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I. Basic Theoretical Issues

• What's a Theory?
o A theory is a set of logically related concepts or statements. It tries to describe
and explain development. It also aims to predict what kind of behavior might
happen under certain conditions.
o Theories help organize and explain data.
o A theory generates hypotheses, which are explanations or predictions that can
be tested by more research.
• Theory and Research:
o Theory and research are interwoven.
o Theories inspire more research and predict its results by creating hypotheses.
o Research can show if a theory's predictions are accurate, but it can't completely
prove a theory is true.
o Sometimes research supports a hypothesis and the theory it came from.
o Other times, scientists have to change their theories to explain unexpected
data.
o Research findings often suggest more hypotheses to check and give ideas for
handling practical issues.
• Fundamental Question 1: Is Development Active or Reactive?
o This asks if we make our own development happen (active) or if we just react
to what society or the environment does to us (reactive).
o Reactive Development:
▪ This view sees the developing child as a hungry sponge that soaks up
experiences. The child is shaped by this input over time.
▪ We just react to what society is forcing on us.
▪ John Locke said a young child is a tabula rasa—a blank slate.
Society writes on this slate. How the child developed depended entirely
on experiences.
o Active Development:
▪ This view argues that people create experiences for themselves. They
are motivated to learn about the world around them.
▪ We assert our own will.
▪ Jean Jacques Rousseau said children are born "noble savages".
They develop according to their own good natural tendencies if society
doesn't corrupt them.
• Models of Development:
o Mechanistic Model:
▪ Locke's view is a forerunner to this model.

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▪It sees people as being like machines that react to input from the
environment.
▪ It views human development as a series of predictable responses to
stimuli (things that cause a reaction).
▪ Mechanistic researchers want to find the factors that make people
behave as they do. For example, they might look for environmental
influences to explain why some college students drink too much alcohol.
o Organismic Model:
▪ Rousseau's view is a precursor to this model.
▪ It views human development as internally started by an active organism.
▪ Development happens in a sequence of qualitatively different stages.
▪ People initiate (start) events; they don't just react.
▪ The environment doesn't cause development, but it can speed it up or
slow it down.
▪ This model describes development as a sequence of progressive
stages moving toward full maturation.
• Fundamental Question 2: Is Development Continuous or Discontinuous?
o Quantitative Change (Continuous):
▪ Mechanistic theorists often see development as continuous, happening
in small incremental stages.
▪ This means changes in number or amount, like height or weight.
▪ Development is always governed by the same processes. Early skills
gradually refine and extend into later abilities. This allows for predictions
because you are measuring fundamentally the same thing over time.
o Qualitative Change (Discontinuous):
▪ This means development is abrupt or uneven.
▪ It's marked by the emergence of new phenomena (things) that couldn't
be easily predicted based on how things worked before.
▪ Development is fundamentally different in nature; it's a change in kind,
structure, or organization.
▪ Example: Being pregnant versus not pregnant is a qualitative change.
▪ Organismic theorists support stage theories, where development
happens in a series of distinct stages, like stairsteps.
▪ What happens at each stage is fundamentally different from previous
stages, and stages build on each other.
▪ Stages can't be skipped, and development only moves in a positive
direction. These processes are thought to be universal for all humans,
though timing can vary.

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II. Theoretical Perspectives

• 1. Psychoanalytic Perspective:
o The originator was Sigmund Freud.
o This view sees development as reactive with qualitative changes over time.
o Freud proposed that humans are born with a series of innate, biologically based
drives. People are motivated to satisfy their urges, and much of development
involves learning how to do this in socially acceptable ways.
o Early experiences shape later functioning; childhood is an important precursor
to adult behavior.
o Emphasis on the "unconscious".
o a. Psychosexual Development (Sigmund Freud):
▪ Structures of the mind:
▪ Id: Operates under the pleasure principle; it seeks immediate
gratification. When gratification is delayed, infants start to see
themselves as separate from the world.
▪ Ego: Develops in the first year of life and operates under the
reality principle. Its aim is to find realistic ways to gratify the id
that are acceptable to the superego. This is reason.
▪ Superego: Develops around 5-6 years old. It includes the
conscience and the socially approved "shoulds" and "should
nots". It's highly demanding.
▪ Personality forms through unconscious childhood conflicts between the
id's urges and the superego's requirements of civilized life.
▪ Stages of Psychosexual Development: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency,
Genital. The first three stages are crucial for personality development.
▪ The superego emerges during the Phallic stage (related to the Oedipal
and Electra Complex).
▪ Fixation: This is an arrest (stop) in development that can show up in
adult personality. It happens when children receive too little or too much
gratification in any of the stages.
▪ Oral fixation examples: Nail biters, smokers, or people who
seem greedy.
▪ Anal fixation examples: Being obsessively clean, rigidly tied to
schedules, or defiantly messy.
o b. Psychosocial Development (Erik Erikson):
▪ Erik Erikson modified and extended Freudian theory by emphasizing the
influence of society on the developing personality.
▪ Erikson was a pioneer in taking a lifespan perspective. This involves
qualitative change.

