Psych 315: Childhood and Adolescence

Dr. Susan Birch

Please Note:
My sections Psych 315 are completely FULL!
If you are not already registered, I cannot add you (no exceptions!).
There isnt a waiting list for this class.
The only suggestion I can make: Keep checking on-line enrollment as sometimes
spots will open up. (Note: Several sections of this course are offered each semester.)

Please grab a syllabus!
Course Description
This course will provide an introduction to the major
theories and empirical research fundamental to
Developmental Psychology. In addition to an overview of
the theories and foundations of childhood and adolescent
development, this course will provide an introduction to
some of the most influential recent findings in the
developmental psychology literature. Such topics include:
language and conceptual development; social cognition,
emotional development; gender development; and peer and
family relations. In learning about typical development it is
important to discuss how atypical development can shed
light on many key issues. In accord with this, we will also
touch on examples of atypical development.
Module 1: Topics
Course Mechanics
Why Study Developmental Psychology?
Brief History of Developmental Psychology
7 Enduring Themes
Bringing up Monkey Video
The Ghost in the Genes Video
Research Methods in Developmental Psychology


Course Objectives
To introduce basic questions, theories, and methods of
developmental approaches to psychology.

To show how developmental approaches to psychology
can begin to answer these questions.

To help you think critically about issues relating to
child development and human nature.

To be interesting and useful.
Text
Required Text (Available at the UBC Bookstore):
Siegler, S, Deloache, J, & Eisenberg, N. (2005).
How Children Develop. 3rd Edition. Worth
Publishing.
*Additional readings will be made available on-line
Text website:
Sign-up as a student
material such as chapter outlines, practice tests,
etc.
Course Website:
https://www.connect.ubc.ca/



General Information
I use a lot of media (some media problems WILL crop up-please be tolerant)
I cant make some media available to you (loan, copy, library reserve etc.)
Thus take notes; if you miss, get notes from a classmate.
All material covered in class is fair game for quizzes/exams (e.g. videos,
lectures, discussions)
All material covered in required reading is fair game for quizzes/exams (even
if not covered in class)
~70% overlap with text
Generally speaking, if it is not covered in lecture if it appears on the quizzes it
is likely to only appear as a multiple choice, or fill-in-the-blank rather than
short answer
There are no make-up quizzes without validated medical documentation. If
you miss a quiz your other quiz will count for 50% of your grade.
E-mail:
p315@psych.ubc.ca
Be mindful of how often you e-mail
E-mails will be answered twice weekly
E-mails received 24 hours or less prior to quizzes and exams will NOT be
answered
When to e-mail me vs. TA
TA:
Clarification questions about textbook or lecture material
When you are not sure who to e-mail

Me:
When youve been unable to get the answers you need from
the TA first
Conflict for final exam, special needs, illness etc. (in advance)
Comments about the course, my teaching, etc.

No one:
What is going to be on the exam, exam format, etc. (all you
need to know will be provided in class)
Help finding resources for your other courses
Any questions or comments
about the syllabus, course
mechanics, Connect site, etc.?
What level of detail should you know?
WHO? Only major theorists, historical figures
WHAT? Must know what the main findings are, and the
basics of the design and what these tell us about
development or human nature (not the trivial detailsonly
design details that are key to experimental manipulations)
WHEN? Exact dates and ages are not important, but you should
know when (roughly) children reach certain milestones
and in what order they acquire new skills.
WHERE? Not usually important, except when talking about
cultural differences
WHY? ***Most importantly you should know why the
research was done, why it is important to the field (e.g.
what it tells us about development or human nature).
Why Study Child Development?
To be better parents.
Information and understanding can help parents raise their
children successfully.
To help choose and shape social policies.
help society adopt policies that promote childrens well-
being.
Improve education system
To understand human nature.
Child development research is a window into human nature
and the human mind in general.
understand atypical development or problem behavior to
prevent or treat it.
Other reasons?




