Unit 1: Chapter 1: Basic Concepts and Methods

Jean-Jeacques Rousseau

18th-century Swiss philosopher who claimed "innate goodness" view

adolescence

A biological milestone, puberty, signals the end of middle childhood and the beginning of ____________. 12-18

childhood

A social event such as the child's entrance into school or some other formal training, marks the transition from early to middle childhood. 2-6; 6-12

In Darwin's view, how do organisms acquire adaptive characteristics and what are the advantages of acquiring these characteristics?

Adaptive characteristics are acquired through natural selection. Organisms that possess these characteristics outreproduce organisms that do not have them

children are born with an inclination toward evil.

the original sin view

independent variable

the presumed casual element in an experiment

naturalistic observation

the process of studying people in their normal environments

ecological approach

the view that children's development must be studied and understood within the contexts in which it occurs

case study

an in-depth examination of a single individual

maturation

the gradual unfolding of a genetically programmed sequential pattern of change

control group

the group in an experiment that receives either no special treatment or a neutral treatment

experimental group

the group in an experiment that receives the treatment the experimenter thinks will produce a particular effect

children are born with an inclination toward good

the innate goodness view

How do cross-sectional, longitudinal, and sequential research designs differ?

In cross-sectional studies, separate age groups are each tested once. In longitudinal designs, the same individuals are tested repeatedly over time. Sequential designs combine cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons.

innate goodness

all human beings are naturally good and seek out experiences that help them grow

What is the difference between an inborn bias and an internal model of experience?

An inborn bias is an inborn tendency to respond in certain ways. For contemporary developmentalists, inborn biases represent the nature side of the nature-nurture continuum. An internal model of experience is the meaning that a child attaches to a specific experience. This is how most developmentalists think of the nurture side of the nature-nurture continuum

are not

Babies _________ a blank slate at birth

charles darwin

Baby biographies

What descriptive methods are used by developmental scientists?

Case studies and naturalistic observation provide a lot of important information, but it usually isn't generalizable to other individuals or groups. Laboratory observations provide researches with more control over the settings in which behavior occurs than naturalistic observation does. Correlational studies measure relationships between variables. They can be done quickly, and the information they yield is more generalizable than that from case studies or naturalistic observation.

How does the experiment described in the video exemplify the current view of developmentalists regarding the nature nurture debate?

Correlational studies suggested that

Why is cross-cultural research important to the study of human development?

Cross-cultural research helps developmentalists identify universal factors and cultural variables that effect development.

p. 503

Developmental events for prenatal, infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence in regards to physical cognitive and socioemotional.

What are the goals of scientists who study child and adolescent development?

Developmental psychologists use scientific methods to describe, explain, and predict age-related changes and individual differences. Most also want to use research results to positively influence people's lives.

Explain what it is meant by this statement: Developmental science is an interdisciplinary field.

Developmental science uses theories and research from many disciplines (e.g. biology, psychology)

John Locke

English philosopher who made "empiricism"

What are the ethical standards that developmental researchers must follow?

Ethical principles governing psychological research include protection from harm, informed consent, confidentiality, knowledge of results, and protection from deception

How do developmentalists view the two sides of the nature-nurture debate?

Historically, developmentalists argued that development was affected by either nature or nurture, but now they believe that every developmental change is a product of both.

How do the three kinds of age-related change differ?

Normative age-graded changes are those that are experienced by all human beings. Normative history-graded changes are common to individuals who have similar cultural and historical experiences Nonnormative changes, such as the timing of experiences, can lead to individual differences in development.

Arnold Gesell

Observation laboratories equipped with one-way mirrors, movie cameras

Gesel

Scientist who suggested the existence of a genetically programmed sequential pattern of change & used the term maturation. His beliefs became the basis for many tests that are used today to determine whether individual children are developing normally

page 20

Table on methods, description, advantages, and disadvantages for research

positive

The closer a _________ correlation is to a 1.00, the stronger the relationship between two variables.

How does consideration of the contexts in which change occurs improve scientists' understanding of child and adolescent development?

The contexts of development include both individual variables and the settings within which development occurs. Individual traits and contexts interact in complex ways to influence development.

