Introducing Lifespan Development

Parenting advice from researchers has changed over time. Consider changes in recommendations for safe sleeping positions for infants. This demonstrates which value of the scientific method?

The scientific method allows for continuous updating of information to support best practices.

Parents exclaim, "One day my baby was crawling around on the floor, and the next day my toddler was wobbling around the house on two feet! It all happened so suddenly." Which approach to describing how developmental changes occur does the parents' statement reflect?

Discontinuous Development

In a psychotherapy session, Adrienne talks with her therapist about the stress of raising two young children who are involved in competitive sports and preparing for standardized tests, while caring for her elderly parents who are experiencing ill health, including early signs of dementia. Adrienne's therapist normalizes her experience as part of the "sandwiched generation," sandwiched between caring for young kids and aging parents.Adrienne is in the ________ period of human development.

Middle Adulthood

As an elementary school student, Hayden's life revolves around learning and testing new academic skills, refining motor skills, and developing social relationships with friends and students outside of the family.Hayden is in the ________ period of human development.

Middle Childhood

When researchers select participants for their studies in a random way to ensure that all members have an equal chance of being selected, they are demonstrating which value of the scientific method?

The scientific method offers a systematic way to make comparisons and guard against bias.

In a study of empathy across young adulthood to older adulthood, researchers found a negative correlation (r= -.75) between empathy and age. How is this finding interpreted?

Older adults tended to have lower empathy scores than younger adults.

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

design the study to be as short as possible

Brain training programs, which are used to reverse cognitive decline seen in aging, capitalize on the brain's lifelong capacity to reorganize cortical tissue, which aligns with Baltes' key principle of lifespan development that ________.

development is plastic

In a study of the effect of playing video games on sleep quality, researchers randomly assigned some participants to play an up-tempo video game for either one or three hours before bed. Other participants had no engagement with electronics in the time before bed. Then, the researchers assessed all the participants' sleep quality (e.g., number of awakenings, percentage of time in deep sleep) during an overnight sleep study.In this experiment, the time spent playing video games (e.g., one or three hours) is the ________.

independent variable (The independent variable is something altered or introduced by the researcher, and sometimes it is a treatment or intervention. In this case, the researcher manipulated time spent playing video games (one or three hours))

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 ________.

Development is lifelong

A counselor is conducting an initial evaluation with a client and asks questions to better understand the client's feelings, relationships, identity, and personality. This counselor is exploring the ________ of human development.

psychosocial domain

A researcher wants to understand parents' attitudes and opinions toward residential school programs for academically gifted students. This researcher would likely choose a ________ research method.

survey

Suppose a group of researchers wants to investigate the relationship between daily mindfulness meditation and cortisol (stress hormone) levels in the body over a 20-year time period. Which research design would allow them to measure changes with age and within individuals over time, even though it would be expensive, limited to one cohort, take a long time, and they might have people drop out of the study?

longitudinal research design

To examine the effectiveness of two types of interventions for anxiety, 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. The researchers administered a standardized measure of anxiety to participants before and after the interventions or waitlist period. In this experiment, what is the dependent variable?

Anxiety

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.This group of friends is in the ________ period of human development.

Early Adulthood

Petersen designed a correlational study to determine if time spent playing video games is related to obesity. What was the objective of this research?

To formally test whether a relationship exists between two or more variables.

Teresa believes her cultural practices are the best and right ones, and it is difficult forher to understand the cultural practices of other societies. Tanya expresses anappreciation for cultural differences and a willingness to consider the perspectives ofpeople in other cultures. Teresa's view demonstrates ________, while Tanya's viewdemonstrates ________.

ethnocentrism; cultural relativity

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 (type of research involves the analysis of data that has already been collected in another study.)

Researchers studied frequency and amount of marijuana use in three groups of students (grades 6 to 8, grades 9 to 10, and grades 11 to 12) over five years. With this ________, researchers can examine age-related changes and changes within the same individuals as they age. In addition, researchers can account for the possibility of cohort and/or time of measurement effects.

sequential research design

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. (a negitive correlation would occur when the two variables move in opposite directions: higher creativity is associated with lower resilience.

