INTRODUCTION; study methods
- WHY STUDY DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE HUMAN LIFESPAN?
- Become a better parent, family member, family caregiver.
- Also various professions: teaching, healthcare, child care, etc.
- COURSE PERSPECTIVE: Mostly U.S., but many findings are universal,
while many others
are influenced by environment of upbringing (context-specific).
Example: Brazilian boy selling fruits on page 7: How did he get his mathematical skills?
- EVERYONE PLEASE READ: "Terminology," page xxxii in textbook; also look at Glossary at the back of the book.
- NEUROSCIENCE: Study of brain. Often, this can inform discussions of behavior.
- DEVELOPMENTAL THEORIES:
- These are NOT mutually exclusive. None of them explains everything.
- In all cases, there is individual variation. In particular, ages vary a lot and are just averages,
but sequences are almost always in stepwise order.
- Erik Erikson-- Psychodynamic stages (listed page 13-- please read)
Based on how well we resolve conflicts (issues)-- smooth vs troubled or unresolved
Stages occur in order, but ages are approximate.
- B.F. Skinner and Behaviorism-- learning by operant conditioning:
Repeat any behavior that leads to favorable results; do not repeat if consequences are unpleasant.
- Albert Bandura-- Social learning:
Learn mostly by imitating others (all primates do this-- "monkey see, monkey do"),
then modification by experience (often by operant conditioning, etc.)
Emphasis on cognitive skills, social skills, skill acquisition (to reach "self-efficiency")
- Jean Piaget-- Cognitive stages (listed and explained on page 15), but ages are not exact
- Sensorimotor: acquisition of basic physical skills (e.g., grabbing things, walking)
- Preoperational: early use of symbols
- Concrete operational: more logical
- Formal operational (incl. hypothetical reasoning as "little scientist")
- Lev Vygotsky--
- Social and cultural context (communist vs capitalist, but also more broadly)
E.g., any child raised in U.S. is exposed to American furniture and houses,
toilets,
elevators, English language, none of which are universal;
also rural vs urban settings, industrial countries vs non-industrial, etc.
- Importance of "scaffolding"-- adults modeling behavior and often assisting
- Uri Bromfenbrener-- Ecological approach; context at multiple levels (household, society, etc.)
- DEVELOPMENTAL RESEARCH:
- RESEARCH METHODS:
- Most often: systematic, naturalistic observation
- Sometimes: structured (controlled) experiment
- Several research methods listed p. 25.
- IMPORTANT CONCEPTS:
- Hypothesis: an idea being tested; often an educated guess
- Reliability: measured value is always the same (also called precision)
- Validity: the value actually measures the desired variable
- Correlation: measures the strength of association between two variables:
How reliably information about one allows prediction of the other, on a scale
from 0 (not informative, doesn't help to predict) to 1 (allows perfect prediction).
Does not help determine cause vs effect (see p. 27).
Correlation is negative if increase in one variable matches a decrease in the other.
- Experiment: manipulated or artificial situation used to test a hypothesis.
-- ethical limitations must be considered; approval often needed
- Independent variable: in many experiments, the variable being controlled or manipulated
- Dependent variable: the outcome being measured but not controlled
- Observational or Naturalistic study: Study involving little or no manipulation or observer interference
- Longitudinal design: follow subjects for several years
- Cohort study: compare different subjects or different stages at the same point in time
- Prospective study: Start with known measurements or subjects and follow their development
- Retrospective study: Interview people with known outcomes about past events that may have influenced the outcome
- Sequential design: Retest the same subjects every few years
- Meta-analysis: summary or analysis of multiple previous studies
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