Psychology
Developmental Research
Developmental research in psychology focuses on studying human growth and change over time, from infancy through adulthood. It aims to understand the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development that occurs at different life stages. Researchers use various methods, such as longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, to investigate how individuals develop and the factors that influence their development.
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12 Key excerpts on "Developmental Research"
No longer available |Learn more- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- The English Press(Publisher)
________________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ________________________ Chapter-1 Developmental Psychology Developmental psychology , also known as human development , is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire life span. This field exa-mines change across a broad range of topics including motor skills and other psycho-physiological processes; cognitive development involving areas such as problem solving, moral understanding, and conceptual understanding; language acquisition; social, personality, and emotional development; and self-concept and identity formation. Developmental psychology includes issues such as the extent to which development occurs through the gradual accumulation of knowledge versus stage-like development, or the extent to which children are born with innate mental structures versus learning through experience. Many researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual's behavior, and environmental factors including social context, and their impact on development; others take a more narrowly focused approach. Developmental psychology informs several applied fields, including: educational psychology, child psychopathology, and forensic developmental psychology. Develop-mental psychology complements several other basic research fields in psychology including social psychology, cognitive psychology, ecological psychology, and compara-tive psychology.
No longer available |Learn more- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- College Publishing House(Publisher)
______________________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ______________________________ Chapter 7 Developmental Psychology Developmental psychology , also known as human development , is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire life span. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including motor skills and other psycho-physiological processes; cognitive development involving areas such as problem solving, moral understanding, and conceptual understanding; language acquisition; social, personality, and emotional development; and self-concept and identity formation. Developmental psychology includes issues such as the extent to which development occurs through the gradual accumulation of knowledge versus stage-like development, or the extent to which children are born with innate mental structures versus learning through experience. Many researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual's behavior, and environmental factors including social context, and their impact on development; others take a more narrowly focused approach. Developmental psychology informs several applied fields, including: educational psychology, child psychopathology, and forensic developmental psychology. Developmental psychology complements several other basic research fields in psychology including social psychology, cognitive psychology, ecological psychology, and comparative psychology.
eBook - PDF- Richard C. LaBarba(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
Earlier, we mentioned that de- velopmental psychology is an interdisciplinary science, requir- ing the integration and analysis of data from various other scientific disciplines. At the same time, developmental psychol- ogy is also an intradisciplinary science, incorporating all the basic areas and subspecialities in psychology. If we are to investigate the development and growth of h u m a n behavior, we need to know something about sensation and perception, learning, language, cognition, motivation, emotional behavior, personality, social development, and physiological psychology. In short, development deals with all dimensions of psycholog- ical phenomena. T h o u g h students learn about each area in psychology in a relatively segmented fashion, in reality each THE STUDY OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 9 area and the behavioral processes it represents are inextricably intertwined in a dynamic network with every other behavioral system. So, for example, it is misleading and simplistic to attempt to understand intellectual development without the perspectives of motivation, learning, emotional development, and personality-social development. All these developmental patterns must be considered and synthesized in terms of intellectual development. In summary, the student of developmental psychology uses a different perspective than most other psychologists. Rather than isolating events and processes, as is often the case in standard psychological research, the developmental integrates many diverse observations to assemble an accurate picture of a developing organism. By acquiring this perspective early in the study of developmental psychology, students can dismiss any narrow, naive preconceptions of developmental psycholo- gy. They may also acquire a broader appreciation of the many topics they will encounter in both introductory and advanced study in psychology.
eBook - PDF- Ronald Comer, Elizabeth Gould, Adrian Furnham(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
As we will see later in the chapter, there is a trend towards a longer human lifespan, and this has given greater prominence to fields of study such as gerontology or the psy- chology of ageing (Overton & Lerner, 2010). We will also think about how development can take an atypical course, an area in which another revolution has been brewing. A relatively new field of study called developmental psychopathology has provided a new way to help us focus on the factors over the course of a person’s lifetime that contrib- ute to their atypical development, a development that then follows a different developmental trajectory. This may result from brain damage, genetic disorder or a neuropsychiatric problem. Understanding How We Develop LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1 Understand the key debates underlying research and theory in child development. Before we discuss what happens in development, it would be useful to consider some of the key issues that concern developmental psychologists. These issues are often foun- dations for theory, research and clinical work, but they are not always directly tested. As you work through the chapter, you may want to think about how the theories we will discuss later fit with these big ideas about human development. What Drives Change? Nature versus Nurture As we saw at the beginning of this chapter, the key debate in human development centres on how much of our growth, personality and behaviour is influenced by nature (i.e. our genetic inheritance) and how much is influenced by nurture (i.e., the environment around us as well as our experiences as we grow). Scientists who take a strong view of the influence of genetics or biology on development are said to view development endogenously (Porges & Carter, 2010). They look at development as biologically programmed to hap- pen sequentially, a process known as maturation .