Early Philosophical
Views
(4
th
Century B.C.)
Historical Foundations of the Study of Child Development

We learn
everything
through our
experience with
the world
I think we are
born with
knowledge
The Beginnings of:
The Nature-Nurture Debate
Plato:
Aristotle:

John Locke (16321704)
tabula rasa--a blank slate
Emphasized Nurture
Importance of early strict
parenting--progressive
freedom

2,000 Years Later
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17121778)
Greater emphasis on Nature
children are innately good
children learn through spontaneous
interactions with objects and people
rather than instruction;
importance of maximum freedom

The Beginnings of Research on Children

When? During the 19
th
and Early 20
th
Centuries

Why?
1. Charles Darwins Theory of Evolution
A Biographical Sketch of an Infant (1877)
(diary of his own childrens development,
i.e observational research)

2. Social Reform Movements
Child Labor Laws (1916-1938)

A Young Darwin
From Darwins Biographical Sketch of an Infant
...It
sentences.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Famous for his novel theory of how our
unconscious thoughts and desires could
influence behavior and development.

Emphasize importance of early development
G. Stanley Hall (1844-1904)
1878--Earned 1st Ph.D. in Psychology in America
1887--Founded 1st Psychological Journal in America
(American Journal of Psychology )
1892--Founded American Psychological Association
1904--Wrote Adolescence
John Watson (1878-1958)
Famous for Founding Behaviorism
the study of observable and quantifiable
aspects of behavior
excludes subjective phenomena (e.g.,
emotions, thoughts, motives).
Heavily Influenced by Ivan Pavlovs work on Conditioning
concluded that a childs development is controlled by environmental
conditions --particularly rewards and punishments
Emphasized Nurture
Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to
bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to
become any type of specialist I might select doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief
and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.

Operant Conditioning
Behavior that is rewarded will increase, behavior that is not
rewarded (or punished) will decrease
Classical Conditioning
e.g Dentist's drill:

Unconditional Reflex UCS UCR
drilling pain

Conditional Reflex CS CR
sound of drill pain
How youve learned through classical conditioning
John B. Watson in his experiment with Little Albert, an 11 month old baby, studied how
emotions are learned through classical condition. He presented (A) a white rat (CS) and
(B) a loud noise (US) to Little Albert. After several pairings, Albert showed fear (CR)
of the white rat. Later, Albert generalized the fear to stimuli that were similar to CS,
such as (C) a beard.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
Moving Beyond Behaviorism

Famous for founding the field of Cognitive
Development and providing one of the
broadest theories to ever account for the
changes in childrens thinking.

Much more on Piaget later in the course
Seven Themes in Child Development

1. Nature and Nurture
2. The Active Child
3. Continuity/Discontinuity
4. Mechanisms of Change
5. The Sociocultural Context
6. Individual Differences
7. Research and Childrens Welfare

1. Nature-Nurture
Nature = Genes/Biology
Nurture = Everything in ones environment
(e.g. prenatal toxins, parents, peers, culture, etc)
Nature OR Nurture?:
The debate has switched from an either or debate to a question of
How large a role does each play, how do
they interact?

e.g. Classical Conditioning Effects Depend on Stimulus
We are pre-wired or predisposed with certain constraints on
learning
Nature AND Nurture
We can learn to be afraid of
But not
1. Nature-Nurture
e.g. Oak tree & Modeling Clay analogies
Nature AND Nurture are constantly interacting!
Epigenetics = the study of heritable changes in gene expression
caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying
DNA sequence.

These changes can stem from either nature (e.g. regulator
genes) or nurture (e.g., infections, famine).
They serve to regulate gene activation and inactivation
without altering the underlying DNA sequence.
These changes can be imprinted and passed on in addition to
the DNA for multiple generations.
The Ghost in the Genes BBC Documentary


An illustration of the complex ways in which
Nature and Nurture interact and recent
advancements in epigenetic phenomena
Correction:
~25,000 genes
Genetic and Environmental Forces

