Transcript Document

Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Chapter 1
Understanding Development
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
What is Development?
• Systematic changes and continuities
- In the individual
- Occur between conception and death
- Three interdependent domains of development
- Physical
- Cognitive
- Psychosocial
• Developmental change involves gains and losses
throughout life
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Key Developmental Processes
• Maturation: The biological unfolding of the
individual genetic plan
• Learning:
Relatively permanent changes
due to environmental experiences
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Age Grades, Age Norms, and the Social Clock
• Age Grade: Socially defined age groups
- Statuses, roles, privileges, and responsibilities
- Example: Adults can vote, children can’t
• Age Norms: Beh expectations according to age
- Example: Children attend school
• Social Clock: When in life things should occur
- Example: Early adulthood is the time for first
marriages
• “Off time” experiences are more difficult
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Goals of Studying Life-Span Development
• Description
- Normal development, individual differences
• Explanation
- Typical and differential human development
• Optimization
- Positive development, enhancing human capacities
- Prevention and overcoming difficulties
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Methods of Studying Life-Span Development
• Historical
- Baby Biographies: Charles Darwin (1877)
- Questionnaires: G. Stanley Hall (1891)
• Key Assumptions of Modern Life-Span
Perspective: Paul Baltes (1987)
- Lifelong, multidirectional process
- Gain, loss and lifelong plasticity
- Historical/cultural contexts, multiple influences
- Multi-disciplinary studies
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Developmental Research: Data Collection
• Self-Reports: Interviews, Questionnaires, Tests
- Advantage: easy, inexpensive
- Disadvantage: verbal & cognitive skills, R bias
• Behavioral Observations
- Naturalistic
- Advantage: Natural setting
- Disadvantage: Conditions not controlled
- Structured (Lab)
- Advantage: Conditions controlled
- Disadvantage: Cannot generalize
to natural settings
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Research Methods: The Experiment
• Three Critical Features
- Manipulation of the independent variable
- Random assignment of individuals to
treatment condition
- Experimental control
- Advantage: Cause-effect established
- Disadvantage: artificial, may be impossible
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Research Methods: Correlational
• Determine if variables are systematically related
• Correlation: A measure of the relationship
between two variables
- Range from +1.0 to –1.0
- If positive, variables move in the same direction
- If negative, variables move in different direction
- No relationship if correlation is zero
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Figure 1.3
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Research Methods: Correlational
• Advantage: easy, study many Vs & those
not possible/ethical to manipulate
• Disadvantage: no control or cause-effect
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Developmental Research Designs
• Cross-Sectional
Designs
- Multiple cohorts or age groups studied
- Collect data once
- Examine group differences at one time
- Advantage: age differences, inexpensive
- Disadvantage: cohort effects, change over
time
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Developmental Research Designs
• Longitudinal Designs
- 1 cohort or age group studied
- Collect data many times
- Examine changes across time (age)
- Advantage: change over time, developmental trends
- Disadvantage: expensive, attrition, time of
measurement
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Age, Cohort, and Time of Measurement Effects
• Age effects: Changes occur simply due to age
• Cohort effects: Being born in one historical context
- Changes which occur due to differences in society
for a given generation
- Disadvantage for the cross-sectional design
• Time effects: Historical events or trends
- Events taking place at the time data is collected
- Disadvantage for the longitudinal design
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Carol K. Sigelman, Elizabeth A. Rider
Life-Span Human Development, 4th Edition
Chapter 1: Understanding Life-Span Human Development
Sequential Designs
• Combines cross-sectional and longitudinal designs
- Multiple groups assessed multiple times
- Advantages of both designs
- Give us information about
- Which age-related trends are truly age effects?
- Which age-related trends are truly cohort effects?
- Which trends are a result of historical events?
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