eBook - PDF- Joachim F. Wohlwill, David S. Palermo(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
This schism in developmental psychology is in part a result of the great diversity to be found in the field today. As noted earlier it ranges from the pure experimentalists who happen to select children as subjects for their research, to those who come to the field with a particular interest or concern for the behavior of children (say, for thumb-sucking in the nursery-school child). A question of much more substantive interest, however, is the status of Developmental Research: Is the study of change in behavior with development an experimental or a differential enterprise? Cronbach includes developmental psychology with the differential branch, presumably on the grounds that the study of differences in behavior which are a function of the age of the individual represents an inherently comparative type of undertaking, in which the investigator clearly can have no control over the main independent variable of interest to him. Ausubel 16 I Developmental Psychology, Past and Present (1958) has similarly described the field as necessarily nonexperimental. Writing as a representative of the more traditional field of child psychology, he argues that for both practical and ethical reasons, and more fundamen-tally because of the complexity of forces operating on the behavior of the child in his actual world, the experimental method is inapplicable to the problems of the developmentalist. Russell (1957), on the other hand, writing from the vantage point of the experimentalist, is rather more sanguine about the possibilities of bridging this gap, and applying experimental approaches to solve developmental problems; but it is apparent that he defines develop-mental problems largely in terms of their relevance for general behavior theory, denying the necessity for postulating any problems that are unique to the developmentalist.
eBook - PDF- Siri Carpenter, Karen Huffman(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
CHAPTER PLANNER ✓ ✓ ❑ Study the picture and read the opening story. ❑ Scan the Learning Objectives in each section: p. 230 ❑ p. 234 ❑ p. 243 ❑ ❑ Read the text and study all figures and visuals. Answer any questions. Analyze key features ❑ Psychological Science p. 231 ❑ p. 239 ❑ ❑ Process Diagram, p. 235 ❑ Psychology InSight, p. 237 ❑ Study Organizer, p. 245 ❑ Applying Psychology, p. 248 ❑ What a Psychologist Sees, p. 249 ❑ Stop: Answer the Concept Checks before you go on: p. 233 ❑ p. 243 ❑ p. 251 ❑ End of chapter ❑ Review the Summary and Key Terms. ❑ Answer the Critical and Creative Thinking Questions. ❑ Answer What is happening in this picture? ❑ Complete the Self-Test and check your answers. Nina Leen/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images, Inc. Studying Development LEARNING OBJECTIVES e begin our study of human devel-opment by focusing on some key theoretical issues and debates, along with several research ap-proaches unique to this field. Keep in mind that development does not stop after child-hood. Developmental psychology studies how we grow and change throughout the eight major stages of life ( Table 9.1 ). 1. Summarize the three most important debates or questions in developmental psychology. W Nature or nurture The issue of “nature versus nurture” has been with us since the be-ginning of psychology (Chapter 1). According to the nature position, human behavior and development are gov-erned by automatic, genetically predetermined signals in a process known as maturation . Just as a flower unfolds in accord with its genetic blueprint, we humans crawl before we walk and walk before we run. Furthermore, there is an optimal period shortly after birth, one of several critical periods during our lifetime, when an organism is especially sensitive to certain experiences that shape the capacity for future development.
eBook - PDF- Catherine A. Sanderson, Karen R. Huffman(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
© jfairone/iStockphoto 235 © Pojoslaw/Shutterstock 236 CHAPTER 9 Life Span Development TABLE 9.1 Life Span Development STAGE APPROXIMATE AGE Prenatal Conception to birth Infancy Birth to 18 months Early childhood 18 months to 6 years Middle childhood 6 to 12 years Adolescence 12 to 20 years Young adulthood 20 to 45 years Middle adulthood 45 to 60 years Late adulthood 60 years to death 9.1 Studying Development LEARNING OBJECTIVES Retrieval Practice While reading the upcoming sections, respond to each Learning Objective in your own words. Review developmental psychology’s theoretical issues and key research approaches. • Define developmental psychology. • Discuss the three key theoretical issues in developmental psychology. • Contrast the cross-sectional research design with the longitudinal research design. Just as some parents carefully document their child’s progress throughout his or her life, the field of developmental psychology studies growth and change throughout the eight major stages of life—from conception to death, or “womb to tomb” (Table 9.1). These studies have led to three key theoretical issues. Theoretical Issues Almost every area of research in human development frames questions around three ma- jor issues: 1. Nature or nurture? How do both genetics (nature) and life experiences (nurture) influence development? According to the nature position, development is largely governed by automatic, genetically predetermined signals in a process known as maturation. Just as a flower unfolds in accord with its genetic blueprint, humans crawl before we walk, and walk before we run. In addition, naturists believe there are critical periods, or windows of opportu- nity, that occur early in life when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences is neces- sary for proper development. For example, many newborn animals, and theoretically humans, form rigid attachments to particular stimuli shortly after birth, a process called imprinting (Figure 9.1).
