B. Research Methods in Developmental Psychology and Ethics

• Evocative Gene-Environment


  Child's genotype evokes certain kind of reactions from other people
• Active Gene-Environment


  Children's genotype influence the kinds of environment they seek
• Influences on development

  • Heredity (Nature)
  • Environment (Nurture)
  • Individual Differences
• Context of Development

  • Family
  • Socioeconomic Status
  • Culture
  • Gender
  • History
• Normative Influences


  Biological or environmental events that affect many or most people in a society in a similar ways and events that touch only certain individuals
• Types of Normative Influences

  • Normative Age-Graded Influences
  • Normative History-Graded Influences
• Historical Generation


  Group of people who experience the event at a formative time in their lives
• Age Cohort


  Group of people born at about the same time
• Nonnormative


  Unusual events that have major impact on individual lives because they disturb the expected sequence of the life cycle
• Imprinting


  Instinctively follow the first moving object they see
• Critical Period


  Specific time when a given event, or its absence, has a specific impact on development
• Sensitive Periods


  When developing person is especially responsive to certain kind of experience
• Plasticity


  Modifiability of performance
• Theory


  Set of logically related concepts or statements that seek to describe and explain development and to predict the kinds of behavior that might occur under certain conditions
• Hypothesis


  Explanations or predications that can be tested by further research
• Tabula Rasa

  John Locke's view that children are born as a blank slate
• Noble savages


  Jean Jacques Rousseau's view that children are born with positive natural tendencies if not corrupted by society
• Mechanistic Model


  People are like machines that react to environmental input (reactive)
• Organismic Model


  People as active, growing organisms that set their own development in motion; initiate events, and do not just react (active)
• Continuous


  Gradual and incremental
• Discontinuous


  Abrupt or uneven
• Quantitative Change


  Change in number or amount, such as height, weight, or vocabulary size
• Qualitative Change


  Emergence of new phenomena that could not be easily predicted on the basis of the past basic functioning
• Evolutionary Psychology


  Emphasized the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and "survival of the fittest" in shaping behavior
• Perspectives on development

  • Nativist
  • Empiricist
• Noam Chomsky


  All children acquire language in the same way
• APA General Principles

  • Beneficence and Nonmaleficence
  • Fidelity and Responsibility
  • Integrity
  • Justice
  • Respect for People's Rights and Dignity
• PAP General Principles

  • Respect for Dignity of Persons and Peoples
  • Competent Caring for the Well-being of Persons and Peoples
  • Integrity
  • Professional and Scientific Responsibilities to Society
• Requirements for informed consent

  • Purpose of the research
  • Duration and procedures
  • Right to decline and withdraw
  • Consequences of declining or withdrawing
  • Potential risks, discomfort, or adverse effects
  • Benefits
  • Limits of confidentiality
  • Incentives for participation
  • Researcher's contact information
• Researchers who study vulnerable population should obtain informed consent both from the individual and guardian
• Permission for recording images or vices are needed unless the research consists of solely naturalistic observations in public places, or research designed includes deception
• Researchers must give opportunity to the participants about the nature, results, and conclusions of the research and make sure that there are no misconceptions about the research
• Researchers must ensure the safety and minimize the discomfort, infection, illness, and pain of animal subjects
• Researchers must not present portions of another's work or data as their own
• After publishing, researchers should not withhold data from other competent professionals who intends to reanalyze the data
• Researchers who study cultural influences on development or racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences in development must work hard to keep their own cultural values from biasing their perceptions of other groups
• Researchers must not conduct studies that involves deception unless deceptive techniques are justified
• Case Study


  Study of a certain individual or group
• Case Study


  • Useful in rare cases
  • Offers useful, in-depth information
  • Can explore sources of behavior, test treatments, and suggest directions for further research
  • Cannot be easily generalized to other population
  • Cannot make strong causal statements
  • Low external validity
• Ethnographic Studies


  Seek to describe the pattern of relationships, customs, beliefs, technology, arts, and traditions that make up a society's way of life