Key Terms:
Genotype: The genetic material we inherit from our parents.
Phenotype: The observable expression of the genotype, including
bodily characteristics and behavior.
Environment: Every aspect of an individuals surroundings other
than the genes themselves.
Norm of reaction: the range of all possible phenotypes in
relation to all possible environments (e.g. revisit oak tree analogy)
Heritability: an estimate of the proportion of measurable
variability on a given trait (e.g. intelligence), in a given population
(e.g. in a particular environment at a particular time), that is due to
genetic differences
Polygenic: influenced by a number of genes
1. Nature & Nurture
Interactions
Transactional Model: Nature and Nurture continually
interact
Influences are bidirectional:
-nature effects nurture, nurture effects nature
e.g., childs temperament influences how others in the
environment respond
e.g. biological children get a doubly whammy
sometimes even a triple whammy
Some Effects are More Direct
More direct effects of Nature: (e.g. fearful/inhibited leads
to social withdrawal
Less direct: (e.g. fearful/inhibited leads to social
withdrawal which leads to poor social understanding)
32
Genotype, Phenotype, Environment Interactions
Development is a joint function of genetic and environmental factors. The four
numbered relations are discussed in detail in the text.
2. The Active Child
What role do children play in their own development?

Preferences to attend to certain things
People over objects, Caregiver over others
Motivated to learn
Little experimenters: e.g. dropping food
Practice language in the absence of people
Engage in pretend play

Actively seek out their own environment
This increases significantly with age
Friends they play with, activities they engage in,
places they go, books they read etc.
3. Continuous and Discontinuous Development
Some researchers see development as a continuous, gradual process, akin to a tree
growing taller with each passing year. Others see it as a discontinuous process,
involving sudden dramatic changes, such as the transition from caterpillar to cocoon to
butterfly. Both views fit some aspects of child development.
Is development fundamentally more
continuous or discontinuous?

It depends on

1. How you look at it.

2. How often you look at it.

3. What aspect of development you study.

How you look at development.
How often you look at development
What aspect of development you study
For example, a childs ability to read and
write might improve relatively continuously

Whereas, a childs motor abilities might
appear more stage-like (crawling, walking,
fine-motor etc.)

4.Mechanisms of Developmental Change

How and why does change occur?
e.g. brain maturation
e.g. modeling
e.g. Applying Darwins Theory of the Evolution
of the Species to Individual Development:
Selection
Species Evolution: more frequent survival of organisms
that are best adapted
Individual Development: best adapted strategies for
learning become more frequent
5. The Sociocultural Context of Development
How does the sociocultural context influence
development?

Sociocultural context refers to the physical, social,
cultural, economic, and historical circumstances
in a childs life.
Sociocultural Context
Physical: e.g. house, daycare, school, urban vs. rural
neighborhood etc.
Social: e.g. parents, siblings, other family members,
teachers, friends, peers, etc.
Economic: e.g., national wealth, societal wealth,
family/individual wealth
Cultural: e.g., language, values, traditions,
attitudes/beliefs, laws, political structure, technology,
etc.
Historical: e.g. traditional practices, policies, economy,
technology etc. influences all these other factors,

6. Individual Differences
As well as sharing a vast number of common capacities for
language, perception, thought etc., individuals also differ
from one another.
e.g. even 2 children from within the same family who share both a
lot of their genes and a lot of the same environment
What are the sources of this variation?
Genetic and epigenetic differences
Difference in ways parents and others treat them
Differences in childrens choices of environment
Similar experiences affect children differently
Thus, an interaction of genes and environment
Why might it be interesting to study individual differences?
e.g. we want to know why some individuals are so resilient

7. Research and Childrens Welfare
How does child development research help
children?
Social Policy and the Law
Education
Improved parenting techniques
Improves prevention, intervention, and
treatment of problems etc. etc.

