CHAPTER 1
BASIC CONCEPTS AND METHODS
RESOURCES-AT-A-GLANCE
Detailed Outline
Learning
Objectives
Instructor’s Resources
Test Bank
MyPsychLab Connection
Chapter Introduction pp. 1-2
PowerPoint Slides
1-4
Sketchnote Video
Introduction to the Lifespan
An Introduction to Human
Development pp. 2-6
Philosophical and Scientific Roots
The Lifespan Perspective
The Domains and Periods
of Development
1.1
1.2
1.3
Lecture Enhancer
Non-Western Philosophical
Views of Development
PowerPoint Slides
5-17
MC 1-24
FI 79–83
SA 94-97
ES 109–112
Nature versus Nurture
Continuity versus Discontinuity
Three Kinds of Change
Contexts of Development
1.4
1.5
1.6
SA 98-104
ES 113–114
Key Issues in the Study of Human
Development pp. 6-10
PowerPoint Slides
18–27
MC 25-44
FI 84–87
Designs for Studying Age-Related
Cross-Cultural Research
Research Ethics
1.12
1.13
Before Informed Consent: Robert
Gutherie, p. 18
Research Methods and Designs
pp. 11-19
The Goals of Developmental
Science
Descriptive Methods
The Experimental Method
1.8
1.9
1.10
1.11
Lecture Enhancer
The Difference Between
an Experiment and a
Correlation
PowerPoint Slides
MC 45-78
FI 88–93
SA 105-108
ES 115–118
Explore
Correlations Do Not Show
Causation,
p. 13
Simulate
Distinguishing Independent
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
The goal of scientists who study human development is to produce observations and explanations that can
be applied to as wide an age range of human beings and contexts as possible. To accomplish this goal,
they study both change and stability. Additionally, they study cultural expectations; make predictions
about development and use scientific methods to test them; and hope their findings can be used to
positively influence development in individuals.
The philosophical concepts of original sin, innate goodness, and the blank slate have influenced Western
ideas about development. The concept of developmental stages comes, in part, from Darwin’s
evolutionary theory. G. Stanley Hall identified norms at which developmental milestones happen. Gesell
focused on genetically programmed sequential patterns of change. Important changes occur during every
unshared events. The context in which the child is growing is impacted by the factors such as the family,
the neighborhood, and the larger society.
Developmental psychology uses the scientific method to achieve its goals: to describe, explain, predict,
and influence human development from conception to death. Descriptive research methods are used to
study the relationship between variables. Case studies are in-depth examinations of single individuals.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS
After completing Chapter 1, students should be able to answer the following questions:
1.1 What ideas about development were proposed by early philosophers and scientists?
1.2 What is the lifespan perspective?
1.3 What major domains and periods do developmental scientists use to organize their discussions of
the human lifespan?
1.4 How do developmentalists view the two sides of the nature–nurture debate?
1.5 What is the continuity–discontinuity debate?
1.6 How do the three kinds of age-related change differ?
1.7 How does consideration of the contexts in which change occurs improve scientists’ understanding
of human development?
KEY TERMS
ageism (p. 8)
physical domain (p. 4)
atypical development (p. 9)
population (p. 13)
case study (p. 12)
qualitative change (p. 7)
cognitive domain (p. 5)
quantitative change (p. 7)
cohort effects (p. 15)
representative sample (p. 13)
control group (p. 14)
research ethics (p. 17)
correlation (p. 13)
sample (p. 13)
critical period (p. 8)
sensitive period (p. 8)
cross-sectional design (p. 15)
sequential design (p. 15)
dependent variable (p. 14)
social clock (p. 8)
ethnography (p. 17)
social domain (p. 5)
experiment (p. 14)
stages (p. 7)
experimental group (p. 14)
survey (p. 13)
INTEGRATED CHAPTER TEACHING NOTES
AN INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN DEVELOPMENT (pp. 2-6)
Human development is the scientific study of age-related changes in behavior, thinking, emotion, and
personality. Many Western beliefs about human development are based on philosophers’ explanations for
differences they observed in individuals of different ages.
Philosophical and Scientific Roots
LO 1.1 What ideas about development were proposed by early philosophers and scientists?
Original Sin, the Blank Slate, and Innate Goodness
The Christian doctrine of original sin, often attributed to fourth-century philosopher St. Augustine, taught
that all humans are born with a selfish nature. To reduce the influence of this inborn tendency toward
Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed that all humans have innate goodness, and all humans
are naturally good and seek out experiences that help them grow. The goal of human development is to
achieve one’s inborn potential. Good outcomes result from growing up in an environment that doesn’t
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.1, p. 3)
How might a parent who believes in the original sin view respond to and interact with a child differently
than one who agrees with Rousseau about innate goodness? How might the approaches of each of these
parents differ from a parent who believes in Locke’s blank slate idea?
