08/28

Question 1

What is the point of developmental psychology?

Answer 1

To describe and explain the changes that occur over time the thought, behavior, reasoning, and functioning of a person due to biological, individual, and environmental factors/influences

Question 2

What do developmental psychologists do?

Answer 2

Study children’s development from a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodsß

Question 3

Does age alone influence development?

Answer 3

No.

Question 4

What are the main factors that influence development?

Answer 4

Maturation and changes resulting from experience lead to child development

Question 5

Aspects of development that are primarily under genetic control and are relatively uninfluenced by the environment

Answer 5

Maturation

Question 6

Provide an example of maturation.

Answer 6

Puberty

Question 7

Describes environmental influences on development

Answer 7

Experience `

Question 8

Provide an example of experience.

Answer 8

Exposure to language

Question 9

____ and ____ about human nature will affect how we raise our own children and interpret studies of children

Answer 9

Assumptions and ideas

Question 10

Common, everyday ideas that we hold about development

Answer 10

Folk theories of development

Question 11

A study where children (or general participants) of different ages are observed at a single point in time

Answer 11

Cross-sectional designs

Question 12

What are the pros of cross-sectional designs?

Answer 12

Least time consuming, quick estimates of changes that occur with age. Good for one time things like quickly teaching a skill

Question 13

What are some cons of cross-sectional designs?

Answer 13

no way to describe an estimate of continuity or discontinuity of various processes over age such as personality (as the people would likely be different in background)

Question 14

A study where more than one observation of the same group of children is made at different points in their development

Answer 14

Longitudinal study

Question 15

What are the pros of longitudinal designs?

Answer 15

Can assess within person changes with age and can test theories about how change happens (gradually? Suddenly?)

Question 16

What are some cons of longitudinal studies?

Answer 16

Costly, time consuming
Selective survivorship- results are based on what people can continue to stay in the study
Cohort-specific: results specific to people in that study sample
Repeated testing: testing same questions can mean that people just naturally get better at them

Question 17

Do longitudinal and cross-sectional studies tell
the same story?

Answer 17

Mostly yes, we see similar changes in groups such as 4 to 5 year olds regardless of what studies are used, though not always

Question 18

Provide an example where longitudinal and cross-sectional studies provide different results

Answer 18

Infant physical growth particularly in 4-5month olds- continuous growth curve according to cross-sectional studies, but the longitudinal studies imply that hte change is really sudden, step-like/bursts of development

Question 19

What are the three research methods used in developmental psychology

Answer 19

Experimental methods, observational/correlational, psychological assessment

Question 20

Behavior does not occur and development does not take place without a ____

Answer 20

Cause

Question 21

What is the aim of experimental methods in developmental psychology?

Answer 21

To specify in as precise a manner as possible, the causal relationships between maturation, experience, and behavior

Question 22

A factor that the experimenter varies to see if there are changes in the child’s response

Answer 22

The independent variable

Question 23

The behavior or outcome that is measured or observed in a study

Answer 23

Dependent variable

Question 24

What is an example of levels of an independent variable?

Answer 24

Two levels/conditions:
Experimental group, control/comparison group

Question 25

Provide an example of an experiment to test why babies cry when other babies cry

Answer 25

Play a crying sound or an artificial aversive sound (independent variable) and look at thermal imaging (changes in blood flow related to emotions) and crying behavior (dependent variables)

Question 26

What are the strengths of experimental methods?

Answer 26

Establishing causal relations

Question 27

What are the limitations of experimental methods?`

Answer 27

Tend to be conducted in a lab and lack ecological validity as a result, can’t study phenomena that are unethical to experimentally manipulate (like inducing parental neglect)

Question 28

Types of studies that do not manipulate the independent variable, rather use psychological assessment to measure the relationship between an iv and dv

Answer 28

Observational/correlational study

Question 29

Provide an example of a correlational/observational study

Answer 29

Studying parental over-evaluation and its association with child narcissism

Question 30

Benefits of observational approach

Answer 30

Can study phenomena that may be unethical to intentionally experimentally manipulate

Question 31

What are some limitations for observational and correlational methods?

Answer 31

Can’t establish causality (can pair with experimental studies though)

Question 32

How does one tease apart genetics from environmental influences?

Answer 32

Twin studies- compare the results between fraternal and identical twins raised together- if it is genetics, scores should be higher for the identical twins

Question 33

What are the caveat to twin studies?

Answer 33

Twin siblings may be similar because of genetics but also their similar influence on the environment leading to similar treatment

Question 34

Instruments for the quantitative assessment of some psychological attributes of a person

Answer 34

Psychological assessment

Question 35

Provide some examples of psychological assessments

Answer 35

Any type of tests that test motor development, motivation, self-esteem, parent behavior, school quality, teacher interactions, etc

Question 36

How are psychological assessments helpful for reasearch/

Answer 36

Used as the DV in scientific studies and can help operationalize constructs. Provides a numeric score or categorization that can be used for statistical analysis

Question 37

Psychological tests of constructs such as ability and intelligence become increasingly accurate in predicting outcomes as children get ___

Answer 37

Older

Question 38

____ shows greater continuity across childhood and adolescence than any other facet of personality

Answer 38

Aggression

Question 39

Why can personality be difficult to measure?

Answer 39

Key aspects of personality such as extraversion depend on the situation

Question 40

Provide a set of test items for infants

Answer 40

Observation of child when confronted with standard situations

Question 41

Provide an example of test items to give a child who can understand language

Answer 41

Build on children’s ability to use language, such as asking them to solve problems, or trace a pathway through a maze

Question 42

Self-esteem in children is generally associated with?

Answer 42

Liking yourself and having positive feelings about yourself, related to parental warmth

Question 43

What is child narcissism typically associated with?

Answer 43

Children thinking that they are superior to others and deserve special treatment. Relates to parental overevaluation

Question 44

Folk theories tend to be unreliable, therefore they need ______ to evaluate them

Answer 44

Evidence