LECTURES 1 AND 2: METHODS IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCH
Developmental psychology
- Life-span development
- Refers to conception to death – not prominent focus on children
- Understand changes that happen over time in cognitive, emotional and behavioural
functioning of an individual due to genetic and environmental influences
o Cognitive – dementia?
o Emotional = attachment – emotional bond
o Behavioural – behaviour in different settings
o Genetic – DNA
o Environmental – maltreatment, lack of stimulation, different experiences
▪ Personality elicits different responses
- Examine human behaviour across the lifespan and adopt a range of perspectives
Developmental functions:
- Way we develop and grow – functions important to detect abnormalities/delays – able to
intervene and help
- Continuous increasing ability
o Behaviour ability increasing with age – as the develop they grow in ability – better
o E.g. speech, intelligence (cog abilities), weight, height (length increases and levels
off) – consider individual differences
- Continuous decreasing ability
o As we get older, we get worse
o E.g. memory, movement/physical strength (consider individual differences)
o Speech perception – infants at 6 months can discriminate between all speech
sounds, ability decreases during second half of first year – lose ability to discriminate
between phonemes not important to their own language.
- Step- or stage- like
o Develop in stages, every stage is different from the previous one and different from
the following one.
o Infants – toddlers – pre-schoolers – children – adolescents
▪ Language – vocab increases at different ages – school = vast amount, write
read, syntaxes
o Piagetian’s theory – children’s cognitive ability develops in different stages –
sensory-motor stage (infants), understand they are separate from mother, 3 months
= object permanence, (preoperational stage) 2 = using language – cog development
– start using pretend play, 8-12 = concrete operation stage – solve
problems/abstract thinking.
▪ Conservation of liquid – two glasses with same amount – pour into thinner,
taller glass – asked which contains more liquid
o Height – height doesn’t change for a period of time then a burst of development
- Inverted U-shaped
o Ability increases with age to a certain point then decrease in later life
o Fitness/athletic performance – undeveloped in young years – decreases in older
years
o Vision – new born babies cannot see well but it increases with age then decreases.
- Upright U-shaped
Developmental psychology
- Life-span development
- Refers to conception to death – not prominent focus on children
- Understand changes that happen over time in cognitive, emotional and behavioural
functioning of an individual due to genetic and environmental influences
o Cognitive – dementia?
o Emotional = attachment – emotional bond
o Behavioural – behaviour in different settings
o Genetic – DNA
o Environmental – maltreatment, lack of stimulation, different experiences
▪ Personality elicits different responses
- Examine human behaviour across the lifespan and adopt a range of perspectives
Developmental functions:
- Way we develop and grow – functions important to detect abnormalities/delays – able to
intervene and help
- Continuous increasing ability
o Behaviour ability increasing with age – as the develop they grow in ability – better
o E.g. speech, intelligence (cog abilities), weight, height (length increases and levels
off) – consider individual differences
- Continuous decreasing ability
o As we get older, we get worse
o E.g. memory, movement/physical strength (consider individual differences)
o Speech perception – infants at 6 months can discriminate between all speech
sounds, ability decreases during second half of first year – lose ability to discriminate
between phonemes not important to their own language.
- Step- or stage- like
o Develop in stages, every stage is different from the previous one and different from
the following one.
o Infants – toddlers – pre-schoolers – children – adolescents
▪ Language – vocab increases at different ages – school = vast amount, write
read, syntaxes
o Piagetian’s theory – children’s cognitive ability develops in different stages –
sensory-motor stage (infants), understand they are separate from mother, 3 months
= object permanence, (preoperational stage) 2 = using language – cog development
– start using pretend play, 8-12 = concrete operation stage – solve
problems/abstract thinking.
▪ Conservation of liquid – two glasses with same amount – pour into thinner,
taller glass – asked which contains more liquid
o Height – height doesn’t change for a period of time then a burst of development
- Inverted U-shaped
o Ability increases with age to a certain point then decrease in later life
o Fitness/athletic performance – undeveloped in young years – decreases in older
years
o Vision – new born babies cannot see well but it increases with age then decreases.
- Upright U-shaped
