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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
DR. MANISHA SAWHNEY
Why Study Lifespan Perspective?
Nature of Development
 Development includes:

Biological Processes

Cognitive Processes

Socioemotional Processes
Process of Development
Issues in Life Span Approach
 Nature Vs. Nurture
 Stability Vs. Change
 Continuity Vs. Discontinuity
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR-
cWZ4CChI
Theories of Development
Psychoanalytic Theory
 Freud’s Psychosexual Theory
 Id, ego and superego is responsible for personality
development
 Five stages of Psychosexual development
Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
 Emphasized on psychosocial stages rather than
psychosexual stages for development
Cognitive Theory
 Piaget’s theory
 Sensrimotor stage (Birth -2yrs)
 The preoperational stage (2-7yrs)
 The concrete operational (7-11yrs)
 The formal operation stage (11-Adulthood)
 Vygotsky’s Theory: Emphasized
on social
interaction and culture as an important factor in
development
 Information Processing Theory: Perceive, Encode,
and Retrieve information
Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theories
 Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Ethological Theory (Konard Lorenz)
 Behavior is influenced:
 by biology
 is characterized by critical,
sensitive periods
 Ecological Theory
(Brofenbrenner’s theory):
 Importance given to
environmental factors
Research Methods
 Data Collection methods
 Observation
 Laboratory
 Surveys
 Standardized Test
 Case Study
Research Designs
Correlational Research
 Examine the relationship between two or more
existing variables
 Correlational coefficient (r)
 Direction is indicated by sign


Positive (+)
Negative (-)
 Does not give us a causal direction
Activity
 In a study the level of stress is correlated with
cardiovascular diseases and r is .86.
 What does this tell us about stress and
cardiovascular disease?
 Can we infer that if your stressed you’ll have
cardiovascular disease?
Experimental Research
 Independent Variable is manipulated
 Dependent Variable is measured
 Two study groups are generally used
 Experimental group
 Control group
 Extraneous variables are controlled
 Randomization
 Cause and effect relationship is usually established
Activity
 Cigarette smoking has been related to lung cancer. In
order to study the effect of smoke on cancer 12
participants were assigned to groups of smoking (6
cigarettes, 12cigarettes, 20cigarettes per day) and nonsmoking. It was seen that participants who smoked
showed poorer lung capacity then non-smoking
participants.
 What is the IV?
 What is the DV?
 What is control group and experimental group?
Time Span of Research
 Cross Sectional Approach: Children of different ages can
be studied
Year of Testing
2005
6
2005
9
Age (years)
2005
12
Longitudinal Study
Longitudinal Study of Australian Children,
Ethics in Research
 Informed Consent
 Confidentiality
 Debriefing
 Deception
Bias in Research
 Gender Bias:
 It is found in both theory and research
 Women report higher level of depression because of hormonal
imbalance
 Cultural and Ethnic Bias
 Most of the research does not consider diverse ethnic groups