4PS014 Developmental Psychology Lecture 1: Introduction

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4PS014 Developmental PsychologyLecture 1
Introduction

• Steve Croker
• Room N205a
• Ext. 3047
• s.croker_at_derby.ac.uk
• http//psychology.derby.ac.uk/steve/devpsy1/

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Outline

• Assessment
• Coursework
• Exam
• Seminars
• Reading Lists
• Why study Developmental Psychology?
• Historical foundations of the study of
  Developmental Psychology
• Key issues in Developmental Psychology
• Key theories in Developmental Psychology

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Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate an understanding of the main
  theories, models and research in developmental
  psychology and of specific phenomena relating to
  development
• Engage in independent enquiry of a specific
  aspect of developmental psychology and evaluate
  this in relation to theories, models and research
  in development.

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Assessment

• 1 coursework project (50) - 1500 words
• Info on the coursework is on the web
• Deadline for coursework Friday 11th April, 4pm
• 1 essay based exam (50)
• Answer 2 questions from 6

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The Research Project Seminars

• Childrens language acquisition
• Lecture next week
• Seminars in weeks 2-5
• Seminars
• Every week at 10am/11am
• Weeks 1-3, 6-11 in Rooms N601 N603
• Weeks 4 5 in rooms B222 T013
• Group A surnames A-D N601/B222, 10am
• Group B surnames E-K N601/B222, 11am
• Group C surnames L-R N603/T013, 10am
• Group D surnames S-Z N603/T013, 11am

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Turnitin plagiarism detection

• www.submit.ac.uk
• Select sign up (or login with your existing
  email/password)
• Module ID 28204
• Module password cognition
• More details in programme handbook
• http//psychology.derby.ac.uk/steve/resources/tur
  nitin.html

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Reading Lists

• Core Text
• Siegler, R, DeLoache, J.S. Eisenberg, N. (2006)
  How Children Develop (2nd Ed.) NY Worth
• Companion website
• http//bcs.worthpublishers.com/howchildrendevelop2
  e/
• Chapter outlines
• Online quizzes
• Interactive flashcards
• Web links
• Recommended reading and journals - on 'reading
  resources' webpage
• Additional reading - given in relevant lectures

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Why Study Developmental Psychology? Reason 1
Raising Children

• Knowledge of child development can help parents
  and teachers meet the challenges of rearing and
  educating children
• For example, researchers have identified
  effective approaches that parents and other
  caregivers can successfully use in helping
  children manage anger and other negative emotions

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Why Study Developmental Psychology? Reason 2
Choosing Social Policies

• Knowledge of child development permits informed
  decisions about social-policy questions that
  affect children
• For example, psychological research on childrens
  responses to leading interview questions can
  help courts obtain more accurate testimonies
  from preschool children

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Why Study Developmental Psychology? Reason 3
Understanding Human Nature

• Child-development research provides important
  insights into some of the most intriguing
  questions regarding human nature (such as the
  existence of innate concepts and the relationship
  between early and later experiences)
• Recent investigations of development among
  children adopted from inadequate orphanages in
  Romania supports the principle that the timing of
  experiences often influences their effects

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Historical Foundations Early Philosophers

• Provided enduring insights about critical issues
  in childrearing, even though their methods were
  unscientific
• Both Plato and Aristotle believed that the
  long-term welfare of society depended on
  childrens being raised properly, but they
  differed in their approaches

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Historical Foundations Plato vs. Aristotle

• Plato emphasized self-control and discipline
• Aristotle was concerned with fitting child
  rearing to the needs of the individual child
• Plato believed that children are born with innate
  knowledge
• Aristotle believed that knowledge comes from
  experience

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Historical Foundations Later Philosophers

• The English philosopher John Locke, like
  Aristotle, saw the child as a tabula rasa and
  advocated first instilling discipline, then
  gradually increasing the childs freedom
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher,
  argued that parents and society should give the
  child maximum freedom from the beginning

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Historical Foundations Research-Based Approach

• Emerged in the nineteenth century, in part as a
  result of two converging forces
• Social reform movements established a legacy of
  research conducted for the benefit of children
  and provided some of the earliest descriptions of
  the adverse effects that harsh environments can
  have on child development
• Charles Darwins theory of evolution inspired
  research in child development in order to gain
  insights into the nature of the human species

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Historical Foundations Formal Field of Inquiry

• Child development emerged as a formal field of
  inquiry in the late nineteenth and early
  twentieth centuries
• Sigmund Freud and John Watson formulated
  influential theories of development during this
  period

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Historical Foundations Freud and Watson