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▪ Each stage involves a crisis in personality – a major psychosocial

challenge that is very important at that time and will remain an issue to
some degree for the rest of life.
▪ Each stage requires balancing a positive and a negative tendency; the
positive should dominate, but some negative quality is also needed for
optimal development.
▪ The successful outcome of each stage is the development of a particular
virtue, or strength.
▪ Successful resolution of each crisis puts the person in a good position
to handle the next crisis, a process that happens repeatedly across the
lifespan.
▪ Importance of Erikson's Theory: He highlighted that social and
cultural influences mattered. He emphasized the social clock (culturally
preferred timing of important life events). He realized development is a
lifelong process and had a much more positive view of development
than Freud.
▪ Note: If you fail in one stage, you'll find it hard to adapt in the next stages.
• 2. Learning Perspective:
o This is a view that changes in behavior result from experience or from
adaptation to the environment.
o It focused on behavior that could be observed and counted because this gives
more objectivity.
o Psychologists at the time also viewed the mind as a tabula rasa (blank slate)
upon which experience could write. Everything a person became depended on
experience.
o This implied that the world's problems could be fixed if psychologists figured
out the right way to raise children.
o This perspective saw development as continuous, quantitative, reactive, and
mechanistic.
o a. Behaviorism:
▪ This is a mechanistic theory that describes observed behavior as a
predictable response to experience. It's reactive and continuous.
▪ It holds that humans at all ages learn about the world the same way
other organisms do: by reacting to conditions or aspects of their
environment.
▪ i. Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov):
▪ A response (like salivation) to a stimulus (like a bell) is evoked
(brought out) after repeated association with a stimulus (like
food) that normally causes the response. It's an involuntary
predictor.

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▪ John B. Watson applied such S-R (stimulus-response)

theories to children. He claimed he could mold any infant in any
way he chose (e.g., Little Albert experiment ).
▪ ii. Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner):
▪ This is learning based on associating behavior with its
consequences.
▪ It involves voluntary behavior and the consequences, rather than
the predictors.
▪ Reinforcement: The process by which a behavior is
strengthened, increasing the likelihood that the behavior will be
repeated[cite:1 59]. It's most effective when it immediately follows
a behavior. If a response is no longer reinforced, it will be
extinguished (return to its baseline level).
▪ Punishment: The process by which a behavior is weakened,
decreasing the likelihood of repetition.
▪ Behavior Modification: A form of operant conditioning used to
shape behaviors, often used therapeutically, especially for
children with special needs. It's used for managing problem
behaviors and encouraging desired ones.
o b. Social Learning (Social Cognitive) Theory (Albert Bandura):
▪ Albert Bandura expanded the original ideas of behaviorism.
▪ He argued that the drive for development is bidirectional, which he
called reciprocal determinism: the person acts on the world as the
world acts on the person.
▪ Social Learning Theory maintains that people learn appropriate
social behavior mainly by observing and imitating models (other
people).
▪ Observational Learning: Learning through watching the
behavior of others (e.g., Bobo doll experiment). People tend to
choose models who are prestigious, control resources, or are
rewarded for what they do. This learning can happen even if a
person doesn't imitate the behavior right away.
▪ Social Cognitive Theory (updated version): Gives greater emphasis
to cognitive processes (thinking) as central to development.
▪ Cognitive processes are at work as people observe models,
learn chunks of behavior, and mentally put them together into
complex new behavior patterns.
▪ Through feedback on their behavior, children gradually form
standards for judging their actions and become more selective in
choosing models who show those standards.

