CHAPTER 1

Introduction to
Developmental
Psychology
Development
refers to systematic continuities and changes in
the individual that occur between conception
(when the father’s sperm penetrates the
mother’s ovum, creating a new organism) and
death. By describing changes as “systematic”
we imply that they are orderly, patterned, and
relatively enduring, so that temporary mood
swings and other transitory changes in our
appearances, thoughts, and behaviors are
therefore excluded.
 What Causes Us to Develop?

Maturation
refers to the biological unfolding of the
individual according to species-typical
biological inheritance and a person’s
biological inheritance.
partly responsible for psychological
changes such as our increasing ability to
concentrate, solve problems, and
understand another person’s thoughts or
feelings.
 What Causes Us to Develop?
learning

the process through which our

experiences produce relatively
permanent changes in our feelings,
thoughts, and behaviors.
Many of our abilities and habits do not
simply unfold as part of maturation; we
often learn to feel, think, and behave in
new ways from our observations of and
interactions with parents, teachers, and
other important people in our lives, as
well as from events that we experience.
 Some Basic Observations about the
Character of Development
A Continual and Cumulative Process.

that the first 12 years are extremely important

years that sets the stage for adolescence and
adulthood.
Who we are as adolescents and adults also
depends on the experiences we have later in life.
acquired new academic skills, and developed very
different interests and aspirations from those you
had as a fifth-grader or a high-school sophomore.
And the path of such developmental change
stretches ever onward, through middle age and
beyond, culminating in the final change that
occurs when we die.
 A Chronological Overview of Human
Development

Period of life Approximate age range

1. Prenatal period Conception to birth
2. Infancy Birth to 18 months old
3. Toddlerhood 18 months old to 3 years old
4. Preschool period 3 to 5 years of age
5. Middle childhood 5 to 12 or so years of age
(until the onset of puberty)
6. Adolescence 12 or so to 20 years of age
7. Young adulthood 20 to 40 years of age
8. Middle age 40 to 65 years of age
9. Old age 65 years of age or older
 A Holistic Process
(3) those who
(1) those who (2) those who concentrated on
studied physical studied cognitive psychosocial
growth and aspects of aspects of
development, development, development,
including bodily including including
changes perception, emotions,
and the language, personality,
sequencing of learning, and and the growth of
motor skills; thinking; and interpersonal
relationships.
 If you were to say that social
skills are important, you would be right. Social
skills such as warmth, friendliness, and
willing- ness to cooperate are characteristics
that popular children typically display. Yet
there is much more to popularity than meets the
eye. We now have some indication that
the age at which a child reaches puberty, an
important milestone in physical development,
has an effect on social life. For example, boys
who reach puberty early enjoy better
relations with their peers than do boys who
reach puberty later
 Plasticity
a capacity for change in response to positive or negative life
experiences. Although we have described development as a
continual and cumulative
process and noted that past events often have implications for
the future, developmentalists know that the course of
development can change abruptly if important aspects of one’s
life change.
Highly aggressive children who are intensely disliked by
peers often improve their social status after learning and
practicingthe social skills that popular children display
 Research Strategies: Basic
Methods and Designs
Child and Adolescent Development

The Scientific Method

the use of objective and replicable methods to gather data for
the purpose of testing a theory or hypothesis. By objective we
mean that everyone who examines the data will come to the
same conclusions, that is, it is not a subjective opinion.
mean that every time the method is used, it results in the
same data and conclusions.
 Research Strategies: Basic
Methods and Designs
Child and Adolescent Development

A theory
is simply a set of concepts and propositions intended to
describe and ex-
plain some aspect of experience. In the field of psychology,
theories help us to describe
various patterns of behavior and to explain why those behaviors
occur.
 Research Strategies: Basic
Methods and Designs
Child and Adolescent Development

hypotheses
Theories generate specific predictions,about what will hold true
if we observe a phenomenon that interests us.
 Research Strategies: Basic
Methods and Designs
Child and Adolescent Development
for example, a theory stating that psychological dif- ferences
between the sexes are large because parents and other adults
treat boys and girls differently. Based on this theory, a
researcher might hypothesize that if parents grant girls
and boys the same freedoms, the two sexes will be similarly
independent, whereas if parents allow boys to do many things
that girls are prohibited from doing, boys will be more
independent than girls.
 Research Strategies: Basic
Methods and Designs
Child and Adolescent Development
Suppose, though, that the study designed to test this
hypothesis indicates that boys are more independent than girls,
no matter how their parents treat them.
Then the hypothesis would be disconfirmed by the research
data, and the researcher would want to rethink this theory of
sex-linked differences. If other hypotheses based on this theory
were also inconsistent with the facts, the theory would have to
be significantly revised or abandoned entirely in favor of a
better theory.
Gathering Data: Basic Fact-Finding Strategies
reliability

