PSY240: Lifespan Development

To examine the effectiveness of two types of interventions for depression, researchers randomly assigned participants to a 12-week course of cognitive-behavioral therapy, a 12-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program, or a waitlist control group. In this experiment, what is the dependent variable?

Depression

Childcare practices differ across cultures, and different practices have been found to influence when and how children reach certain developmental milestones, such as sitting, crawling, and walking. Which approach to human development is conveyed by this finding?

Development can follow a different course for each child.

A talk show host likes to interview guests who thought their course in life was set and determined by challenges they experienced as children and teens, but who later encountered situations and opportunities that transformed their lives into something they could not have envisioned earlier in life. This talk show host's approach is aligned with Baltes' key principle of lifespan development that ________.

Development is lifelong

While most human development theorists and researchers have focused on infancy and childhood, and some on adolescence, others have explored development over the course of one's entire life, which aligns with Baltes' key principle of lifespan development that ________. Responses

Development is lifelong

According to Baltes' lifespan perspective, what is true about development?

Development is plastic

You are interested in finding out if life satisfaction changes with age. You send a survey to individuals who are 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, and 85 years old in 2019 and compare their life satisfaction ratings. From what you've learned about developmental research designs:

Differences found could be due to age or cohort effects. (this is cross-sectional)

For funding purposes, research is done to assess the effectiveness of Head Start (preschool) programs on children's academic achievements. This type of research is:

Evaluation

As a scientific researcher, you want to find out when children learn to read. Based on what you've learned about the scientific method:

Ideally you should study a random sample of children.

Let's suppose that developmental researchers found a correlation coefficient of r = +.85 between how often parents read to their young children and the size of children's vocabulary. What conclusion could you accurately make from this information?

Parents reading to their young children often tends to be related to children having a large vocabulary

Eight Stages

Prenatal Development Infancy and Toddlerhood Early Childhood Middle Childhood Adolescence Early Adulthood Middle Adulthood Late Adulthood

Research indicates that family education, income, and occupation strongly influence the academic achievement gap across racial/ethnic groups. Which contextual influence on development does this exemplify?

Socioeconomic status

Which statement best illustrates a negative correlation between the number of hours spent watching TV the week before an exam and the grade on that exam?

Students who watch more television perform more poorly on their exams.

Researchers are interested in whether a new tutoring program can improve students' scores on math tests. All students were given math tests at the beginning. Then half of the students were randomly assigned to a group and given the new tutoring program; the other half were randomly assigned to another group and did not receive any tutoring. All students were given math tests again. Which of the following statements is true?

The assignment (or lack of assignment) to the new tutoring program is the independent variable

control group

a comparison group that is equivalent to the experimental group, but is not given the independent variable

cohort

a group of people who are born at roughly the same period in a particular society. Cohorts share histories and contexts for living

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

a panel of experts who review research proposals for any research to be conducted in association with the institution (for example, a university)

scatterplot

a plot or mathematical diagram consisting of data points that represent two variables

informed consent

a process of informing a research participant what to expect during a study, any risks involved, and the implications of the research, and then obtaining the person's agreement to participate

double-blind

a research design in which neither the participants nor the researchers know whether an individual is assigned to the experimental group or the control group

observational studies

also called naturalistic observation, involves watching and recording the actions of participants

lifespan perspective

an approach to studying development which emphasizes that development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, contextual, and multidisciplinary

secondary content analysis

archival research, involves analyzing information that has already been collected or examining documents or media to uncover attitudes, practices or preferences

Height and weight are positively correlated. This means that ________.

as height increases, typically weight increases

survey

asking a standard set of questions to a group of subjects

Normative age-graded influences

biological and environmental factors that have a strong correlation with chronological age

Nature influence

biology and genetics effect behavior

Culture

blueprint or guideline shared by a group of people that specifies how to live; passed down from generation to generation; learned from parents and others

selective attrition

certain groups of individuals may tend to drop out more frequently resulting in the remaining participants no longer being representative of the whole population

sequential research design

combines aspects of cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, but also adding new cohorts at different times of measurement; allows for analyses to consider effects of age, cohort, time of measurement, and socio-historical change

operationalized

concepts transformed into variables that can be measured in research

Dr. Thompson uses observation and surveys to study how much time children spend playing outside. The objective of this research is to

describe the occurrence of time spent playing outside.

In order to minimize attrition in studies with infants and children, researchers are advised to ________.

design the study to be as short as possible

experiments

designed to test hypotheses in a controlled setting in efforts to explain how certain factors or events produce outcomes; the only research method that measures cause and effect relationships between variables

A group of friends gets together and their conversation revolves around love and work: relationships, planning for future marriage and children, finishing formal education and establishing their careers, developing independence, and feeling like an adult.

early adulthood

Nurture influence

environmental, social, and cultural effects on behavior

case study

exploring a single case or situation in great detail. Information may be gathered with the use of observation, interviews, testing, or other methods to uncover as much as possible about a person or situation

variables

factors that change in value

A researcher wants to know as much as possible about Mr. Jackson, who is a middle-aged adult with extraordinary memory abilities. Various tests, interviews, and other methods are used to gather in-depth data about Mr. Jackson and his memory. From what you have learned about research methods, ________.

findings about Mr. Jackson may not be generalizable to other people

Prenatal

germinal, embryonic, and fetal periods

Hawthorne effect

individuals tend to change their behavior when they know they are being watched

Normative history-graded influences

influences associated with a specific time period that define the broader bio-cultural context in which an individual develops

Psychosocial development

involves emotions, personality, and social relationships

Physical development

involves growth and changes in the body and brain, the senses, motor skills, and health and wellness