A graduate student research team is giving an oral presentation of their research on resilience in young adults. They note that a downside of their study is that participants were recruited from the university that they attend. What makes this a study limitation?

College students are samples of convenience that are not randomly selected from the wider population and may not represent all young adults in our society.

A team of researchers is interested in studying changes in parenting style over time, as children and parents grow older. One researcher states, "If we choose a ________, then it would be less time consuming and expensive. Another researcher comments, "If we choose that design, then we have measurements of parenting style for one point in time, and we can't be sure about changes with age over time."They are discussing the advantages and disadvantages of which research design?

Cross-Sectional Research design

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

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

In a prenatal education class, an instructor informs parents that their child's development will be influenced by many factors, including biological, cognitive, social, and economic factors. This instructor is addressing which of Baltes' key principles of lifespan development?

Development is multidimensional

In a health class for middle schoolers, the instructor discusses puberty, to the embarrassment of the students, and reviews the biological factors involved in how their bodies are changing, the cognitive factors involved in more advanced thinking skills, the emotional factors involved in regulating feelings, and the social factors involved in navigating relationships.This illustrates which of Baltes' key principles of lifespan development?

Development is multidimensional.

A teenager bemoans, "My life is a roller coaster. I've got all this new stuff to think about and I'm not as good at things I used to do well. I think I'm making progress in one area, but I'm losing ground in another."This statement about alternating between gains and losses reflects which of Baltes' key principles of lifespan development?

Development is multidirectional. (alternating between gains (growth) and losses (decline)

Researchers conducted an experiment to study the effects of sleep training on sleep duration and quality. They randomly assigned some participants to a treatment condition where they received eight sessions of sleep enhancement training and some participants to a control condition where they did not receive the training.

Experimental research helps establish cause and effect relationships.

Millennials, those born between 1982 and 2000, are considered tech-savvy because they grew up with technology and rely on it for daily activities. Millennials are defined by characteristics that were formed while growing up with advancements in technology as part of their world and culture. Which of Baltes' contextual influences does this represent?

Normative History-Graded Influences

A theorist proposes that children learn language by observing and imitating their parents, who in turn reinforce the sounds and words their children produce. In the nature versus nurture debate, where does this theorist's proposal fit?

Nurture

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 is a way to identify families and households based on their shared levels of education, income, and occupation. While there are certainly individual differences, members of a social class tend to share similar parenting styles, stressors, and other aspects of daily life.

Researchers build upon each other's work by following up on suggested directions for future research and addressing limitations of previous studies. For example, a researcher might extend a study that was originally conducted with an urban sample to include people living in suburban and rural areas. Which value of the scientific method does this demonstrate?

The scientific method facilitates the establishment of a literature or knowledge base.

Carlton conducts evaluation research of language enrichment programs for preschool children from low-income families. The objective of this research is to ________.

assess the effectiveness of an academic enrichment program (Explanatory studies are designed to answer questions about "why" something occurs. In this case, the focus is on evaluating a program.)

A researcher conducted an in-depth study of a child who was raised in isolation and had no contact with same-age peers until age 10. This researcher detailed the child's development in a number of spheres: physical/motor, language/cognitive, social and emotional. What kind of research method is this?

case study

Parents track the number of new words their toddler learns each day and are surprised by how many new words their child has learned at the end of one month.By charting their child's language development, these parents are showing an interest in the ________ of human development.

cognitive domain

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 being spent playing outside. (Observation and surveys are used in descriptive studies to describe a phenomenon.)

A researcher is interested in studying the relationship between sensitivity to negative information over positive (i.e., negativity bias) and hours of sleep at night (i.e., average total sleep time). Correlational research would allow this researcher to ________.

identify patterns of relationships between two variables, negativity bias and average total sleep time

A couple arrives at a research lab to participate in a research study of psychosocial factors related to relationship satisfaction. After they learn about the study, they are asked to review a(n) ________, which reviews the procedures to be used in the research, any expected risks or benefits, and serves as a contract stating that they agree to participate in research.

informed consent statement

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