Seven Themes in Child Development

1. Nature and Nurture
2. The Active Child
3. Continuity/Discontinuity
4. Mechanisms of Change
5. The Sociocultural Context
6. Individual Differences
7. Research and Childrens Welfare

Bringing Up Monkey Video
Basics of Research Methods in
Developmental Psychology
3 Main Ways of Collecting Data
1. Interviews
2. Naturalistic Observation
3. Structured Observation

Each have their advantages and disadvantages
The type of data collection method a researcher chooses
depends on which is best suited to primary goal of research
Interviews: Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages:
1. Reveals childrens subjective experience
2. Inexpensive/easy means of data collection
3. Can be geared to specific individuals
Disadvantages:
1. Reports are often biased in a positive direction
2. Participants memory is often inaccurate or incomplete
3. Participants ability to predict their actions are often
inaccurate.
4. Subject to experimenter bias
Naturalistic Observation
researcher observes child in their normal
environments of interest (e.g. home, school,
playground etc.)
Used when the primary goal is to describe
how children behave in their usual
environments

Naturalistic Observation
Advantages
Particularly useful for studying social
interactions (e.g. parents and child) and other
types of behavior which could not be studied
on-demand in a lab
E.g. How a childs behavior changes after a new
baby brother or sister is brought home
E.g. How children react when Mom & Dad are
fighting
Naturalistic Observation
Disadvantages
Cant control all variables in a natural environment
making it very hard to determine which variable(s)
influenced the behavior
Observer may have influenced the behavior
The behavior you are interested in might occur very
rarely, reducing the opportunity to study it
subject to experimenter bias

Structured Observation
(aka experimental and correlational designs)
Researchers design a specific task or situation that will elicit the
behavior relevant to their hypothesis
Advantages
Ensures all children experience the same thing--allowing for
direct comparison of different children/groups
Disadvantages
Reveals less info about subjective information than interviews
Not in the childs natural environment
Experimental Designs
Enable you to determine cause and effect

Experimental Designs must meet 2 premises:
1. 2 or more groups of participants are comparable at
the beginning (via random assignment)
2. Each group is presented with experiences that differ
in only 1 way.

If the 2 groups yield different responses you can assume
that the one thing that was different caused the
differences.

Correlational Designs
Correlational Designs
Used to determine if there is a relationship between 2
variables
If there is a strong relationship, knowing one variable
helps predict the other
e.g. aggressive behavior and hours watching TV

Cant tell you the direction of the cause!
Also, third-variable problem

Examining Development:
Cross sectional vs Longitudinal design
Cross Sectional vs. Longitudinal Design
Longitudinal: Advantages
Reveal information about the stability of individual
differences or patterns of change in individual children
Avoids cohort effects (8 vs. 80-year olds computer
knowledge)

Longitudinal: Disadvantages
Time-consuming, expensive
Subject loss (attrition) may influence the results
E.g. weight loss experiment
But what do you do when your
subjects cant speak?
What about babies? They cant talk!
What do they do? (besides eating, pooping, and sleeping)?
Cry
Smile
Suck
Look around
Researchers have designed clever ways to ask infants
questions and have them answer using all of the
above (most often Looking!!)

Preferential Looking Paradigm
This method measures the amount of time they spend
looking at different stimuli.
If they consistently look longer at 1 it tells us 2 things:
1. They can tell the difference between the two.
2. They prefer to look at one over the other.

When Preferences Fail

if infants fail to show a preference between
two stimuli, what explanations follow?

they cannot tell the difference
they can tell the difference, but happen
not to have a preference

we need to use a different technique to find
the answer.
Habituation Method
what happens when we change
the stimulus?
old new
old new
Habituation Method
Repeatedly presents infants with one thing over and
over until they become bored
(decrease their looking time to a set criterion)

Then a new stimulus is presented.

If they can tell the difference between the old and the
new stimuli they should increase their looking time when
the new stimuli is introduced.
Violation of Expectation Paradigm
Based on the assumption that infants (or anyone) will look
longer when something violates their expectations
or surprises them.

For example,
When a
magician cuts
a person in 2.
Violation of Expectation
Baillargeons Drawbridge study video clip
Behavioral Genetics Methods
3 types of designs used to measure
heritability:
1. Twin Studies
2. Adoption Studies
3. Twin Adoption Studies (Rare)

Module 1: We Covered
Course Mechanics
Why Study Developmental Psychology?
Brief History of Developmental Psychology
7 Enduring Themes
The Ghost in the Genes Video
Bringing up Monkey Video
Research Methods in Developmental
Psychology