PSYC 1030H Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Prenatal Development, Teratology, Fetus
20 Mar 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
What is development: sequence of age-related changes that occur as a person progresses from conception to death. Infancy: factors like motor skills, bone structure, weight, height, etc, prenatal period, childhood, puberty, adulthood. Cognitive development: factors like thought patterns, problem solving skills, etc. Social development: emotional behaviours, family dynamics, peer relationships, etc. Uses the same individuals repeatedly over long periods of time (from weeks or months to years and decades) Advantages: allows researchers to directly monitor change over time in the same group on individuals. Disadvantages: biased results (there may be important differences between participants who complete the study and those who drop out: cross-sectional research. People of different ages are studied at the same point in time. Advantages: it can be conducted much more quickly (and usually more cheaply) then longitudinal research. Disadvantages: vulnerable to the problem of cohort effects: cohort effect.