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.1, p. 3)
Other cultures and religions have different ways of viewing the process of development. How do the
original sin, innate goodness, and blank slate views compare to your own beliefs? How do you think your
own culture and religion have contributed to these beliefs?
Early Scientific Theories
In the nineteenth century, people turned to science for explanations about human development.
▪ Charles Darwin and other evolutionists believed they could understand the development of the human
species by studying child development. They kept detailed records of their own children’s early
▪ Arnold Gesell suggested the existence of genetically programmed sequential patterns of change,
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.1, pp. 3-4)
How might norm-referenced tests help educators to find ways to assist children whose development lags
behind that of others their age? How might it help these children develop their potential for learning
important skills, such as reading, before they reach school age?
The Lifespan Perspective
LO 1.2 What is the lifespan perspective?
Until quite recently, psychologists thought of adulthood as a long period of stability followed by a short
span of unstable years immediately preceding death. Views have changed for the following reasons:
▪ It has become more common for adults to go through major life changes, like divorce and career
The changes listed above have led to the adoption of a lifespan perspective. It maintains that important
changes occur during every period of development and that these changes must be understood in the
cultures and contexts in which they occur. This new perspective emphasizes these key elements:
Domains and Periods of Development
LO 1.3 What major domains and periods do developmental scientists use to organize their discussions of
the human lifespan?
Scientists who study age-related changes across the lifespan often use three broad categories, called
domains of development, to classify these changes.
▪ The physical domain includes changes in the size, shape, and characteristics of the body.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.3, pp. 4-5)
Give examples of how the three domains interact in development.
In addition to categorizing developmental events according to domains, developmental scientists also use
a system of age-related categories that are known as periods of development.
▪ The prenatal period is the only one that has clearly defined biological boundaries at its beginning and
end in that it begins at conception and ends at birth.
▪ Infancy begins at birth and ends when a child begins to use language to communicate.
▪ Early childhood begins when children reach the milestone of beginning to use language.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.3, p. 5)
Give examples of variations in periods of development.
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objectives 1.1-1.3, p. 6)
What are the child-rearing implications of the original-sin, blank-slate, and innate-goodness views of
development?
KEY ISSUES IN THE STUDY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT (pp. 6-10)
There are several key issues that cut across all of the domains and period of development, such as the
Nature versus Nurture
LO 1.4 How do developmentalists view the two sides of the nature–nurture debate?
Continuity versus Discontinuity
LO 1.5 What is the continuity–discontinuity debate?
Another key issue in the study of human development is the continuity–discontinuity issue. The question
is whether age-related change is primarily a matter of amount or degree (the continuity side of the
Three Kinds of Change
LO 1.6 How do the three kinds of age-related change differ?
Age-related changes are a part of our everyday lives, so much so that we often give them little thought.
Generally, developmental scientists think of each age-related change as representing one of three
categories.
Normative age-graded changes are universal. Universal changes are common to every individual in a
species and are linked to specific ages. Some universal changes happen because we are all biological
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.6, p. 8)
Ask the class to list examples of events that could shape a cohort.
Nonnormative changes result from unique, unshared events.
▪ One clearly non-shared event is conception; the combination of genes each individual receives at
conception is unique.
▪ Characteristics influenced by both heredity and environment, such traits as intelligence and
personality, constitute another class of individual differences.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.6, p. 8)
Give examples of events that would be influenced by being on-time or off-time.
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 1.6, p. 9)
Research Report: An Example of a Cohort Effect: Children and Adolescents in the Great
Depression
Speculate as to some of the possible causes of the different cohort effects in the two groups.
Contexts of Development
LO 1.7 How does consideration of the contexts in which change occurs improve scientists’ understanding
of human development?
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.7, pp. 9-10)
Give examples of how these contexts interact with one another.
When considering the contexts, we have to keep in mind that all of the various contexts interact with each
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.7, pp. 9-10)
Give examples of vulnerabilities and resiliencies.
The characteristics of the larger society in which a child’s family and neighborhood are embedded need to
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.7, p. 10)
Give examples of how culture affects development.
Another aspect of the context within which an individual’s development occurs involves gender. Males
and females experience the interaction between their characteristics and their environment differently.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.7, p. 10)
Give examples of the gender differences in the interaction between an individual’s characteristics and his
or her environment.
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objective 1.7, p.10)
How do your culture’s behavioral expectations for 20-year-olds, 40-year-olds, and 60-year-olds differ?
