Developmental psychology Study Review with
Complete solutions
Developmental psych - Ans -Description, explanation and prediction of age-related
changes in behaviour, thinking, emotions and social relationships.
Identification of variables that influence development and explanation of how they work
together to shape an individual's life. Supports development, e.g. through scaffolding to
speed up development. Multi-disciplinary- mainly based in psychology but also draws on
genetics and biology, neuroscience, anthropology, sociology and education.
What is gained by taking a developmental stance? - Ans --Important knowledge
about the emergence, manifestation, consistency and change of specific psychological
phenomena, (e.g. language, personality) across the life span.
-Better understanding of when, how and why change occurs
-Helps us understand normative and non-normative development- spot changes and
concerns about development.
Quantitative vs qualitative change - Ans -Quantitative form = gradual increase in a
characteristic
Qualitative form = fundamental shift in behaviour or ability
Continuity / discontinuity and stability vs instability in development - Ans --Continuity
/ discontinuity = develop continuously throughout life gradually, e.g. intelligence, or occurs
in distinct stages, e.g. an infant learning object permanence.
Some characteristics are continuous, whilst others are discontinuous.
-These characteristics can be seen in a group level, e.g. look at a group of 5 year-olds and
observe them over time, or at an individual level, looking at their changes over time.
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Page
,-Stable vs instable = characteristics that either increase or decrease over time, e.g. height
increases but memory capacity decreases, vs characteristics that can increase and
decrease over time, e.g. weight.
-Characteristics can be stable at a group level but not stable at an individual level, e.g. an
individual's IQ increases over time but the groups IQ remains similar.
-Freud said that a child's personality is solidified by age 5, but this has been highly
disputed.
Nature vs nurture in development - Ans -Nature = hereditary causes of behaviour
(those based on the genetic makeup of an individual that influence growth and
development throughout life)
Nurture = environmental causes of behaviour (the influence of parents, siblings, friends,
schooling, nutrition etc.) Twin studies (start with the same genetic base) show nurture has
some influence.
Generally believed that development is the interaction between the two.
Behaviour genetics - Ans -The study of how variation in behaviour can be explained by
separating environmental (shared, non-shared) and genetic influences, e.g. diet, stress
influencing gene expression.
Epigenetics - Ans -The idea that experience can determine the turning on and off of
genes
Multi-level systems model development (Gottlieb, 1992) - Ans -Levels of
development that all influence one another- bidirectional influence in all layers.
2
Levels are environment, behaviour, neural activity, genetic activity.
Page
,Sensitive periods - Ans --Organism is particularly susceptible to experience during
specific periods in development, e.g. language development
-Due to brain maturation and plasticity: brains very plastic at birth, becomes specialised as
it gets older, e.g. .learning to drive. E.g. harder to learn languages as you get older
Romanian Orphan study - Ans --Severely deprived in institutional care, adopted
before and after 6 months of age
-Outcome is most optimal if children were adopted before 6 months
-About who were 50% adopted after 6 months show problems
-Duration of deprivation after 6 months little effect
-Possible evidence for a developmental sensitive period
-Development is a holistic process- change in one will affect change in other domains
4 basic goals for understanding development for change - Ans -1. Describe (any
aspect of development)
2. Explain (how it happens)
3. Predict (age related changes)
4. Influence
Experimental designs used to explore change - Ans -1. Cross-sectional designs
2. Longitudinal designs
2. Sequential / cohort designs
Cross-sectional designs - Ans --Studies at one time point but looks at different age
groups.
3
-Rather than longitudinal studies that follow the same person through multiple time points.
Page
, -Tests different age groups simultaneously
-Fenson et al. (1994) asked parents of toddlers to describe longest sentence used by their
child. 1130 pps between 16-30 months old. Rapid growth of number of words in a sentence
during this age
Advantages and disadvantages of cross-sectional designs - Ans -+Quick and
economical
+Demonstrate age differences and indicate developmental trend
-Age trends may reflect extraneous differences between cohorts (rather than
developmental change) -No data on the development of individuals (sequences),
therefore, provide no information about determinants of change -Events like lockdowns
might have influenced results at all levels.
Longitudinal designs - Ans --Measure individuals at different time points
-Allows sone measurement of individual change and stability
-Allows an exploration of the dynamic nature of change
Five goals of longitudinal research:
1. To consider change in individuals
2. To look at change and differences between individuals
3. To consider factors that drive change
4. To look at causes of change within individuals
5. To investigate cause
Wood et al. (2012): Showed links between symptoms of psychopathology and absenteeism
over time using an autoregressive cross-lagged model
4
Page
Complete solutions
Developmental psych - Ans -Description, explanation and prediction of age-related
changes in behaviour, thinking, emotions and social relationships.
