Psychology Chapter 1 Cross sectional Design Provides Information About Age

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UNDERSTANDING LIFE-SPAN

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading and studying the material in this chapter, the student should be able to

understand the following ideas/concepts.

1.1 HOW SHOULD WE THINK OF DEVELOPMENT?

• Define development, aging, and their relationship to each other.

position most developmental scientists today take.

1.2 WHAT IS THE SCIENCE OF LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT?

• Summarize the four goals of the science of life-span development and describe how the

1.3 HOW IS DEVELOPMENT STUDIED?

• Summarize the scientific method and the choices involved in selecting a sample and

1.4 WHAT SPECIAL CHALLENGES DO DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENTISTS FACE?

• Discuss the challenges in conducting culturally sensitive research.

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CHAPTER OUTLINE

I Introduction

II How Should We Think about Development?

A. Defining Development

1. Development involves systematic changes and continuities that occur between

conception and death

a. The systematic changes and continuities of interest to those who study human

2. Growth – physical changes that occurs from conception to maturity

3. Biological aging – deterioration of organisms (including humans) that leads

inevitably to their death

4. Aging – as developmental scientists define it, involves more than biological

B. Conceptualizing the Lifespan

1. Periods of the lifespan

a. Prenatal period

b. Infancy

2. Age grade – is assigned to different statuses, roles, privileges, and responsibilities

3. Legal definitions of the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood vary by

country and even by state

4. Cultural Differences

a. Kung define old in terms of functioning, not age

5. Subcultural Differences

a. Society is diverse with respect to race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status

6. Historical Changes: Meaning of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood change

with historic period

a. In Western society, during the seventeenth century, children came to be

viewed as distinct from adults

b. In medieval times, children were expected to grow up as fast as possible

c. Adolescence was recognized as a separate period in the late nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries

d. The need for an educated workforce and compulsory schooling helped to lead

B. Framing the Nature/Nurture Issue

1. Nature

a. Maturation (nature) – biological unfolding of plan contained in genes

2. Nurture

a. Environment (nurture) – external physical and social conditions, stimuli, and

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experiential influences)

3. The Interplay of Nature and Nurture

Checking Mastery

1. How does the concept of aging differ from the concept of biological

aging?

➢ Answer: Whereas biological aging refers to the biological

deterioration of the organism leading to death, aging refers to

II What is the Science of Lifespan Human Development?

A. Goals and Uses of Studying Development

1. The goals of studying development are:

a. Describing development: normal development and individual difference or

2. Optimization of human development

a. How can humans be helped to develop in a positive direction (i.e., how can

capacities be enhanced?)?

3. Evidence-based practice means grounding research, curricula, and treatment in

practices that have been demonstrated to be effective

B. Early Beginnings

1. Late nineteenth-century scholars who observed and recorded the development of

their own children in “baby biographies”

a. Charles Darwin perhaps the most influential baby biographer

i. Darwin believed that infants share characteristics with nonhuman

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2. G. Stanley Hall

a. Greatly influenced by Darwin

b. Cited as founder of developmental psychology

1. Gerontology – study of aging and old age

2. Lifespan perspective – focus on infancy through old age

3. Key text themes (Baltes’s life-span development)

a. Development is a lifelong process

b. Development is multidirectional (different aspects of functioning have

different trajectories of change)

c. Development involves both gain and loss

Checking Mastery

1. Focusing on the development over childhood of self-esteem, state a

research question that illustrates each of four main goals of the study of

life-span development.

➢ Answer: Description: What do children say about their sense of

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2. Which three of the seven assumptions in Baltes’s life-span perspective

concern the nature–nurture issue?

➢ Answer: Life-span perspective assumptions 4 (plasticity is about

III How Is Development Studied?

A. The Scientific Method

1. Scientific method – is a method and an attitude of systematic observation (or data)

a. Believe the data, which is the findings of the research

b. Helps to weed out flawed ideas

B. Sample Selection

1. Research sample – group of individuals being studied

2. Population – well defined group from which sample is drawn and about which

researchers want to draw conclusions

3. Random sample – a sample formed by identifying all members of a larger

population, by random means, selecting a portion of the population to be studied

1. Verbal reports

a. Often standardized interviews, questionnaires, surveys, ability and

achievement tests, and personality scales

d. Respondents may falsely present themselves in positive manner

2. Behavioral observations

a. Naturalistic observation – behaviors observed in everyday life

i. Greatest advantage is it is the only technique that can reveal what children

and adults do in everyday life

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3. Physiological measures

a. Assess physiological responses (e.g., hormone levels, heart rate, or other

indicators of arousal) to assess emotions

approaches to studying anger and aggression)

D. The Case Study, Experimental, and Correlational Methods

1. The case study

a. In-depth examination of an individual (or small group)