RESEARCH METHODS AND DESIGNS (pp. 11-19)
MyPsychLab Connections
Explore: Correlations Do Not Show Causation, p. 13
Simulate: Distinguishing Independent and Dependent Variables, p. 14
Simulate: Ethics in Psychological Research, p. 17
Watch: Before Informed Consent: Robert Gutherie, p. 18
The Goals of Developmental Science
LO 1.8 What are the goals of scientists who study human development?
Developmental psychology uses the scientific method to achieve the following four goals to study human
development from conception to death:
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 1.8, p. 12)
No Easy Answers: It Depends . . .
In groups, ask the class to describe a scenario in which someone might want to predict the long-term
outcome, such as the incidence of child abuse mentioned in the text. Each group should then list as many
variables as possible that could influence the outcome. Report each group’s ideas to the whole class.
Descriptive Methods
LO 1.9 What descriptive methods do developmental scientists use?
Naturalistic Observation
When psychologists use the naturalistic observation method, they observe people in their normal
Case Studies
Case studies are in-depth examinations of single individuals. Case studies don’t tell us if the findings
Lecture Launcher (Learning Objective 1.9, p. 12)
Give examples of studies that use case studies.
Laboratory Observation
Laboratory observation differs from naturalistic observation in that the researcher exerts some degree of
control over the environment.
Surveys
A survey is a study in which researchers use interviews and/or questionnaires to collect data about
attitudes, interests, values, and various kinds of behaviors. Surveys allow researchers to quickly gather
information, and they can track changes over time.
The value of any survey depends entirely on how representative the sample of participants is of the
researcher’s population of interest. A population is the entire group about which the researcher is
Correlations
A correlation is a number ranging from –1.00 to +1.00 that describes the strength of a relationship
between two variables. A correlation of zero indicates that there is no relationship between those
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 1.9, p. 14)
Developmental Science at Home: Correlation versus Causation
Provide the class with examples of correlational studies that would be unethical to perform as
experimental research. In groups, ask the class to give additional examples to clarify the differences
between correlational research and experimental research.
The Experimental Method
LO 1.10 What is the primary advantage of the experimental method?
An experiment is a study that tests a causal hypothesis—something causes something to happen. A key
feature of an experiment is that subjects are assigned randomly to participate in one of several groups—
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.10, p. 14)
Suppose you want to see if children who watch violence on TV are more aggressive than children who do
not watch violent TV. Identify the following parts of the experiment: independent variable, dependent
variable, experimental group, and control group.
Experiments are essential for our understanding of many aspects of development, but two special
problems in studying human development limit the use of experiments.
▪ Many of the questions we want to answer have to do with the effects of particularly unpleasant or
stressful experiments on individuals, such as abuses, prenatal influences such as alcohol or tobacco,
low birth weight, poverty, unemployment, or widowhood. For obvious ethical reasons, we cannot
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.10, p. 14)
Ask the class to give examples of how research on each of the variables listed above could be done
without using an experiment. Tie the discussion to correlations.
▪ The independent variable we are often most interested in is age itself, and we cannot assign subjects
randomly to age groups. We can compare 4-year-olds with 4-year-olds on a particular task, but the
children differ in a host of ways other than their ages.
Thus, unlike psychologists studying other aspects of behavior, developmental psychologists cannot
systematically manipulate many of the variables we are most interested in. To get around this problem,
Designs for Studying Age-Related Changes
LO 1.11 What are the pros and cons of cross-sectional, longitudinal, and sequential research
designs?
In addition to deciding which method to use, developmental scientists must also determine how to
Cross-Sectional Designs
To study cross-sectionally, groups of subjects are selected at each of a series of ages. The results may
seem to indicate that there are major changes based on age. Cross-sectional data alone cannot be used to
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.11, p. 15)
Suppose a cross-sectional study of sex-role attitudes reveals that adults between ages 20 and 50 have the
most egalitarian attitudes, while teenagers and adults over 50 have more traditional attitudes. How might
cohort differences influence your interpretation of these results?
Longitudinal Designs
Longitudinal designs seem to solve the problems of cross-sectional research because they follow the same
individual over a period of time. Each study of the same individuals allows us to look at sequences of
change and at individual consistency or inconsistency over time. Because they compare performances by
the same people at different ages, they get around the obvious cohort problem.
Longitudinal designs, however, have several major difficulties. One problem is that longitudinal designs
typically involve giving each subject the same test over and over again. Over time, people learn how to
Sequential Designs
One way to avoid the shortcomings of both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs is to use a sequential
design. A researcher using a sequential design would begin with at least two age groups. Investigators
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.11, pp. 16-17)
Using the previous example about children who watch violence on TV and their levels of aggression,
how would you design the study as cross-sectional research? Longitudinal research? Sequential
research?
Cross-Cultural Research
LO 1.12 Why is cross-cultural research important to the study of human development?
