Psychology 1000 Study Guide - Moral Development, Metacognition, Egocentrism

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Dr.Mike

Document Summary

Developmental psychology: changes in our biological, physical, psychological, and behavioural processes as we age. Four issues guide developmental research: nature vs. nurture: development the product of heredity or environment, critical and sensitive periods: experiences that are important at particular ages. Critical period: an age range where certain experiences must occur for development to proceed normally. Cross-sectional design: compare people at different ages at the same point of time. Good: data from many age groups can be collected relatively quickly. Limit: the different age groups (cohorts) grew up in different historical periods (environmental differences) Longitudinal design: repeatedly tests the same cohort as they grow older. Good: now everyone is exposed to the same historical time frame. Problem: time consuming and the sample may shrink through the years as people drop out or die. Sequential design: combines the cross-sectional and longitudinal design; we repeatedly test several cohorts as they grow older to see if they follow a similar pattern.