if it yields consistent information over time and across

observers. Suppose you go into a classroom and
record the number of times each child behaves
aggressively toward others, but your research
assistant, using the same scheme to observe the same
children, does not agree with your measurements.
Gathering Data: Basic Fact-Finding Strategies
validity

if it measures what it is supposed to measure. An instrument

must be reliable before it can be valid. Yet reliability, by itself,
does not guarantee validity (Creasey, 2006). For example, a
highly reliable observational scheme intended as a measure
of children’s aggression may provide grossly overinflated
estimates of aggressive behavior if the investigator simply
classifies all acts of physical force as
examples of aggression.
 Common Research Methods

1. Interviews and Questionnaires. Researchers who opt for

interview or questionnaire techniques will ask the child, or
the child’s parents, a series of questions about such aspects
of development as the child’s behavior, feelings, beliefs, or
characteristic methods of thinking.
2. The Clinical Method. The clinical method is very similar to
the interview technique.
The investigator is usually interested in testing a hypothesis
by presenting the research participant with a task or stimulus
of some sort and then inviting a response.
 Common Research Methods
3. Observational Methodologies. Often researchers prefer to
observe people’s behavior directly rather than asking them
questions about it. One method that many developmentalists
favor is naturalistic observation—observing people in their
common, every day (that is, natural) surroundings (Pellegrini,
1996). To observe children, this usually means going into
homes, schools, or public parks and playgrounds and
carefully recording what they do. Another is structured
observational study wherein each participant is exposed to a
setting that might cue the behavior in question and is then
surreptitiously observed (via a hidden camera or through a
one-way mirror) to see if he or she performs the behavior.
 Common Research Methods
4. Case Studies. Any or all of the methods we have discussed
—structured interviews, questionnaires, clinical methods, and
behavioral observations—can be used to compile a detailed
portrait of a single individual’s development through the case
study method.
5. Ethnography. A form of participant observation often used
in the field of anthropology—is becoming increasingly
popular among researchers who hope to understand the
ethnography method in which the researcher seeks to
understand the unique values, traditions, and social
processes of a culture or subculture by living with its
members and making extensive observations and notes.
 Common Research Methods

6. Psychophysiological Methods. In recent years,

developmentalists have turned to psychophysiological
methods—techniques that measure the relationship between
physiological responses and behavior—to explore the
biological underpinnings of children’s perceptual, cognitive,
and emotional responses.
 Detecting Relationships: Correlational,
Experimental, and Cross-Cultural Designs

The Correlational Design

the investigator gathers information to determine whether

two or more variables of interest are meaningfully related. If
the researcher is testing a specific hypothesis (rather than
conducting preliminary descriptive or exploratory research),
he or she will be checking to see whether these variables are
related as the hypothesis specifies they should be.
 Detecting Relationships: Correlational,
Experimental, and Cross-Cultural Designs

The Experimental Design

In contrast to correlational studies, experimental designs

permit a precise assessment of the cause-and-effect
relationship that may exist between two variables. Let’s
return to the issue of whether viewing violent television
programming causes children to become more aggressively
inclined. In conducting a laboratory experiment to test this
(or any) hypothesis, we would bring participants to the lab,
expose them to different treatments, and record their
responses to these treatments as data.
 Detecting Relationships: Correlational,
Experimental, and Cross-Cultural Designs

The Field Experiment

One way is to seek converging evidence for that conclusion

by conducting a similar experiment in a natural setting— that
is, a field experiment. This approach combines all the
advantages of naturalistic observation with the more rigorous
control that experimentation allows. In addition, participants
are typically not apprehensive about participating in a
“strange” experiment because all the activities they
undertake are everyday activities.
 Detecting Relationships: Correlational,
Experimental, and Cross-Cultural Designs

The Natural (or Quasi-) Experiment

Suppose, for example, that we wish to study the effects of

social deprivation in infancy on children’s intellectual
development. Clearly, we can- not ask one group of parents
to subject their infants to social deprivation for 2 years so that
we can collect the data we need. However, we might be able
to accomplish our research objectives through a natural (or
quasi-) experiment in which we observe the consequences of
a natural event that participants have experienced.
Thank you
very much!