Identification of variables that influence development and explanation of how they work
together to shape an individual's life. Supports development, e.g. through scaffolding to
speed up development. Multi-disciplinary- mainly based in psychology but also draws on
genetics and biology, neuroscience, anthropology, sociology and education.
What is gained by taking a developmental stance? - Ans --Important knowledge
about the emergence, manifestation, consistency and change of specific psychological
phenomena, (e.g. language, personality) across the life span.
-Better understanding of when, how and why change occurs
-Helps us understand normative and non-normative development- spot changes and
concerns about development.
Quantitative vs qualitative change - Ans -Quantitative form = gradual increase in a
characteristic
Qualitative form = fundamental shift in behaviour or ability
Continuity / discontinuity and stability vs instability in development - Ans --Continuity
/ discontinuity = develop continuously throughout life gradually, e.g. intelligence, or occurs
in distinct stages, e.g. an infant learning object permanence.
Some characteristics are continuous, whilst others are discontinuous.
-These characteristics can be seen in a group level, e.g. look at a group of 5 year-olds and
observe them over time, or at an individual level, looking at their changes over time.
1
Page
,-Stable vs instable = characteristics that either increase or decrease over time, e.g. height
increases but memory capacity decreases, vs characteristics that can increase and
decrease over time, e.g. weight.
-Characteristics can be stable at a group level but not stable at an individual level, e.g. an
individual's IQ increases over time but the groups IQ remains similar.
-Freud said that a child's personality is solidified by age 5, but this has been highly
disputed.
Nature vs nurture in development - Ans -Nature = hereditary causes of behaviour
(those based on the genetic makeup of an individual that influence growth and
development throughout life)
Nurture = environmental causes of behaviour (the influence of parents, siblings, friends,
schooling, nutrition etc.) Twin studies (start with the same genetic base) show nurture has
some influence.
Generally believed that development is the interaction between the two.
Behaviour genetics - Ans -The study of how variation in behaviour can be explained by
separating environmental (shared, non-shared) and genetic influences, e.g. diet, stress
influencing gene expression.
Epigenetics - Ans -The idea that experience can determine the turning on and off of
genes
Multi-level systems model development (Gottlieb, 1992) - Ans -Levels of
development that all influence one another- bidirectional influence in all layers.
2
Levels are environment, behaviour, neural activity, genetic activity.
Page
,Sensitive periods - Ans --Organism is particularly susceptible to experience during
specific periods in development, e.g. language development
-Due to brain maturation and plasticity: brains very plastic at birth, becomes specialised as
it gets older, e.g. .learning to drive. E.g. harder to learn languages as you get older
Romanian Orphan study - Ans --Severely deprived in institutional care, adopted
before and after 6 months of age
-Outcome is most optimal if children were adopted before 6 months
-About who were 50% adopted after 6 months show problems
-Duration of deprivation after 6 months little effect
-Possible evidence for a developmental sensitive period
-Development is a holistic process- change in one will affect change in other domains
4 basic goals for understanding development for change - Ans -1. Describe (any
aspect of development)
2. Explain (how it happens)
3. Predict (age related changes)
4. Influence
Experimental designs used to explore change - Ans -1. Cross-sectional designs
2. Longitudinal designs
2. Sequential / cohort designs
Cross-sectional designs - Ans --Studies at one time point but looks at different age
groups.
3
-Rather than longitudinal studies that follow the same person through multiple time points.
Page
, -Tests different age groups simultaneously
-Fenson et al. (1994) asked parents of toddlers to describe longest sentence used by their
child. 1130 pps between 16-30 months old. Rapid growth of number of words in a sentence
during this age
Advantages and disadvantages of cross-sectional designs - Ans -+Quick and
economical
+Demonstrate age differences and indicate developmental trend
-Age trends may reflect extraneous differences between cohorts (rather than
developmental change) -No data on the development of individuals (sequences),
therefore, provide no information about determinants of change -Events like lockdowns
might have influenced results at all levels.
Longitudinal designs - Ans --Measure individuals at different time points
-Allows sone measurement of individual change and stability
-Allows an exploration of the dynamic nature of change
Five goals of longitudinal research:
1. To consider change in individuals
2. To look at change and differences between individuals
3. To consider factors that drive change
4. To look at causes of change within individuals
5. To investigate cause
Wood et al. (2012): Showed links between symptoms of psychopathology and absenteeism
over time using an autoregressive cross-lagged model
4
Page
