Psychology 1000 Study Guide - Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Testis Determining Factor, Prenatal Development

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Terry Biggs

Document Summary

Developmental psychology examines changes in our biological, physical, psychological and behavioral processes as we age. Four broad issues guide developmental research: nature and nurture to what extent is our development the product of heredity or the product of environment, critical and sensitive periods. Critical period an age range in which certain experiences must occur for development to proceed normally or along a certain path. Developmental psychologists addresses these issues by describing developmental functions that portray how different processes change with age. Psychologists often use special research designs to plot these age functions: cross-sectional design a research design that simultaneously compares people of different ages at a particular point in time. Widely used because data can be collected relatively quickly. A drawback is that different age groups (cohorts) grew up in different historical periods so there may be other factors influencing development: longitudinal design repeatedly tests the same cohort as it grows older.