eBook - PDFDevelopmental Psychopathology and Family Process
Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications
- E. Mark Cummings, Patrick T. Davies, Susan B. Campbell(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- The Guilford Press(Publisher)
In response to these concerns, considerable space has been devoted to outlining methodological directions for research in this area (Cicchetti & Co- hen, 1995b). While these matters have somewhat different implications for practice than for research, these issues nonetheless also have significant impli- cations for the conduct of clinical practice for childhood psychopathology (e.g., What measures are appropriate for assessment in the context of prac- tice? What conclusions can be drawn for these purposes? What are the limita- tions? On another front, what conclusions can the clinician legitimately take away from reading published research studies?). Thus, developmental psychopathology is not just a theory about psycho- pathology in the abstract sense of, say, Freud, Jung, Klein, or other grand the- orists who helped articulate broad psychodynamic principles that for decades defined psychiatry, clinical psychology, and other disciplines concerned with 56 mental health. On the contrary, developmental psychopathology as an ap- proach also forcefully advances a template for the directions of scientific re- search in these areas that are required for the needed advances in understand- ing to take place. METHODOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AND THE ADVOCACY OF METHODOLOGICAL INCLUSIVENESS A central thesis of the developmental psychopathology tradition is that meth- odological diversity is key to substantial new advances and the continuing vigor of this field of study. Moreover, the broad scope of this area requires contributions from many different disciplines to study these matters; that is, there is a recognition that multiple disciplines have something to contribute to the unraveling of the complex processes leading to adjustment and maladjust- ment. Put another way, the field advocates the use of multiple methods in the study of multiple domains of children’s dynamic processes of responding to developmental contexts, as well as the study of the contexts themselves.
- Lance Workman, Will Reader, Jerome H. Barkow(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Evolutionary developmental psychologists recognize the importance of childhood and the adaptations natural selec- tion have shaped to survive childhood and prepare children for adulthood. These evolved characteristics develop via continuous and reciprocal bidirectional gene–environment interactions that emerge over time. Evolutionary develop- mental psychology emphasizes the importance of examin- ing development through an evolutionary lens and of considering the interaction between a child and all levels, from genes to culture. From this perspective, we are able to see that not only does “nothing in biology make sense except in the light of evolution” (Dobzhansky, 1973), but that the same applies for psychology and human development. REFERENCES Abravanel, E., & Sigafoos, A. D. (1984). Exploring the presence of imitation during early infancy. Child Development, 55, 381–392. Anzures, G., Wheeler, A., Quinn, P. C., et al. (2012). Brief daily exposures to Asian females reverses perceptual narrowing for Asian faces in Caucasian infants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 112(4), 484–495. Bardi, L., Regolin, L., & Simion, F. (2014). The first time ever I saw your feet: Inversion effect in newborns’ sensitivity to biological motion. Developmental Psychology, 50(4), 986. Beier, J. S., & Spelke, E. S. (2012). Infants’ developing under- standing of social gaze. Child Development, 83(2), 486–496. Belsky, J., & Most, R. K. (1981). From exploration to play: A cross-sectional study of infant free play behavior. Developmental Psychology, 17(5), 630. Belsky, J., Steinberg, L., & Draper, P. (1991). Childhood experi- ence, interpersonal development, and reproductive strategy: An evolutionary theory of socialization. Child Development, 62(4), 647–670. Belsky, J., Steinberg, L. D., Houts, R. M., et al. (2007). Family rearing antecedents of pubertal timing. Child Development, 78 (4), 1302–1321. Bjorklund, D. F.
- Douglas M. Teti(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
In R. M. Lerner (ed.), Developmental psychology: Historical and philosophical perspect-ives (pp. 79–112). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 202 Lerner, Dowling, Chaudhuri Baltes, P. B. (1987). Theoretical propositions of life-span developmental psychology: On the dynamics between growth and decline. Developmental Psychology , 23 , 611–26. Baltes, P. B. (1997). On the incomplete architecture of human ontogeny: Selection, optimization, and compensation as foundations of developmental theory. American Psychologist , 52 , 366–80. Baltes, P. B., Lindenberger, U., & Staudinger, U. M. (1998). Life-span theory in developmental psychology. In W. Damon (series ed.) & R. M. Lerner (vol. ed.), Handbook of child psychology , vol. 1: Theoretical models of human development (5th edn., pp. 1029–1144). New York: John Wiley. Baltes, P. B., Reese, H. W., & Nesselroade, J. R. (1977). Life-span developmental psychology: Introduction to research methods . Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. Baltes, P. B., Staudinger, U. M., & Lindenberger, U. (1999). Life span psychology: Theory and application to intellectual functioning. In J. T. Spence, J. M. Darley, & D. J. Foss (eds.), Annual Review of Psychology (vol. 50, pp. 471–507). Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews. Bijou, S. W. (1976). Child development: The basic stage of early childhood . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bijou, S. W. & Baer, D. M. (eds.) (1961). Child development: A systematic and empirical theory . New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Bijou, S. W. & Baer, D. M. (eds.) (1965). Child development: Universal stage of infancy (vol. 2). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bloom, L. (1973). One word at a time: The use of single word utterances before syntax. The Hague: Mouton . Bornstein, M. H. & Bradley, R. H. (eds.) (2003). Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child development . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bowers, K. S. (1973). Situationalism in psychology. Psychological Review , 80 , 307–36.