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▪ They also begin to develop a sense of self-efficacy, which is

confidence in their ability to master challenges and achieve
goals.
• 3. Cognitive Perspective:
o This focuses on the thought processes and the behavior that reflects those
processes, seeing them as central to development.
o a. Cognitive Stage Theory (Jean Piaget):
▪ Jean Piaget proposed that children's cognitive development advances
in a series of 4 stages involving qualitatively distinct types of mental
operations[cite:2 73]. It's an organismic view: children attempt to
understand and act upon their world. It involves qualitative
development.
▪ Cognitive development begins with an inborn ability to adapt to the
environment.
▪ Cognitive growth happens through interrelated processes:

▪ i. Organization: The tendency to create categories by

observing characteristics that individual members of a category
have in common. People create increasingly complex cognitive
structures called schemes: ways of organizing information about
the world that3 control how a child thinks and behaves in a
particular situation. As we get more info, schemes become more
complex. (Example: a child's "birds" scheme for things that fly ).
▪ ii. Adaptation: How children handle new information based on
what they already know; it's an adjustment to new information
about the environment. It happens through:
▪ Assimilation: Taking in new information and fitting it
into existing cognitive structures (no adjustment to the
structures). (Example: seeing a new flying animal and
calling it a bird if it fits the existing "bird" scheme ).
▪ Accommodation: Adjusting one's cognitive structures
to fit new information. (Example: realizing a bat flies but
isn't a bird, so the "bird" scheme is changed, or a new
understanding is formed ).
▪ Equilibration: The quest for equilibrium (balance) is the
driving force behind cognitive growth. Children want what they
understand of the world to match what they observe. When this
doesn't happen, they are in disequilibrium, an uncomfortable
state that pushes them into accommodation.

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▪ Piaget believed cognitive development occurs in 4 universal,

qualitatively different stages. Children's minds are not just miniature
adult minds.
o b. Sociocultural Theory (Lev Vygotsky):
▪ Lev Vygotsky focused on the social and cultural processes that guide
children's cognitive development, and how context affects it.
▪ He described cognitive growth as a collaborative process; people learn
through social interaction.
▪ He placed special emphasis on language as an essential tool for
learning and thinking about the world.
▪ Adults or more advanced peers must help direct and organize a child's
learning before the child can master and internalize it.
▪ This guidance is most effective in helping children cross the zone of
proximal development (ZPD): the gap between what they can already
do by themselves and what they can do with assistance.
▪ Scaffolding is the supportive assistance with a task that parents,
teachers, or others give a child. This helps greatly in development.
Development is faster with scaffolding.
▪ Play often occurs in the ZPD.
o c. Information-Processing Approach:
▪ This is an approach to studying cognitive development by observing and
analyzing the mental processes involved in perceiving and handling
information4 (like attention, memory, planning, decision-making, and
goal setting). These processes increase in speed and complexity as we
get older.
▪ Researchers use observational data to infer what goes on between a
stimulus and a response.
▪ It views development as continuous and involving quantitative changes
like age-related increases in the speed, complexity, and efficiency of
mental processing.
▪ Practical applications: Helps estimate an infant's later intelligence;
used to test, diagnose, and treat learning problems; helps parents and
teachers help children learn by making them more aware of their mental
processes and strategies.
• 4. Contextual Perspective:
o This view believes development can only be understood in its social context.
Individuals are seen as an inseparable part of their environment.
o a. Bioecological Theory (Urie Bronfenbrenner):
▪ The child is not just an outcome of development but an active shaper of
it (organismic).

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▪ To understand development, we must see the child within the context of

the multiple environments surrounding her.
▪ Levels of Environmental Influence (see diagram ):
▪ Microsystem: The everyday environment of home, work,
school, or neighborhood; includes face-to-face interactions with
family, friends, etc. (direct contact).
▪ Mesosystem: The interlocking influence of microsystems.
(Example: how a child's parents communicating with teachers
affects the child's development ).
▪ Exosystem: Consists of interactions between a microsystem
and an outside system or institution that the child doesn't directly
participate in but may influence them. The effects are indirect but
can be profound. (Example: a father stressed from work affecting
how he interacts with the child ).
▪ Macrosystem: Consists of overarching cultural patterns, like
dominant beliefs, ideologies, and economic or political systems.
(Example: a child in a third-world country would experience
different development ).
▪ Chronosystem: The dimension of time; as time marches on,
changes occur in personal and societal conditions over the life
course.
▪ Note: Findings in one culture or group may not apply equally to people
in other societies or cultural groups.
• 5. Evolutionary/Sociobiological Perspective:
o Proposed by E.O. Wilson, this focuses on evolutionary and biological bases of
behavior.
o It's influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution.
o Darwin's theory postulates: Organisms vary; there are never enough
resources for all to survive; individual differences are heritable.
o Natural Selection: This process means some organisms, due to their
particular characteristics, will survive and reproduce at higher rates than others.
Their traits will be passed on in higher proportions. Over time, these small
changes result in species change. It's the differential survival and reproduction
of different variants of members of a species. While called "survival of the
fittest," the key is actually reproductive success. "Fit" characteristics are
selected to be passed on. These traits can be physical, behavioral, or
psychological.
o Ethology: The study of distinctive adaptive behaviors of animal species that
have evolved to increase the survival of the species. (Example: Proximity-
seeking, or staying close to mommy, as only those who do stay alive ).

