Developmental psychologyChapter 1The scope and Methods of Developmental psychologyIntroductionDevelopmental psychology: the discipline that attempts to describe and explain the changes that occur over time in the thought, behavior, reasoning and functioning of a person due biological, individual and environmental influences. Maturation: aspects of development that are largely under genetic control, and hence largely uninfluenced by environmental factors.Developmental psychologist study age-related changes in behavior and development.Age itself causes nothing. So we need to look for the many factors that cause development to take place. The assumptions and ideas we have about human nature will affect how we rear our own children and how we interpret the findings from studies of children.‘Folk’ theories of development: ideas held about development that are not based upon scientific investigation.Often reflect the issues that psychologists investigate, with aim of putting our understanding on a firmer, more scientific footing.Defining development according to world viewsThe manner in which development is defined, and the areas of development that are of interest to individual researchers, will lead them to use different methods of studying development.Two paradigms:Organismic world viewThe idea that people are inherently active and continually interacting with the environment...

Developmental psychologyChapter 3The nature-nurture debate Precocial and altricial speciesPrecocial species: they young are physically mobile and able from the moment of birth or hatching.Altricial species: are helpless and do not have this capacity at birth.Nativism and empiricismNativism: the view that many skills or abilities are ‘native’ or hard wired into the brain at birth, the result of genetic inheritance.Empiricism: the view that humans are not born with built-in ‘core-knowledge’ or mental content and that all knowledge results form learning and experience. Cognition: mental activity.Mental age and intelligence quotient (IQ)Chronological age (CA): a person’s actual ageMental age (MA): an individual’s level of mental ability relative to others.Intelligence quotient (IQ): a measure of a person’s level of intelligence compared to a population of individuals of approximately the same age.Originally (MA/CA)100Intelligence testsFour important notes about IQ:The simple MA/CA100 is no longer usedThe average IQ given is always 100. tests are always standardized once a few years.Children’s and adult’s raw scores tend to increase from one generation to the next.The items on IQ tests invariably proceed from the simple to the complex, so that an individuals raw score is derived from the number of items passed before they make mistakes.What is intelligence, on ability or several?To a large extent how...

Developmental psychologyChapter 5Perception, knowledge and action in infancy Cognitive development: the development of behaviors that relate to perception, attention, thinking, remembering and problem-solving.Mental representation: an internal description of aspects of reality that persists in the absence of these aspects of reality.Traditionally a key aspect of the distinction between perception and cognition.But, its applicatoin to infancy has not been so productive as once seemed likely.Prior to gaining the ability to reflect on absent environments, infants have to learn how to perceive and act appropriately in their here-and-now environment.Right from birth, infants perceive the world in a sophisticated way, and in the early months they develop perceptual abilities that ‘fill in the gasp’ in perception so that invisible parts of objects are perceived, and that are temporarily hidden are treated as continuing in existence. Early limitations in vision; are they really a problem?Visual acuity: the ability to make fine discrimination between the elements in the visual array.Newborns’ vision is significantly poorer than that of older individuals.Visual acuity is probably around 1/30th the level of perfect adult acuity.Young infants have poor control over focusing the eyes (visual accommodation).These limitations are short lived, both acuity and accommodation improve rapidly during the...

Developmental psychologyChapter 9Cognitive development Epistemology: the study of the origins of knowledge and how we know what we know.Two important findings of Piaget:Children of the same age made similar errorsThese errors differed from those of older and younger childrenAccording to Piaget, everything that we know and understand is filtered through our current frame of reference. We construct new understandings of the world based on what we already know.Constructivist.Underlying structures and processesSchemesThe basic unit of understanding is a scheme.This is a cognitive structure that forms the basis of organizing actions and mental representations so that we can understand and act upon the environment.This makes up our frames of reference through which we filter new information. Everything we know starts with the schemes we are born with.Three of the basic schemes we are born with are reflexive actions that can be performed on objects: sucking, looking and grasping.As children grow older they begin to use schemes based on internal mental representations rather than using schemes based on physical activity.These schemes are operations.Processes: organization and adaptation Two innate processes to explain how children modify their schemes:OrganizationThe predisposition to group particular observations into coherent knowledge. It occurs both within and across stages of development.AdaptationComposed of two processes:Assimilation: incorporating the information into existing schemesAccommodation:...

Developmental psychologyChapter 11Acquiring a theory of mind Unlike other creatures, humans are able to marshal vast intellectual resources in an effort to connect with other people.In non-humans, social behavior might have a great deal to do with instinct.Early attunement to others’ mindsThe ability to connect with other minds is present early in development.Before long, the relationship is cemented when the baby shows a range of social responses.Intuitive psychology: the awareness some people have regarding other’s desires, motives and beliefs, they appear able to anticipate others’ reactions and behavior.Focusing on false beliefs: the unexpected transfer testIf we ask a participant to make judgments about another person’s true beliefs, they would respond correctly even in the absence of knowing anything about other minds.Unexpected transfer test: a measure of theory of mind in which a child sees an object put in one place and it is later moved to another location without the child being aware of it. The theory-of-mind question is ‘where will the child look for the object when they want to find it?’A reason for focusing on false beliefs is because it is important for children to be attuned to false as opposed to true beliefs. ...

