Chapter 2: Theory & Research

• Battling bad science and misrepresentation of science (14 min TED

talk; up to 7:24 is a good intro):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4MhbkWJzKk

© 2014 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc

Basic Scientific Terms

• Theory
• A set of related concepts that seek to describe and explain development
and to predict the kinds of behavior might occur under certain conditions

• Help us see connections between isolated pieces of data

• older age=
• higher death rate=
• fewer people in one’s age group as one ages=
• impact on social activities
Basic Scientific Terms
A theory provides groundwork for a…
Hypothesis
Tentative explanation or statement that can be tested by research

“older adults have fewer people in their social networks”

ORGANISMIC Models & Theories
 People are active in their development
organisms set their own development in motion; People initiate
events, don’t just react to environment

 Developmentis discontinuous
Development occurs in series of stages (like stairs)
Focus on qualitative change
– E.g.; aggression
Different processes involved at each stage
•Each stage builds on the previous one
MECHANISTIC Models & Theories

 People are reactive/passive in their development

 Children are ‘blank slates on which society writes’;
 Similar to machines reacting to environment
 Behavior can be explained & predicted mathematically

 Development is continuous (like walking up a ramp)

 Focus on quantitative change (frequency of response)
E.g.; aggression
• Same processes are involved, just more or less
Five Major Categories of
Theory/Perspectives
• Psychoanalytic
• Learning
• Cognitive
• Contextual
• Evolutionary/Sociobiological

*Each is a category, w/ multiple theories

Why so many models & theories?
 ALL THEORIES NOT CREATED EQUAL

Some theories have scientific validity

Pseudoscience:
Seeking facts to support assumptions; wolf example
Un-testable assumptions
Theory/Perspective 1:
Psychoanalytic Theory

• Established by Sigmund Freud

• Unconscious forces motivate human behavior

• Not particularly valid

• Includes many untestable assumptions;
begins with assumptions
Erik Erickson’s Psychosocial Theory
-Influence of society & cultural variables

-Development is lifelong, not just during childhood

-Each stage of development

characterized by a ‘crisis’;
trust vs. mistrust

-Crisis resolution leads to a ‘virtue’

Theory/Perspective 2:
Learning Theories: Behaviorism

• Mechanistic, highly empirically validated

• Learning: change in behavior based on experience

• Classical Conditioning (Associative learning)

• Operant Conditioning
Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning
(Associative Learning)
• Pavlov’s dogs
• John B. Watson and ‘Little Albert’
1. Albert liked the furry rat
2. Rat presented with loud noise
3. Albert cried because of noise
4. Eventually, sight of rat made Albert cry

Neutral stimulus (rat) paired with aversive UNCONDITIONED

STIMULUS (noise) to produce UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE
(crying); with repetition, the neutral stimulus becomes a
CONDITIONED STIMULUS which will produce the
CONDITIONED RESPONSE when the original UCS is absent
Crash course in psychology: the basics of classical and operant
conditioning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG2SwE_6uVM

Classic Watson & Raynor “Little Albert” video (4 min)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxKfpKQzow8&feature=related
B.F. Skinner: Operant Conditioning
• Organism learns the consequences of
‘operating’ on the environment

• Learned relationship between behavior

and its consequences
• Drive too fast=get ticket=slow down
• Study a lot=good grade=continue to study

• Reinforcement and punishment

Operant Conditioning: Reinforcement

• Increases likelihood of behavior reoccurring

• Positive: adding something pleasant

• Candy for completing homework

• Negative: removing something aversive

• No chores for completing homework
Operant Conditioning: Punishment

• Decreases likelihood of behavior reoccurring

• Positive: Adding something aversive
• Getting scolded for coming home late

• Negative: Removing something pleasant

• Taking away car keys for coming home late
• Withholding affection
Operant Conditioning

• Remember:
• Reinforcers and punishers work differently for different people

• E.g.; Candy
Albert Bandura: Social Learning Theory &
Social Cognitive Theory

• Observational learning and modeling

• Children imitate

• Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment (crash course

in psychology; 9:45 min):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=128Ts5r9NRE

• Development is “bidirectional”
• Reciprocal determinism—person influences
the environment as the environment
influences the person
Theory/Perspective 3: Cognitive Theory
• Thought processes & behavior

• Includes organismic and mechanistic theories

• Newer approaches consider bio. context more carefully

Jean Piaget: Cognitive Development

Organismic stage theory

Focused on normal cognitive development

Primarily in childhood

Assumed dev. was mostly biological (not environmental)

High heuristic value (generated further research)

Theory/Perspective 4: Contextual

• Development can be understood only in its social contexts

 Urie Bronfenbrenner:
Bioecological Theory

• Development is understood only in a social context;

• individual is inseparable from environment

• Interacting contexts that stifle or promote growth

• Home, classroom, neighborhood
Bronfenbrenner’s
Five
Contextual
Systems
Perspective 5: Evolutionary/Sociobiological
• Uses Darwin’s evolutionary theory
• Behaviors evolved based on demands of environments