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▪ Humans also have innate adaptive behaviors.

▪ John Bowlby used his knowledge of proximity-seeking in animals to
form his ideas about attachment in humans. He saw infant attachment
to a caregiver as a mechanism that evolved to protect them from
predators.
o Evolutionary Psychology:
▪ Focuses on humans and applies Darwinian principles. It's not
deterministic but places great weight on the environment and the
flexibility of the human mind.
▪ Cognitive Adaptations are psychological products of natural
selection in humans.
▪ Examples: Our brains find certain faces/body types attractive or
perceive babies as cute.
▪ Striving for dominance.
▪ Morning sickness in the first trimester to protect the fetus (most
vulnerable) from teratogens.
▪ Human intelligence.

III. Research Methods

• 1. Quantitative Research:
o Deals with objectively measurable, numerical data that can be used for
statistical analysis.
o Based on the Scientific Method: 1. Identify a problem; 2. Formulate
hypotheses to be tested; 3. Collect data; 4. Statistically analyze data; 5. Form
tentative conclusions; 6. Disseminate (share) findings.
• 2. Qualitative Research:
o Involves non-numerical descriptions of participants' subjective understanding,
feelings, or beliefs about their experiences.
• Sampling:
o Quantitative Sampling: The sample should be representative of the
population so results can be properly generalized (applied to the whole
population). The sample should also be random because a random sample
(especially a large one) is likely to represent the population well. It's often
difficult to get random samples, so researchers may use samples based on
convenience or accessibility.
o Qualitative Sampling: Samples tend to be focused rather than random.
Participants might be chosen for their ability to communicate the nature of the
experience. A carefully selected sample may have a fair degree of
generalizability.
• Data Collection Methods: (See Table 3 for details )

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Self-Report (Diary, Visual Reports, Interview, Questionnaire): Participants

o
are asked about some aspect of their lives.
▪ Advantages: Can provide firsthand information. Visual techniques
avoid the need for verbal skills.
▪ Disadvantages: Participant may not remember accurately or may
distort responses. How a question is asked or by whom may affect the
answer.
o Naturalistic Observation: People are observed in their normal setting, with
no attempt to manipulate behavior.
▪ Advantages: Provides good description of behavior; doesn't subject
people to unnatural settings.
▪ Disadvantages: Lack of control; observer bias; doesn't answer why
people behave that way.
o Laboratory Observation: Participants are observed in the laboratory under
controlled conditions, with no attempt to manipulate behavior.
▪ Advantages: Provides good descriptions; offers greater control than
naturalistic observation.
▪ Disadvantages: Observer bias; controlled situation can be artificial;
doesn't answer why people behave that way.
o Behavioral and Performance Measures: Participants are tested on abilities,
skills, knowledge, competencies, or physical responses.
▪ Advantages: Provides objectively measurable information; avoids
subjective distortions.
▪ Disadvantages: Cannot measure attitudes or other nonbehavioral
things; results may be affected by other factors. These are useful only
if they are reliable and valid, and should be standardized to avoid bias.
• Evaluating Quantitative & Qualitative Research:
o Qualitative Strengths: Can examine a question in great depth and detail;
research framework can be revised with new data. Findings can be a rich
source of insights. The interactive relationship between researchers and
participants can humanize research and reveal information not found
otherwise.
o Qualitative Limitations: Tends to be less rigorous and more subject to bias
than quantitative research. Because samples are often small and not random,
results are less generalizable and replicable. The large volume of data makes
analysis time-consuming, and the quality of findings depends greatly on
researcher skills.
o Note: Qualitative data may be analyzed quantitatively, and quantitative data
may be illuminated by qualitative research.

