CH 1 + 2 NOTES- Intro to Dev. Psych
VOCAB:
developmental science: The field of study that focuses on the range of children’s physical, intellectual, social, and emotional developments.
preformationism: The belief that adultlike capacities, desires, interests, and emotions are present in early childhood
basic research: advance scientific knowledge of human development
applied research: answer practical questions related to improving children’s lives and experiences
reliability: The scientific requirement that when the same behavior is measured on two or more occasions by the same or different observers, the measurements must be consistent with each other.
replicability: The scientific requirement that other researchers be able to use the same procedures as an initial investigator did and obtain the same results.
validity: The scientific requirement that the data being collected must actually reflect the phenomenon being studied.
naturalistic observation: Observation of the actual behavior of people in the course of their everyday lives.
experiment: research in which a change is introduced into a person’s experience and the effect of that change is measured.
experimental group: The group in an experiment whose experience is changed as part of the experiment.
control group: The group in an experiment that is treated as much as possible like the experimental group except that it does not participate in the experimental manipulation.
ecological validity: The extent to which behavior studied in one environment (such as a psychological test) is characteristic of behavior exhibited by the same person in a range of other environments.
correlation: The condition that exists between two factors when changes in one factor are associated with changes in the other.
correlation coefficient: The degree of association between factors, symbolized as r and ranging between −1.0 and +1.0.
clinical interview: A research method in which questions are tailored to the individual, with each question depending on the answer to the preceding one.
longitudinal design: A research design in which data are gathered about the same group of people as they grow older over an extended period of time.
cross-sectional design: A research design in which individuals of various ages are studied at the same time.
theory: A broad framework or set of principles that can be used to guide the collection and interpretation of a set of facts.
psychodynamic theories: Theories, such as those of Freud and Erikson, that explore the influence on development and developmental stages of universal biological drives and the life experiences of individuals.
triangulation: two or more methods are combined to confirm their conclusions.
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SUMMARY:
Developmentalists divide the time between conception and adulthood into five periods: the prenatal period, infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence.
Four fundamental issues in research: Sources of development, plasticity, continuity/discontinuity, individual differences
Grand theories of development
Psychodynamic theories—Freud’s theory, in which psychosexual stages are associated with the changing focus of the sex drive, and Erikson’s theory, in which psychosocial stages are associated with tasks or crises shaped by social and cultural factors.
Behaviorist theories, which focus on development through learning, emphasize behavioral changes resulting from the individual’s forming associations between behavior and its consequences.
Piaget’s constructivist theory, in which children, by striving to master their environments and searching for fits between their existing schemas and new experiences, progress through universal stages of cognitive development.
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, which focuses on the role of culture in development and on children learning through finely tuned interactions with others who are more competent.
Modern theories of development
Evolutionary theories, which look at how human characteristics contribute to the survival of the species and at how our evolutionary past influences individual development.
Social learning theories, which, like behaviorist theories, focus on the learning of associations between behaviors and their consequences but emphasize learning that occurs through the observation of, and interaction with, others.
Information-processing theories, which, using computer analogies, look at how children process, store, organize, retrieve, and manipulate information in increasingly efficient ways.
Systems theories—dynamic systems theory, which focuses on the development of new systems of behavior from the interaction of less complex parts, and ecological systems theory, which focuses on the organization of the environmental contexts within which children develop.