Increasingly common in developmental psychology are studies comparing cultures or contexts, a task that
researchers approach in several ways.
▪ One strategy, borrowed from the field of anthropology, is an ethnography, a detailed description of a
Cross-cultural research is important to developmental psychology for the following two reasons:
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 1.12, p. 17)
Give examples of research that could use cross-cultural design.
Research Ethics
LO 1.13 What are the ethical standards that developmental researchers must follow?
Research ethics are the guidelines researchers follow to protect the rights of animals and humans who
participate in studies. Ethical guidelines are published by professional organizations like the American
Psychological Association, American Educational Research Association, and Society for Research in
Child Development. Guidelines for animal research include the requirement that animals be protected
from unnecessary pain and suffering. Further, researchers must demonstrate that the potential benefits of
their studies to either human or animal populations must be greater than any potential harm to animal
subjects. Ethical standards for research involving human subjects contain five major themes.
▪ Protection from Harm: It is unethical to do research that may cause permanent physical or
psychological harm to subjects. If the possibility of temporary harm exists, researchers must provide
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objectives 1.8-1.13, pp. 11-19)
Researchers have found a positive correlation between a mother’s age at the birth of her child and the
child’s later IQ. Very young mothers have children of lower IQs. How many different explanations of
this correlation can you think of?
Suppose a cross-sectional study of sex-role attitudes reveals that adults between the ages of 20 and 50
have the most egalitarian attitudes, while teenagers and adults over 50 have more traditional attitudes.
How might cohort differences influence your interpretation of these results?
LECTURE ENHANCERS
Non-Western Philosophical Views of Development
As the text points out, the original sin, innate goodness, and blank slate views of development are
associated with Western culture. Understanding how philosophical perspectives in other cultures differ
from them is important to understanding why parenting and educational practices often vary across
cultures. When we examine philosophies of development across cultures, we find both similarities to and
differences from these three points of view. For example, Judaism agrees with Rousseau that children are
naturally good but in need of training from adults, as in Locke’s blank slate approach.
The notion of development as a struggle, like the original sin view, is present in both Hinduism and
Buddhism, systems of thought that are common in India and some other parts of Asia (Ozman & Craver,
The Difference Between an Experiment and a Correlation
Many times researchers are confronted with information that does not come from experimental data.
Instead, the correlational method is used. The information illustrates a relationship between two events
and the degree to which the occurrence of those events is meaningful. The correlation is a statistical
technique for measuring the degree of relationship between two events or variables.
For example, a town discovers a significant correlation between the amount of ice cream bought and the
number of violent crimes. The newspaper splashes the front page with the following headline, “Ice
Cream Consumption Increases Violence.” What assumption has this article made? Primarily, that the
link between ice cream and violence is clear. Secondly, this article assumes that there is no other possible
explanation for the relationship and that there is no other unknown factor that could explain the
occurrence of both increased ice cream consumption and violent crimes. Many questions would need to
be asked and answered to truly reach the conclusion this headline has reached. These questions include:
▪ How is violence being defined?
▪ Are we sure that the same people who bought the ice cream are the ones who committed the
violence?
▪ What other factors may be linked to both?
Clearly, alternative explanations exist. Most notably, it is possible that the data was collected during the
summer, and that the true culprit in the increasing violence is the outside temperature and not the amount
of ice cream being purchased. Research shows a very clear connection between temperature and
violence. In this case, the apparent relationship between ice cream and violence is a false one.
Assumptions of causality can only be made to the extent that the experimental method has been utilized.
For example, a scientist conducts the following experiment:
▪ Half of the subjects are assigned to a condition of eating ice cream, and the other half of the subjects
This example illustrates the difference between the experimental method and the correlational method. In
the experimental method, the experimenter has control and manipulates what happens to the groups. If all
All of the elements of a successful experiment were present in the shock example:
▪ An experimental group is defined as the group that gets the manipulation of interest.
▪ A control group is defined as the group that is as similar as possible to the experimental group except
Clearly, correlational data do not include these components. They merely describe the degree to which
two events occur together. The variables are not systematically manipulated variables to differences.
There is nothing wrong with correlational data, but no assumptions can be made about what caused the
variables to be related.
INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES
Media
▪ MyPsychLab—MyPsychLab contains a variety of engaging activities and assessments that aid in
teaching and learning, including the following tools:
o Writing Space. A single place to create, track, and grade writing assignments, provide writing
resources, and exchange meaningful, personalized feedback with students quickly and easily. For
Fall 2014 courses, Writing Space for the 7th edition will contain new auto-graded writing
▪ MyPsychLab Connections
o Explore: Correlations Do Not Show Causation, p. 13