Cognitive development

involves learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity

content analysis

involves looking at media such as old texts, pictures, commercials, lyrics or other materials to explore patterns or themes in culture

quantitative research

involves numerical data that are quantified using statistics to understand and report what has been studied

The correlation coefficient indicates the weakest relationship when ________.

it is closest to 0 (-/+1 is the strongest it can get; the closer to 0, the weaker it is)

Development is...

lifelong multidimensional (involves the dynamic interaction of factors like physical, emotional, and psychosocial development) multidirectional (gains and losses) plastic (characteristics are malleable or changeable) contextual (socio-cultural influences) multidisciplinary

Andrea's brain has recently reached its adult size, though it continues to develop; her body's growth has slowed down for now, and her motor skills are more coordinated. She is busy with learning and testing in school; her friendships with other girls are especially important. Considering all of this information, Andrea is probably in this period of human development:

middle childhood

Michael's grandfather was teaching Michael how to drive a car. At first, Michael was frustrated because his grandfather's reactions and driving were rather slow; his grandfather explained that while he's not as fast as he used to be, he is more careful in his driving in later life. When Michael followed his grandfather's example and avoided hitting another car due to his cautious driving, he appreciated his grandfather's slow, but careful driving. This difference in ability involving the loss of speed but gain of caution best illustrates Baltes' principle that development is:

multidirectional

Iminathi and all of her siblings are being raised by their grandmother (with few resources) because both of their parents have died from complications of AIDS. This is very common in recent years in South Africa, as many adults have died due to the AIDS/HIV epidemic, leaving their children to be raised by grandparents. According to Baltes' contextual paradigm, this best exemplifies:

normative history-graded influence

correlation coefficient

number from -1 to +1, indicating the strength and direction of the relationship between variables, and usually represented by r

attrition

occurs when participants fail to complete all portions of a study

A pediatrician provides parents with a chart that plots changes in their child's height and weight over time. This growth chart represents a ________ in human development.

physical domain

Jesse recently started elementary school and is forming new relationships with other children and the teacher. Social comparisons with schoolmates begin to influence Jesse's self-esteem. The changes described here best illustrate Jesse's development in the ________ domain of human development.

psychosocial

Nonnormative influences

random events that are important to an individual but do not happen to most people; unpredictable influences not tied to a certain developmental time, personally or historical period

evaluation research

research designed to assess the effectiveness of policies or programs

descriptive studies

research focused on describing an occurrence

correlational research

research that formally tests whether a relationship exists between two or more variables, however, correlation does not imply causation.

experimental research

research that involves randomly assigning people to different conditions and using hypothesis testing to make inferences about how these conditions affect behavior; the only method that measures cause and effect between variables

explanatory studies

research that tries to answer the question "why"

The National Institutes of Health released a large dataset from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, or the ABCD Study. Now researchers from around the world have access to this data and can conduct ________ on various factors related to brain, cognitive, social, and emotional development.

secondary content analysis

independent variable

something that is manipulated or introduced by the researcher to the experimental group; treatment or intervention

hypotheses

specific statements or predictions about the relationship between variables

Which of the following correlation coefficients indicates the strongest relationship between two variables?

-.90 (the strength of the correlation has nothing to do with whether its positive or negative -- the strength is all about how far away from zero the correlation is.)

Infancy and toddlerhood

1.5-2 years; dramatic growth

Adolescence

12-18 years (timing may vary by gender, cohort, and culture); puberty and abstract concepts (sense of invincibility)

Early childhood

2-5/6 years (preschool years); learning language, is gaining a sense of self and greater independence, and is beginning to learn the workings of the physical world

Early adulthood

20-40 years; physiological peak; love and work are the primary concerns at this stage of life

Middle adulthood

40-65 years; physiological aging that began earlier becomes more noticeable and a period at which many people are at their peak of productivity in love and work; may also be questioning their own mortality, goals, and commitments, though not necessarily experiencing a "mid-life crisis."

Middle childhood

6-11 years; brain reaches adult size around 7; but continues to develop; growth slows down to refine motor skills; learning social relationships and testing academic skills (comparison)

Late adulthood

65 years and older

longitudinal research

studying a group of people who may be of the same age and background (cohort), and measuring them repeatedly over a long period of time; may confound age and time of measurement effects

Jaime is a graduate student who will be conducting research on infants and emotions for her master's degree. Jaime and her graduate school advisor have developed the plan for her research and her advisor reminds Jaime that the first thing she needs to do is to: Responses

submit her proposal for review and approval by the Institutional Review Board at the university.

experimental group

the group of participants in an experiment who receive the independent variable

If cross-cultural research reveals that certain aspects of childhood physical development are the same and happen at the same ages in different countries, this would most likely be evidence for:

the influence of nature on human development

dependent variable

the outcome or variable that is supposedly affected by the independent variable

Human development

the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development of humans throughout the lifespan

correlation

the relationship between two or more variables; when two variables are correlated, one variable changes as the other does

research design

the strategy or blueprint for deciding how to collect and analyze information; dictates which methods are used and how

qualitative research

theoretical ideas are "grounded" in the experiences of the participants, who answer open-ended questions

negative correlation

two variables change in different directions, with one becoming larger as the other becomes smaller; a negative correlation is not the same thing as no correlation

positive correlation

two variables change in the same direction, both becoming either larger or smaller

cross-sectional research

used to examine behavior in participants of different ages who are tested at the same point in time; may confound age and cohort differences

Continuous development

view that development is a cumulative process: gradually improving on existing skills

Discontinuous development

view that development takes place in unique stages, which happen at specific times or ages

validity

when something yields accurate results

reliability

when something yields consistent results

In a study of children, let's suppose that researchers found a positive correlation (r= .63) between creativity and resilience. How is this finding interpreted?

Children who score higher on measures of creativity also score higher on measures of resilience.