Principles of Developmental Psychology.

Developmental Psychology Exam 1 Review Life-Span Perspective • Continuity: growth is gradual o How people change over life span o Developmental change not discrete o Lifelong • Multidirectional: some traits appear and disappear o Simple growth, radical transformation, improvement decline o Stability, stages and continuity-day to day, year to year, generation to generation o Direction of life and characteristics follows distinct pattern o Loss/abilities of skills (ex. Babies begin talking, lose ability to distinguish sound, adults retire o Growth, maintenance, regulation of loss • Multicontextual o Physical surrounding (climate, noise, pop, density) o Family configurations (marries, single) o Ecological systems approach; affected by many social contexts and interpersonal interactions o Immediate surroundings (family, peers) microsystems o Ecosystems (school/church) o Microsystems (larger social setting, cultural values, econ/politics) o Socioeconomic and historical explanation now • Plasticity o Change can Occur @ any time but to varying degrees Developmental Research Methods – Longitudinal Design (adv. and disadvantages) ▪ Advantages: follow same S’s over time, no worry about inter-subject variability ▪ Disadvantages: takes a long time ▪ Same people over time ▪ May have other interests so they stop doing it ▪ Whether its possible or not ▪ Attrition= people disappear, draws problems and skew results – Cross-sectional Design ▪ Advantages: less time, get done without attrition ▪ Disadvantages: worry about differences between the groups ▪ Cohort effect (pre existing differences due to age differences e.g. generation gap) ▪ Things happen outside of experiment ▪ Randomization ▪ External historical event that others didn't’t experience – Sequential design hybrid of first 2 ▪ Get advantages of both ▪ Follow one group over time ▪ Compare this group to another age group – Non-experimental designs ▪ Research without proper controls or an independent variable ▪ Correlation • Measure of the strength of the relationship between 2 or more variables • E.g. strong correlation between ice creams sales and violent crime • Cant infer any causality