2. The experimental method (Judy DeLoache and colleagues 2010 study on the

effects of watching videos or DVDs on infants used as an example)

a. Independent variable – manipulated by experimenter (DeLoache et al. study,

type of training babies received)

b. Dependent variable – behavior affected by independent variable (DeLoache’s

study, vocabulary learning)

3. The correlational method (generally involves determining whether two or more

variables are related in a systematic way)

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1.0

ii. High positive (+) correlation indicates the variables vary together in same

direction (e.g., +0.9)

iii. High negative (-) correlation indicates the variables vary together in

opposite direction (e.g., -0.9)

iv. Correlation near 0 indicates no relationship between variables

c. Alternative explanation to negative correlation between language

development and video viewing

E. Developmental Research Designs

1. Cross-sectional designs

a. Cross-sectional designs study different age groups (cohorts) measured at same

time

i.Cohort is a group of individuals born at the same time (either the same

year or within a span of years)

b. Cross-sectional design – provides information about age differences

i. Quick and easy

2. Longitudinal design – studies same group (cohort) measured repeatedly over time

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a. Longitudinal design provides information on age changes versus age

differences and the direction or path of change

b. Limitations of longitudinal designs

i. Time of measurement effects – historical events and trends’ effects on

3. Sequential design: the best of both worlds

a. Sequential designs combine cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches

b. Advantages of sequential designs

i. Can identify age-related trends regardless of cohort

Checking Mastery

1. Design an experiment to determine whether listening to music while

studying a chapter helps or hurts performance on a test on the chapter

material compared to studying the chapter in silence. Make it clear that

your experiment has the key features of an experiment and label the

independent and dependent variables.

➢ Answer: In this experiment, students would be randomly assigned

2. You conduct a longitudinal study of development of self-esteem in college

students from age 18 to age 22. What would you be able to learn that you

could not learn by conducting a cross-sectional study of the same topic?

➢ Answer: In a longitudinal study as opposed to cross-sectional

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IV. What Special Challenges Do Developmental Scientists Face?

A. Conducting Culturally-Sensitive Research: Henrich and colleagues describe

psychology as the study of WEIRD people (people living in societies that are

Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic)

1. Ecological setting can influence development

a. Must study individuals from different subcultures and cultures

b. Researcher must keep own cultural values from biasing perceptions

B. Protect the Rights of Research Participants

1. Research ethics – standards of research conduct that researchers are ethically

2. Ethical guidelines established by different groups

3. Investigator’s ethical responsibilities

a. Weigh potential benefit and potential risk

b. Respect rights of participants by

i. Allowing participant to freely give informed and uncoerced consent about

taking part in the study

d. Debriefing

i. Tell participants about the study afterward if they are not told everything

in advance or are deceived

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ii. Explain the true purpose of the study

iii. Obligation to make sure that participants do not leave feeling upset

e. Protection from harm

Checking Mastery

1. How many of the characteristics of WEIRD people do you have?

2. A researcher deceives research participants into thinking they are in a

study of learning when the real purpose is to determine whether they are

willing to inflict harm on people who make learning errors if told to do so

by an authority figure. What ethical responsibilities does this researcher

have? (Yes, this about the famous obedience research conducted by Stanley

Milgram, featured in the recent film The Experimenter.)

➢ Answer: The researcher must debrief the participants afterward

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSIONS OR PROJECTS

To develop critical thinking skills and enhance student learning with exercises that support the

course learning objectives.

1. Eight Life Stages: To introduce the issue of a “lifespan” current perspective on developmental

psychology and to illustrate that there are different views of the lifespan, students might be asked

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2. Modern Lifespan Perspective: This exercise assists students in understanding the six

components that define human development: life-long, multi-dimensional, multi-directional,

3. Developmental Research Design: Have students design a study to test a research question

such as one of those listed below. Ask them to identify the specific independent and dependent

4. Obtaining a Sample Group: A major hurdle in conducting research is obtaining a

representative sample. Discuss or have students brainstorm ways to obtain study participants of

different ages and abilities—perhaps specifically for the studies they designed in Exercise 4,

5. Obtaining Informed Consent: Another important research issue is that of informed consent.

Discuss or hand out American Psychological Association (APA) or Society for Research in

Child Development (SRCD) guidelines (available on their website) for use of humans in

6. Ethical Treatment in Research: Present students with the following fictitious “research

abstract”:

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A first-grade teacher is informed that all of her students would have to participate in a

study designed to assess the relationship between punishment and learning. Class

members were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (high

7. Special Interests, Stereotypes, and Social Solutions: Have the student identify a specific issue

or social concern related to stereotypes that may affect development. This exercise is meant to

increase awareness on special issues and stereotypes related to human development, and the