L33 Psych 321 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Response Bias, Naturalistic Observation, Experiment
Document Summary
Four developmental themes: continuity theme, early behavior is (imperfectly) related to later behavior. Best predictor of future behavior is past behavior (imperfectly: nature and nurture theme, heredity and environment play joint roles in development. Rather it being nature vs. nurture, it is nature and nurture. The question is how much of the two: active children theme, children help determine their own development. By the way they seek information: connections theme, development in one domain affects development in others. Measurement in child-development research: measurement methods, systematic observation: watching children and carefully recording what they do or say, naturalistic observation: observing children as they behave spontaneously in a real situation. Pro: captures children"s behavior in its natural setting. Con: difficult to use with behaviors that are rare or that occur in a private setting: structured observation: the researcher creates a setting that is likely to elicit the behavior of interest.