Developmental psychologyChapter 15Moral reasoning Every discussion of the development of prosocial and antisocial behavior must cover the work of Piagent and Kohlberg.PiagetThe first to study in a systematic way the moral judgments of children.Piaget presented them with hypothetical moral dilemmas and then asked the children to make judgments.From responses to dilemmas and to queries concerning the rules of games, Piaget concluded that younger children’s moral judgment was governed by unilateral respect for adult and adults’ rules, with little understanding of reciprocity or the intentions of others.Young children children judge that the greater damage constitutes a larger moral violation, because the intentions will not be salient.With age children develop a morality of cooperation and social exchange.Children come to understand that intentions matter, that roles can be reversed, and that moral conflicts must be resolved through discussion and compromise with peers.Age 10.KohlbergMoral dilemmas to elicit moral reasoning.Five stages of judgment1. Heteronomous moralityChildren believe that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are determined by powerful adult figures.To act morally is to follow the rules laid down by authorities.Little consideration is given to the intentions or desires of individuals other than the self when making moral judgments.2. Instrumental moralityIndividuals become aware that other people have intentions and desires, and that there are two sides to every argument.This awareness influences moral judgment only when others’ desires affect the pursuit of one’s instrumental goals.3. Interpersonal normative moralityIndividuals in this stage seek to be...

Developmental psychologyChapter 18Educational implications Pedagogy: an aspect of theory or practice related to learning.Curriculum: the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. The effects of peer interaction Piaget’s interest in interaction was predominantly in the importance of interaction with the physical rather than interpersonal environment.In his earlier work, Piaget outlined a case for the importance of social interaction not only as a means to encourage learning, but also as a direct cause of development itself.The primary intellectual deficit of the preoperational child, is the child’s inability to decentre or take account of alternative perspectives on the world to their own. However, this egocentrism could be overcome by peer interaction.Peers provide the ideal potential source of sociocognitive conflict, the two may each hold opposing egocentric views on a situation.Through interaction with peers the child questions their own understanding, leading to a resolution of the conflict and a cognitive advantage.Working in pairs can promote performance on Piagetian tasksPeer facilitation effects: pairing of two children can have a positive impact on children’s later individual performance.Bad performing children benefit from interaction.Peer effects are persistentThe effects of paired interaction improve children’s performance are relatively long-lasting.The...

Developmental psychologyChapter 20Social problems in schools Social pressures in the classroomOne key factor is he process of social comparison whereby the child compares his or her performance with classmates.Comparison is usually upward, with students who perform better than themselves but who seem similar to them on a rage of related and unrelated attributes.Such comparison can raise the child’s level of academic performance but can also result in negative self-perceptions.Self-worth protection: the tendency of some students to reduce their levels of effort so that any subsequent poor academic performance will be attributed to low motivation rather than a lack of ability.Peer pressure to work, or not!An important social factor in school concerns pressure to work, or not to work, hard in class and on homework.There is a very different nature of peer pressure in Eastern and Western cultures.In eastern cultures, striving is typically seen as praiseworthy.Children in US and UK often discourage any overt display of academic engagement by their classmates. Academic success in itself is not necessarily problematic for acceptance. Effortless success is generally admired.As high stakes testing in many countries increasingly lead teachers, parents and students focus upon success on a variety of externally regulated tests and examinations, it is not surprising that student stress levels on relation to academic performance can often be high. Bullying is usually taken...

Which of the following statements about development in puberty is true?in girls, the first menstruation always occurs before the peak in height growth.in girls, puberty development is entirely controlled by estrogens ('estrogens') and in boys by androgens (androgens)the secondary sex characteristics develop after the primary sex characteristics.Girls reach their adult height rather than boys. A developmental psychologist carries out research into the development of aggression in children. She registers the same group of children at several moments and has chosen a research design in which she can both identify possible cohort effects and correct them in her analyzes. What is the design of this researcher?cross-sectional designcross-cultural designlongitudinal-sequential designmicrogenetic design Berk typifies developmental psychological theories as theories that view development as discontinuous or continuous. In which following combination of two developmental psychological theories is first called a discontinuous development theory and then a continuous development theory?Piaget's cognitive development theory - taking Selman's theory of perspectiveKohlberg's moral development theory - Bandura's social learning theoryTake Selman's theory of perspective - Erikon's theory of identity developmentSiegler's model of strategy choice - Kohlberg's theory of moral development Jorrin is 3 years old and is asked to arrange a group of 7 blocks from small to large. Completing this task requires __________ and Jorrin will probably _________ be able to complete the task.seriation; nottransitive inference;...