Transcript Chapter 2 PowerPoint

CHAPTER 2
THE SCIENCE OF CHILD
DEVELOPMENT
RESEARCH ON CHILD
DEVELOPMENT
Why Research on Child Development Is
Important – basing information only on
personal experiences reduces objectivity
because humans make judgments that protect
their ego and self-esteem.
THEORIES OF CHILD
DEVELOPMENT
Psychoanalytic – Behavior is merely a surface
characteristic, and it is important to analyze the
symbolic meanings of behavior – early experiences
are important in development.
Freud’s Theory – Personality has three
structures: (1) id – instincts, psychic energy; (2)
ego – manages the demands of reality; (3)
superego – the moral branch of personality –
conscience. Freud also believed that there are five
psychosexual stages of development:
Freud’s Five psychosexual stages of
development
Oral Stage – first 18 months of life – pleasure centers
around the mouth.
Anal stage – 18 through 36 months – pleasure involves anus
or eliminative functions.
Phallic stage – three to six years of age – pleasure focuses
on genitals and self-manipulation.
Latency stage – six years to puberty – child represses
sexual interest and develops social and intellectual skills.
Genital stage – puberty on – sexual reawakening; source of
sexual pleasure becomes someone outside the family
Erikson’s Theory:
Emphasized development through
psychosocial stages, each of which
provides a crises for the individual to
overcome.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages:
Trust vs. mistrust – In infancy, where trust provides
physical comfort and a lifetime of expectant trust is begun.
Autonomy vs. shame/doubt – one to three years – Begin
to discover that their behavior is their own and begin to
assert independence – overpunishment could produce
shame and doubt.
Initiative vs. guilt – preschool years – Begins to assert
oneself and assume responsibility – prone to guilt if made
anxious.
Industry vs. inferiority – elementary school years –
Enthusiastic about learning – prone to feelings of
incompetence and inferiority if stilted in their industry.
Identity vs. identity confusion – adolescence and
role exploration – Hindrance in this exploration or
authoritarian demands by parents to assume a
chosen role can lead to identity confusion.
Intimacy vs. isolation – In early adulthood,
achieving a relationship in which one “loses
oneself” in another.
Generativity vs. stagnation – In middle adulthood,
developing meaningful and useful lives versus
stagnation in having done nothing for future
generations.
Integrity vs. despair – In later years, the person
retroactively views his or her life positively or
negatively, which affects the condition of their
psyche in old age.
Cognitive – an emphasis on
children’s conscious thoughts
Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental
Theory – Children actively construct their
understanding of the world and go through
four stages of cognitive development. He
believed that children adapt thinking to
include new ideas through assimilation
(incorporating new information into existing
knowledge) and accommodation (adjusting
to the new information.)
Four Stages of Cognitive
Development
Sensorimotor stage – birth to tow years – Infants
construct an understanding of the world by coordinating
sensory experiences with physical action.
Preoperational stage – two to seven years – Children
represent the world with words and images, reflecting
increased symbolic thinking.
Concrete operational stage – The child now reasons
logically and classifies objects into different sets.
Formal operational stage – Reasons in more
abstract, idealistic, and logical ways.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive Theory
– Emphasizes developmental analysis, the role
of language, and social relations. The three
tenets of Vygotskyian thought are:
The child’s cognitive skills are understood
only when developmentally analyzed.
Cognitive skills are mediated by word,
language, and forms of discourse.
Cognitive skills have their origins in social
relations and are embedded in a
sociocultural backdrop.
The Information-Processing Approach
– Individuals manipulate information,
monitor it, and strategize about it within
the process of memory and thinking.
Computers serve as analogies for the
information-processing approach: the
brain is the computer’s hardware and
congnition is the software.
Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theories –
Develoment is observable behavior that can
be learned through experience with the
environment.
Pavlov’s classical conditioning – A neutral
stimulus (the bell) acquires the ability to
produce a response originally produced by
another stimulus (food).
Sinner’s operant conditioning – Through
inducing rewards and punishments, one can
manipulate the environment to emit the
desired response in behavior.
Social Cognitive Theory – Behavior,
cognition, and environment are key factors in
development. People often cognitively
identify with others’ behavior and then model
or imitate it. A person’s behavior influences
the environment, which in turn influences
behavior.
