PSYC 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10.1, 10.2 and 11.1: Harry Harlow, Synaptic Pruning, Prenatal Development
9 Dec 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
10. 1 physical development from conception through infancy. Developmental psychology = the study of human physical, cognitive, social and behavioural characteristics across the lifespan. Studying development requires some special methods for measuring and tracking change over time. Cross-sectional design = used to measure and compare samples of people at different ages at a given point in time. Longitudinal design = follows the development of the same set of individuals through time. Select a sample of infants and measure their cognitive development periodically over the course of 20 years. Xes the problem of cohort effects but very costly and time-consuming. Suffer from the problem of attrition, which occurs when participants drop out of a study. Cohort effects = differences between people that result from being born in different time periods. Development is seen as a progression of abrupt transitions in physical or mental skills, interspersed with slower, more gradual change. Psychologists often describe this pattern of change as a series of stages.