• Evolutionary Psychology
• Natural selection applied to behavior
• Drive to reproduce a main determinant of behavior
• John Bowlby: attachment & protection
Now that we’ve covered some of the
main theories of human development
and behavior, we’ll discuss the basics
of the scientific method, and research
methods used to study human
development and behavior….
Scientific Method:
1. Identify Problem/Issue/question
If a child’s parents divorce, does that have any relation to their school
performance later in life?
2. Formulate Hypothesis (based on prior research)
Parental divorce @ 7 yrs old = lower academic performance
3. Obtain Sample & Collect Data
grades of 7 yr. olds, divorced & non-divorced parents
4. Analyze Data
Parental divorce = lower grades?
5. Form Conclusions
yes/no
6. Share Findings
Peer review, publish?
 Research Methods

Quantitative Qualitative
• Objectively measurable • Non-numerical data
data, often numerical  Beliefs
 Standardized tests Feelings
 Physiological
changes
Sampling
 Sample
A smallergroup within the population
Studying entire population is inefficient

 Random Selection
Each person in population has an equal
chance of being in sample
Why is this important?
Data Collection:

Imagine you’re studying whether a person’s diet is related to their

level of stress …how do you get your data?

 Diaries  Behavioral and

 Interviews Performance Measures
 Naturalistic  Physiological measures
Observation Heart rate
 Laboratory Brain activity
Observation
Meaningful Measures

• Reliable
• Results are consistent from time 1 to time 2

• Valid
• The test actually measures what it claims to measure
• E.g.; trying to measure “motivation to learn” using library time
Measures: Operational Definitions
Defining what is abstract in objective terms
What is Intelligence?
A score on a test?
Are there different kinds of intelligence?
Emotional intelligence
Academic intelligence
Basic Research Designs
Type Characteristics Pros Cons

Correlational Relations between Enables Cannot establish

variables prediction cause & effect
e.g.; eating fruit &
height

Experimental Controlled Establish Reduced

procedures cause & effect generalizability
e.g.; 5 people eat
fruit, 5 don’t
Correlational Studies
A correlation ( r ) describes the strength & direction of a
relation between 2 variables
1, 0, -1

More Y=More X, More Y=Less X, No systematic

Less Y=Less X Less Y=More X relation
Different types of correlations

< negative # OF UVU T- < neutral

(inverse) SHIRTS IN (unrelated)
YOUR CLOSET

< positive
< positive
(weak)
“There is a positive correlation between IQ and how many friends you have”

3 possibilities

Correlation says NOTHING about direction or cause

Wolves & Trees
•Data included tree size and number of wolves in the forest
•Positive r between # of wolves & tree size
•Why?
3rd Variable Problem with r

More wolves=fewer moose=larger trees

“Correlation does not equal causation”

Experiments
10 lab rats w/ cancer:
give 5 a new drug (experimental group)
 don’t give the other 5 any drug (control group)
Random assignment

Is the cancer cured in the experimental group?

Independent variable (IV) & Dependent variable (DV)

Benefit: lab environment: experimental control, you can infer causation

Drawback: lab environment: does it apply to “real world”?, can’t

ethically do some experiments
 Correlational vs. Experimental Designs
Correlational Experimental

• Variables NOT manipulated • IV is manipulated

• How var. X is related to var. Y • How var. X causes var. Y

Research Designs In Developmental Science
 Cross-sectional Designs:
2 or more age groups (cohorts) at a single point in time

 Imagine you find that 80 year-olds have lower IQ

scores than 20 year-olds
How do you interpret this?

 Cross-sectional designs show age (cohort) differences

Research Designs In Developmental Science
(cont'd)
 Longitudinal Designs:
1 group of people over time

Imagine the same basic finding (as people get older, their
IQ scores go down)
How do you interpret the finding now?

Longitudinal designs show age change (development)

Longitudinal & Cross-sectional Designs
Research Designs In Developmental Science
(cont'd)

The Ideal Solution:

Sequential Designs:
 2 or more age (cohort) groups, follow each group longitudinally

Combines cross-sectional and longitudinal; examines change, and age

(cohort) differences, and effect of time of measurement
Sequential Designs:
2 or more cohorts followed longitudinally

Age change
Time of Age
(development)
measurement
differences
differences
CRITICAL THINKING:
Why do we care about…
 Time of measurement,
Anxiety measured in Oct. 2001
 Cohorts,
Age differences in opinions of premarital sex between people born in 1935 and those
born in 1985
 Research Designs & Measures,
Updating intelligence tests (using computers, language, etc.)
 And the nature of development?
What if we compare 20 yr olds w/ 50 yr olds & w/ 80 yr olds and conclude that at age
50, humans lose 65% of their strength? Will this conclusion be valid in 2050?
We care because development occurs in an ever-changing context

Changes in the American family due to increases in average life expectancy:

1900 1976

A child would experience the death of a 24% 5%

parent by age 15
Marriage would end in widowhood 67% 36%
before the 40th anniversary
A 15-year-old woman would have 3 or 17% 55%
4 living grandparents
A middle-aged couple would have at 10% 47%
least 2 of their parents still alive
The types of questions that will and will not appear on exams:

Joe wants his daughter, Kate to share her toys with her little brother Bob. Joe tells Kate that if she shares,
she won’t have to do her chores for the rest of the week. Kate shares, doesn’t need to do her chores that
week, and continues to share. Joe used:
a. negative punishment
b. positive reinforcement
c. extinction
d. negative reinforcement

An aversive stimulus is removed following a behavior, which results in an increase in that behavior. This is:
a. negative punishment
b. positive reinforcement
c. extinction
d. negative reinforcement