What ideas about development were proposed by early philosophers and scientists?

The philosophical concepts of original sin, blank slate, and innate goodness have influenced Western ideas about human development. Darwin studied childdevelopment to gain insight into evolution. G. Stanley Hal published the first scientific study of child development and introduced the concepts of norms and adolescence

What major domains and periods do developmental scientists use to organize their discussions of child and adolescent development?

Theorists and researchers classify age-related change according to three broad categories: the physical, cognitive, and socioemotional domains. The major periods are prenatal, infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence

What is the continuity-discontinuity debate?

This debate centers on the question of whether change is a matter of amount or degree or a matter of type or kind. Some developmentalists emphasize qualitative, or discontinuous, changes, whereas others focus on quantitative, or continuous changes. Theorists who focus on qualitative changes usually propose explanations of development that include stages.

What is the primary advantage of the experimental method?

To test causal hypotheses, it is necessary to use experimental designs in which participants are assigned randomly to experimental or control groups.

negative

Two variables that change in opposite directions have a _________ correlation.

quantitative change

a change in amount

qualitative change

a change in kind or type

ethnography

a detailed description of a single culture or context

cohort

a group of individuals who share the same historical experiences at the same times in their lives

Denver II

a norm-referenced test on infant and early childhood development

correlation

a relationship between two variables that can be expressed as a number ranging from -1.00 to +1.00

cross-section design

a research design in which groups of people of different ages are compared

longitudinal design

a research design in which people in a single group are studied at different times in their lives.

sequential design

a research design that combines cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons of development

social clock

a set of age norms that defines a sequence of normal life experiences

sensitive period

a span of months or years during which a child may be particularly responsive to specific forms of experience or particularly influenced by their abscenece

critical period

a specific period in development when an organism is especially sensitive to the presence of some particular kind of experience

experiment

a study that tests a causal hypothesis

hypothesis

a testable prediction based on a theory

norms

average ages at which developmental milestones are reached

infancy

begins at birth and ends when children begin to use language to communicate, a milestone that marks early childhood. The first 2 years of birth

socioemotional domain

change in variables that are associated with the relationship of an individual to the self and others

physical domain

changes in the size, shape, and characteristics of the body

cognitive domain

changes in thinking, memory, problem solving and other intellectual skills

normative age-graded changes

changes that are common to every member of a species

normative history-graded changes

changes that occur in most members of a cohort as a result of factors at work during a specific, well-defined historical period

nonnormative changes

changes that result from unique unshared eents

atypical development

development that deviates from the typical developmental pathway in a direction that is harmful to the individual

vulnerability

factors within the individual or the environment that increase the risk of poor developmental outcomes

resilience

factors within the individual or the environment that moderate or prevent the negative effects of vulnerabilities

research ethics

guidelines researchers follow to protect the rights of animals used in research and humans who participate in studies

periods of development

in addition to classifying developmental events according to domains, developmental scientists also use a system of age-related categories know as _________________, the first of these periods is the prenatal period, then infancy, then childhood, middle childhood, adolescence

prenatal period

is the only one that has clearly defined biological boundaries at its beginning and end

laboratory observation

observation of behavior under controlled conditions

original sin

people believed you are inborn to behave selfishly and that your parents must teach you discipline and religion to curve that tendency

Darwin

proposed studying child development could help explain evolution and studied his own children, called "baby biographies"

stages

qualitatively

G. Stanley Hall

questionnaires, interviews

empiricism

the mind of a child is a blank slate; the view that humans possess no innate tendencies and that all differences among humans are attriubatable to experience

inborn biases

the notion that children with tendencies to respond in certain ways

domains of development

scientists who study age-related changes often use three broad categories, called _______________, to classify those changes.

theories

sets of statements that propose general principles of development

developmental science

the application of scientific methods to the study of age-related changes in behavior, thinking, emotion, and personality

Children are born morally neutral, with no inclination toward either good or evil

the blank slate view

dependent variable

the characteristic or behavior that is expected to be affected by the independent variable.

nature-nurture debate

the debate about the relative contributions of biological processes and experiential factors to development