Ethological Theory – Behavior is strongly
influenced by biology, tied to evolution, and
therefore characterized by critical or sensitive
periods. This theory produced the concept of
imprinting – when an offspring innately
attaches itself to the first moving object seen
because it is in a critical period.
Ethological Theory – Five environmental
influences developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner.
Microsystem – where the child lives, involving family,
peers, school, and neighborhood.
Mesosystem – relationships within the miscrosystem, such
as family and school experiences.
Exosystem – the influences of factors over which one has
no control, such as divorce, parents’ work stress.
Macrosystem – the culture in which one lives, its beliefs
and value systems.
Chronosystem – the sequence of patterning of events that
impact the child’s life; divorce may affect the child
differently at different times in his or her life.
An Eclectic Theoretical
Orientation – An approach that
selects concepts from one or
more of the various theories in
analyzing a child’s development.
RESEARCH METHODS:
Measures
Observation – Involves control of bias, accurate record
keeping and categorizing, and effective communications
on what was observed. They are made either in the
laboratory, a controlled environment, or in natural
settings, behavior within the subject’s environment.
Interviews and Questionnaires – Need to be authentic,
unambiguous, sensitive, specific, and appropriate to the
study.
Standardized Tests – Commercially prepared, easily
graded, and amenable to comparisons with other groups or
cohorts.
Case Studies – An in-depth look at an individual. These
are unique sources of information but are not effective in
generalizing to larger audiences.
Experimental and Correlational
Methods
Correlation research – Describes the strength of
the relationship between two or more events or
characteristics. A strong correlation provides a
basis for prediction relative to one or the other;
however, correlation is not causation.
Experimental method – A regulated procedure in
which one or more of the factors believed to
influence the behavior being studied are
manipulated and all other factors are controlled.
The independent variable is the “cause” being
manipulated, while the dependent variable is the
“effect” or the behavior that changes.
Time Span of Research – When
subjects are studied has an impact on
results
Cross-section research – Studying subjects
all at one time. The downside is that it does
not consider how a person or persons might
change over time.
Longitudinal research – Studying subjects
over a period of time usually several years,
to determine long-range effects and to what
degree a behavior is modified.
RESEARCH CHALLENGES
Ethics – The American Psychological Association
(APA) has established a code of ethics by which
researchers abide in order to protect the subject and
the researcher and to provide authenticity to the study.
Informed consent means that participants are aware of
the circumstances of their involvement. Researchers
must maintain the confidentiality of the participants
and conduct debriefing where the participants are
informed of the purpose and methods used in the
study.
Gender – Researchers must be
cautious concerning gender bias in
their studies. They must consider:
How gender influences questions,
hypotheses, and research design.
How research on topics such as
relationships, feelings, and empathy
challenge existing theory.
How previous research exaggerating gender
influence may now affect views on gender.
Ethnicity and Culture –
Children of minorities have been
excluded in research on child
development or have been victims
of ethnic gloss, where an ethnic
group is labeled by virtue of a
stereotype relative to their
ethnicity.
Being a Wise Consumer of Information About Children’s
Development
Be cautious about what is reported
in the popular media. Media often
retrieve information from research
studies but tend to generalize or
misinterpret the results. This can
cause public assumption relative to
issues that may impact how child
development is viewed.
Don’t assume group research
applies to an individual. A
common error is to assign a research
study conclusion completed on a
group to an individual. A
statistically significant study may
include some members from the
group who do not demonstrate the
variable being reported.
Don’t over generalize about a
small or clinical sample. What
might be found true for the studied
group cannot necessarily be
generalized to persons with the
variable in the larger population.
Not all children of divorced
families have low self-esteem.
Don’t generally take a single
study as the defining word. One
study revealing a startling fact
about a particular group cannot
necessarily apply to all who may
demonstrate that variable – and,
conflicting results.
Don’t accept casual
conclusions from
correlation studies.
Correlation is a finding
about variables concerning
specific groups. Only in
experimental test where
the subjects are made to
assume certain
characteristics can there
be anything close to a
causality; and since it is
impossible (not to mention
unethical) to legislate
behavior, correlation
cannot breed causality.
Always consider the
source of the
information and
evaluate its credibility.
It is wise to note where
the research was
published and reported.
Studies funded by
agencies and /or
businesses that have a
stake in the outcome of a
study, and who report
those outcomes in the
media, should be viewed
cautiously.