eBook - PDF- Alan Slater, J. Gavin Bremner, Alan Slater, J. Gavin Bremner(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- BPS Blackwell(Publisher)
(1999). Research with children. London: Routledge-Falmer. Coolican, H. (2009). Research methods and statistics in psychology (5th edn). London: Hodder Education. Greig, A. D., & Taylor, J. (1998). Doing research with children. London: Sage. Harris, M. (2008). Exploring developmental psychology. London: Sage. Haslam, S.A., & McGarty, C. (2003). Research methods and statistics in psychology. London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. McNaughton, G., Rolfe, S., & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2001). Doing early childhood research: Theory and practice. London: Open University Press. THE SCOPE AND METHODS OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 39 REFERENCES Babson, T., & Benda, G. (1976). Growth graphs for the clinical assessment of infants of varying gestational age. Journal of Pediatrics, 89, 814–820. Barbu-Roth, M. et al. (2015). Why does infant stepping disappear and can it be stimulated by optic flow? Child Development, 86, 441–455. Benoit, D., & Parker, K. (1994). Stability and transmission of attachment across three generations. Child Development, 65, 1444–1456. Booth-LaForce, C., & Roisman, G.I. (2014). The Adult Attachment Interview: Psychometrics, stability, and change from infancy, and developmental origins. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 79 (Serial No. 3). Boyd, A., & Golding, J. et al. (2013). Cohort profile: The ‘Children of the 90s’ – the index offspring of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. International Journal of Epidemiology, 47, 111–127. Bushnell, I.W.R. (2003). Newborn face recognition. In O. Pascalis & A. Slater (Eds.) Face: The development of face processing in infancy and early childhood (pp. 41–53). New York: NOVA Science Publishers. Darwin, C. (1877/1999). A biographical sketch of an infant. In A. Slater and D. Muir (Eds.), The Blackwell reader in developmental psychology (pp. 18–26). Oxford and Massachusetts: Blackwell. Deloache, J.S., Pierroutsakos, S.L., Uttal, D.H., Rosengren, K.S., & Gottlieb, A.
eBook - ePub- Ronald Comer, Nancy Ogden, Michael Boyes, Elizabeth Gould(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Because of his death at the young age of 37 and the chilly political climate between the former Soviet Union and the West, Vygotsky’s ideas have only become more widely studied in North America in recent years. However, developmental psychologists have found numerous ways to apply Vygotsky’s ideas (Trawick-Smith & Dziurgot, 2011). He has become one of today’s most influential developmental theorists (Eun, 2010). Indeed, the ideas of scaffolding and zones of proximal development are now an important part of educational systems throughout North America (Roth & Jornet, 2017; Moll, 2013). When helping children learn to read, for example, many teachers begin by reading books to them, and then gradually turn over responsibility for various reading skills. The children may first follow along with the pictures as the teacher reads the words, then point to letters. Eventually, they learn to read single words, then sentences, and finally entire books on their own, as the teacher provides less and less scaffolding.Social and Emotional Development in Infancy and Childhood
While we tend to think of young infants as completely helpless, they actually bring a number of behavioural tendencies to their early interactions with their parents.As we noted in Chapter 1 , many psychological researchers are interested in trying to determine how much of the way we think and act is influenced by our genetic inheritance, a field of study called behavioural genetics. Developmental psychologists are often in a position to examine the influence of genetics. One of the key areas of focus of both behavioural genetics and developmental psychology, for example, is temperament , defined as a biologically-based tendency to respond to certain situations in similar ways throughout a person’s lifetime (Trofimova & Robbins, 2016; Chess, 2013) (see photo). Although temperament and personality are related, they are not the same thing. Many personality characteristics are learned or acquired, whereas temperamental traits are considered genetic (Zentner & Shiner, 2015; Buss & Plomin, 2014). In a longitudinal study that began in the 1950s, the New York Longitudinal Study
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