Lecture 1: Developmental Psychology
What is developmental psychology?
- We have a narrow conception of development = childhood
- Sequential = based on stages, phases
- End state = higher value than original state
- Irreversible
- Qualitative = structural transformation
- Biological growth = indep of culture
- Universal for all humans
- ⇒ all this is not necessarily true, a lot more variation is possible
= changes within persons across the lifespan, and with difference between and similarities
among persons in the nature of these changes
- Describe intraindividual changes and interindividual differences but also to explain how
they arise and to find ways to modify them in an optimum way
What develops when, how, and why?
What → biological, cognitive, emotional, social changes, (see dev of personality across
lifespan) → combining diff fields of psychology to assess development
- Useful in determining legal capacities - for ex minors shouldnt drink and smoke, age of
criminal responsibility
- Which periods of dev have the most risks?
- ⇒ focus on Normative Development and Individual differences (also to identify deviant
behavior)
When → normative development
- Linking important dev changes to a certain age - Piaget, this thing
- How are these age periods classified?
- Old age - young old (60-80), old old (80-100)
- But there are always huge difference between individuals - age is not very informative
- !!! Age is not responsible for and does not explain changes
- Change is correlated with age, the goal is to understand how and why
(mechanisms of development)
- Time scale:
, - Variability (= short-term changes that are more or less reversible
- Change = more or less enduring (is this like biological def of learning?)
- Age can be looked at in a continuous way (corr between age and ability), or age
groups can be compared (comparing mean age difference in ability X)
- 2 important type of designs:
- Cross-sectional designs: individuals of diff ages at one point in time =
measuring interindividual differences; short time span of research
- Advantages: time efficient, rather cheap, similarities and diff
between age groups
- Disadvantages: age effects confounded with cohort effects,
individual trajectories (intraindividual change) not assessed,
limited generalizability to other times of measurement
- Longitudinal designs: the same individuals across diff points in time =
measuring intraindividual change; long time span of research
- Advantages: True assessment of intraindividual change;
assessment of stability and change of dev characteristics
- Disadvantages: time of measurement effects, retest effects,
attrition effects are confounds; limited generalizability to other
cohorts; long lasting means high costs
- ⇒ best way is to combine the two
- Sequence effects (?)
-
- Cohort effects
- = any group that shares experiences of the same cultural environment
and historical events
- = difference in developmentally relevant variables arise from non-age
related (external) factors to which each birth cohort is exposed
- ⇒ observed results can be cause by cohort characteristics
Research challenges:
- Speech reception and production
- Sensomotoric abilities
- Suggestibility
- Attention span/fatigue
, - Subjective meaning of concepts
- Proportion of undiagnosed clinical impairment
- ⇒ adjust methods to abilities of individuals:
- Age adjusted task material
- Oral responses instead of written
- Non verbal task material
- Structured observation, physiological methods or report by proxies as
alternatives to verbal self report
- Consider selection of sample - is it representative or biased? (accessibility is
limited due to challenges)
- Response bias: social desirability, accuracy/speed trade-off, stereotypes
- For ex Age Stereotype threat - when older people are test on memory
they perform worse
- In infant research: Habituation/Dishabituation
- Orienting response (where they look)
- Habituation = slow or stopped orienting response to the same stimulus
- Dishabituation = increase in orienting response to a new stimulus
- Also sucking preferences, head turn preference, paired visual preference
Lifespan development Principles (Baltes)
Development is:
1. Lifelong
2. Multidimensional and multidisciplinary (biology, neuroscience, history, economy,
sociology, anthropology can all contribute)
3. Multidirectional
a. Not just straight to more mature functioning
b. Diff capacities show diff patterns of change over time
c.
d. There is no single curve of development that can portray an individual’s like
complexity - lots of curves for each dev feature → interindividual differences
4. Gains and losses
a. Occurrence of growth and loss - (synaptogenesis and pruning parallel)
b. Language recognition and language acquisition
, 5. Plastic
a. Plasticity comes with constraints - as we age, the less plastic memory can be,
learning potential decreases
6. Embedded in History
a. Prevailing cultural conditions of a historical period produce cohort effects
b. Health care systems, social support, pensions, war, technological advances,
societal conventions, norms etc. can affect development
7. Contextual developmental influences
a.
b. Non normative = individual differences
8. Interaction of cultural and biological factors assumptions
a. Development takes place within supporting and limiting influences
b. Biologically based performance and functions change diff across lifespan than
more culturally based performance or functions
c.