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• Basic Research Designs:

o Descriptive Research: Aims to observe and record behavior.
▪ 1. Case Study: An in-depth study of an individual or a few individuals.
May use behavioral or physiological measures. Useful when studying
something rare and when it's not possible to find a large enough group.
▪ Advantages: Offer useful, in-depth info; explore sources of
behavior; can test treatments; suggest directions for further
research.
▪ Shortcomings: Data are not generalizable; cannot explain with
certainty or make strong causal statements; conclusions are not
directly testable.
▪ 2. Ethnographic Study: An in-depth study of a culture. Can be
quantitative, qualitative, or both. Uses a combination of methods
including interviews and participant observation.
▪ Advantage: Can help overcome cultural biases in theory and
research; shows the error of assuming psychology is universal.
▪ Drawback: Open to observer bias (researcher's expectations
affect the data).
▪ 3. Correlational Study: Used to determine whether a statistical
relationship (correlation) exists between variables; can make
predictions.
▪ Expressed in terms of direction (+ or -) and magnitude (strength).
▪ Correlations are reported as numbers from -1.0 (a perfect
negative relationship) to +1.0 (a perfect positive relationship).
Perfect correlations are rare. The closer a correlation is to +1.0
or -1.0, the stronger the relationship. A correlation of zero means
no relationship.
▪ Limitation: Cannot establish causality (cause and effect).
▪ 4. Experiments: A controlled procedure where the experimenter
manipulates the Independent Variable (IV) to know its effects on the
Dependent Variable (DV).
▪ Must be conducted and reported so it can be replicated
(duplicated by other researchers).
▪ Uses operational definitions: definitions stated only in terms of
the operations used to measure a phenomenon.
▪ Random Assignment is the best way to control for effects of
other factors. If assignment is random and the sample is large
enough, differences in factors like age or gender will be evenly
distributed, making groups initially alike except for the variable

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being tested. Otherwise, unintended differences might

confound (contaminate) the results.
▪ Laboratory Experiment: Best for determining cause and effect
due to tight control (high internal validity). Less generalizability.
▪ Field Experiment: A controlled study in an everyday setting
(e.g., home/school). Can also determine causality but is more
generalizable because it's in the real world. Less controlled (low
internal validity).
▪ Quasi-Experiment / Natural Experiment: No random
assignment; compares people accidentally "assigned" to groups
by life circumstances (e.g., depressed vs. not depressed).
Basically a correlational study.
▪ Advantages of experiments: Can establish cause and effect;
permit replication.
▪ Disadvantages: Can be too artificial or too narrowly focused.
• Developmental Research Designs (Time Span of Research):
o 1. Cross-Sectional Study: Designed to assess age-related differences,
where people of different ages are assessed on one occasion. (Example:
determining reading comprehension of 5-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and 15-year-
olds at one point in time ). Subject to cohort effects.
o 2. Longitudinal Study: Tracks people over time and focuses on individual
change with age. The only way to know if change occurs with age is to study
the same group more than once, over time. Subject to practice effects and
attrition (losing participants).
o 3. Sequential Study: Combines cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches
to minimize their drawbacks. Tracks people of different ages over time.
Drawback: time, effort, and complexity.
• Cohort Effects: The effect that having been born in a certain time, region, or period,
or having the same life experiences, has on the development or perceptions of a
particular group. Can powerfully affect results in studies concerned with age.

IV. Ethics of Research

• Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) review proposed research from an ethical
standpoint.
• American Psychological Association (APA) Guidelines cover issues like:
o Informed consent (consent freely given with full knowledge of what research
entails).
o Avoidance of deception.
o Protection of participants from harm and loss of dignity.
o Guarantees of privacy and confidentiality.

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o The right to decline or withdraw from an experiment at any time.

o Responsibility of investigators to correct any undesirable effects.

• Three Guiding Principles for Ethical Dilemmas:

1. Beneficence: The obligation to maximize potential benefits to participants
and to minimize potential harm. (Example: If you deceive participants about
failing a task, what steps will you take to reduce potential harm? ).
2. Respect for participants' autonomy and protection of those who are unable
to exercise their own judgment. (Example: If a 2-year-old refuses to participate,
should you force them? ).
3. Justice: The inclusion of diverse groups together with sensitivity to any
special impact the research may have on them. (Example: It may be important
to include a representative selection of diverse people and use culturally
appropriate materials ).

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