possible (give a thorough explanation)

• Avoid tricking them unless necessary for research

  • Drug trial for either placebo or THC compound → going through studies of MRIs, tasks (were not told what they were for, if they had gotten the THC or placebo)

  • Natural reaction - unskewed by knowledge

    • You must explain why at least after - cannot deceive unless justified

5) Keep results anonymous or confidential

• Keeping data safe/secure - you have to store your data in an encrypted server (hacking, data loss, etc)

6) Give a debriefing afterward about the research purposes

• No matter what whether you use deception, you must explain

Nature

Our genetics determine our behaviour. Our personality traits and abilities are in our nature

Nurture

Our environment, upbringing and life experiences determine our behaviour. We are “nurtured” to behave in certain ways

Freud, Darwin, etc. - 1500s

Used to be very nature-centric (DNA understanding was still pretty shiny and new)

Watson, Skinner, Bandura - 1900s

Behaviourists arrive on the scene, flipped it to more nurture-centric

Behavioural Genetics

The branch of genetics that involves how behavioural and psychological traits are inherited

Polygenic Inheritance

multiple genes interact in a pattern

Identical Twins

• monozygotic twins, because they come from a single fertilized egg that splits in two. They share many genetics.

  • They came from one egg, one sperm → many similar genetics

Monozygotic Twins

single fertilized egg that splits in two. They share many genetics

Fraternal twins

dizygotic twins, because they come from two eggs that were fertilized at the same time by two different sperm. They share about the same genetics as any sibling pair

• They came from two eggs → similar to how siblings share genetics (50%)

Dizygotic Twins

they come from two eggs that were fertilized at the same time by two different sperm. They share about the same genetics as any sibling pair

r= +1

being perfectly identical would mean that their correlations on characteristics would be _________

Principle 1

• Our nature influences our nurture

• Meaning, the way we are impacts how the world sees us and interacts with us

  • What is inside = how we act on the outside; how they choose to react as a result

  • Example: child temperament

    • The level to which an infant is reactable - how much they react to the world around them

    • It is believed that temperament is predominantly heritable

Principle 2

• We need the right nurture to fully express our nature

• Meaning, we have internal genetic influences, but our environment shapes how those genes are expressed and develop

  • Example: height and nutrition

    • Height is heritable - physically based (window range)

      • Mom is 5’2, Dad is 6’5 → there is a range of height

    • The environment may vary how you land in this range; the kind of nutrition you grew up with, food securities and insecurities (income, location, etc)

      • If you do not get adequate nutrition → resulting in a lower spot within your range

    • How our genetics change based on our environment around us

Niche-Picking

we are more likely to seek an environment that better matches our heredity

Non-shared Environmental Influences

the things that make siblings different from each other

Fertilization

• About 14 days into cycle = ovulation

• Only about 200-300 sperm make it to the ovum

• 23 chromosomes from each parent = 46 total

• Coding for the reproductive organs/genitalia of zygote determined by sperm gamete

  • Male = XY, female = XX, many other combinations & intersex possibilities!

  • Sex is assigned at birth by external genitalia, chromosomes, hormones, etc. Currently marked M or F on birth certificates, though there is an increasing push for the ability to mark Intersex

Infertility

Risk Factors

• Health:

  • Being over or under weight

  • Uterine health, sperm health, hormonal health

  • Exposure to radiation

• Lifestyle

  • Smoking

  • Drinking

  • Exposure to chemicals

• Age

  • Uterus + ova age: fertility declines mid-30s, rapidly after 37

  • Testes + sperm age : fertility declines in 40s

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

Egg is fertilized outside of the womb, then inserted into the uterus to await implantation