What is developmental psychology?
- We have a narrow conception of development = childhood
- Sequential = based on stages, phases
- End state = higher value than original state
- Irreversible
- Qualitative = structural transformation
- Biological growth = indep of culture
- Universal for all humans
- ⇒ all this is not necessarily true, a lot more variation is possible
= changes within persons across the lifespan, and with difference between and similarities
among persons in the nature of these changes
- Describe intraindividual changes and interindividual differences but also to explain how
they arise and to find ways to modify them in an optimum way
What develops when, how, and why?
What → biological, cognitive, emotional, social changes, (see dev of personality across
lifespan) → combining diff fields of psychology to assess development
- Useful in determining legal capacities - for ex minors shouldnt drink and smoke, age of
criminal responsibility
- Which periods of dev have the most risks?
- ⇒ focus on Normative Development and Individual differences (also to identify deviant
behavior)
When → normative development
- Linking important dev changes to a certain age - Piaget, this thing
- How are these age periods classified?
- Old age - young old (60-80), old old (80-100)
- But there are always huge difference between individuals - age is not very informative
- !!! Age is not responsible for and does not explain changes
- Change is correlated with age, the goal is to understand how and why
(mechanisms of development)
- Time scale:
, - Variability (= short-term changes that are more or less reversible
- Change = more or less enduring (is this like biological def of learning?)
- Age can be looked at in a continuous way (corr between age and ability), or age
groups can be compared (comparing mean age difference in ability X)
- 2 important type of designs:
- Cross-sectional designs: individuals of diff ages at one point in time =
measuring interindividual differences; short time span of research
- Advantages: time efficient, rather cheap, similarities and diff
between age groups
- Disadvantages: age effects confounded with cohort effects,
individual trajectories (intraindividual change) not assessed,
limited generalizability to other times of measurement
- Longitudinal designs: the same individuals across diff points in time =
measuring intraindividual change; long time span of research
- Advantages: True assessment of intraindividual change;
assessment of stability and change of dev characteristics
- Disadvantages: time of measurement effects, retest effects,
attrition effects are confounds; limited generalizability to other
cohorts; long lasting means high costs
- ⇒ best way is to combine the two
- Sequence effects (?)
-
- Cohort effects
- = any group that shares experiences of the same cultural environment
and historical events
- = difference in developmentally relevant variables arise from non-age
related (external) factors to which each birth cohort is exposed
- ⇒ observed results can be cause by cohort characteristics
Research challenges:
- Speech reception and production
- Sensomotoric abilities
- Suggestibility
- Attention span/fatigue
, - Subjective meaning of concepts
- Proportion of undiagnosed clinical impairment
- ⇒ adjust methods to abilities of individuals:
- Age adjusted task material
- Oral responses instead of written
- Non verbal task material
- Structured observation, physiological methods or report by proxies as
alternatives to verbal self report
- Consider selection of sample - is it representative or biased? (accessibility is
limited due to challenges)
- Response bias: social desirability, accuracy/speed trade-off, stereotypes
- For ex Age Stereotype threat - when older people are test on memory
they perform worse
- In infant research: Habituation/Dishabituation
- Orienting response (where they look)
- Habituation = slow or stopped orienting response to the same stimulus
- Dishabituation = increase in orienting response to a new stimulus
- Also sucking preferences, head turn preference, paired visual preference
Lifespan development Principles (Baltes)
Development is:
1. Lifelong
2. Multidimensional and multidisciplinary (biology, neuroscience, history, economy,
sociology, anthropology can all contribute)
3. Multidirectional
a. Not just straight to more mature functioning
b. Diff capacities show diff patterns of change over time
c.
d. There is no single curve of development that can portray an individual’s like
complexity - lots of curves for each dev feature → interindividual differences
4. Gains and losses
a. Occurrence of growth and loss - (synaptogenesis and pruning parallel)
b. Language recognition and language acquisition
, 5. Plastic
a. Plasticity comes with constraints - as we age, the less plastic memory can be,
learning potential decreases
6. Embedded in History
a. Prevailing cultural conditions of a historical period produce cohort effects
b. Health care systems, social support, pensions, war, technological advances,
societal conventions, norms etc. can affect development
7. Contextual developmental influences
a.
b. Non normative = individual differences
8. Interaction of cultural and biological factors assumptions
a. Development takes place within supporting and limiting influences
b. Biologically based performance and functions change diff across lifespan than
more culturally based performance or functions
c.