• Freud concluded that biological drives,
  especially sexual ones, exerted a crucial
  influence on development
• Watson argued that childrens behavior arises
  largely from the rewards and punishments that
  follow particular behaviors
• Although the research methods on which these
  theories were based were limited, the theories
  were better grounded in research and inspired
  more sophisticated thinking than their
  predecessors

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Themes in Developmental Psychology

• Nature and Nurture
• The Active Child
• Continuity/Discontinuity
• Mechanisms of Developmental Change
• The Sociocultural Context
• Individual Differences
• Research and Childrens Welfare

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Basic Questions about Child Development

• How do nature and nurture together shape
  development?
• How do children shape their own development?
• In what ways is development continuous, and in
  what ways is it discontinuous?
• How does change occur?
• How does the sociocultural context influence
  development?
• How do children become so different from each
  other?
• How can research promote childrens well-being?

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Nature and Nurture

• The single most basic question about child
  development is how nature and nurture interact to
  shape the developmental process
• Nature refers to our biological endowment,
  especially the genes we receive from our parents
• Nurture refers to the wide range of environments,
  both physical and social, that influence our
  development

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Nature and Nurture

• Developmentalists now recognize that every
  characteristic we possess is created through the
  joint workings of nature and nurture
• Accordingly, they ask how nature and nurture work
  together to shape development

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How do children shape their own development?

• Children contribute to their own development
  from early in life, and their contributions
  increase as they grow older
• Three of the most important contributions during
  childrens first years are their
• Attentional patterns
• Use of language
• Play
• Older children and adolescents choose many
  environments, friends, and activities for
  themselves their choices can exert a large
  impact on their future

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Continuity vs. Discontinuity
Continuous development Age-related changes
occur gradually
Discontinuous development Age-related changes
include occasional large shifts so that children
of different ages seem qualitatively different
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Continuity vs. Discontinuity
p. 16

• Depending on how it is viewed, changes in height
  can be viewed as either continuous or
  discontinuous
• Examining a boys height at yearly intervals from
  birth to 18 years makes the growth look gradual
  and continuous
• Examining changes in the same boys height from
  one year to the next makes growth seem
  discontinuous

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How does developmental change occur?

• Darwins theory of evolution provides a useful
  framework for thinking about the mechanisms that
  produce change in childrens development
• Variation refers to differences in thought and
  behavior within and among individuals
• Selection describes the more frequent survival
  and reproduction of organisms that are well
  adapted to their environment

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How does developmental change occur?

• In an analogous way, psychological variation and
  selection appear to produce changes within an
  individual lifetime
• As examples of these processes, variation and
  selection are apparent in brain development and,
  at a behavioral level, in the strategies that
  young children acquire to solve single-digit
  addition problems

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How does the sociocultural context influence
development?

• Sociocultural context Refers to the physical,
  social, cultural, economic, and historical
  circumstances that make up any childs
  environment
• Contexts of development differ within and
  between cultures
• As an example, sleeping arrangements differ
  between Mayan and US families, with Mayan
  children typically sharing a bed with their
  parents for several years
• The US culture prizes independence and
  self-reliance, whereas the Mayan culture values
  interdependence

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How does the sociocultural context influence
development?

• Development is affected by ethnicity, race, and
  socioeconomic status, which is a measure of
  social class based on income
  and education
• The economic
  context exerts a particularly large
  influence on
  childrens lives

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How do children become so different from each
other?

• Individual differences among children arise
  very quickly in development
• Childrens genes, their treatment by other
  people, their subjective reactions to other
  peoples treatment of them, and their choice of
  environments all contribute to differences among
  children, even those within the same family

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How can research promote a childs well-being?

• Child-development research yields practical
  benefits in diagnosing childrens problems and in
  helping children to overcome them
• A child-development research method known as
  preferential looking has enabled the diagnosis of
  the effects of cataracts in infants as young as
  two months of age
• The principle of successive approximation has
  been used to develop training programs to foster
  speech comprehension among young children with
  specific language impairments

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Key Theories in Developmental Psychology

• Cognitive-Developmental Theories
• Piaget, Information-processing theories
• Psychodynamic Theories
• Freud, Erikson
• Behaviourist Theories
• Watson
• Social Cognitive Learning Theories
• Bandura
• Contextual Developmental Theories
• Vygotsky
• Nativist Theories
• Chomsky

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Learning outcomes for lecture 1

• Understand why we study developmental psychology
• Know and be able to discuss the key issues in
  developmental psychology
• Reading
• Siegler, DeLoache Eisenberg
• Chapter 1