What is the definition of Developmental psychology?
Developmental psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour focusing on examine psychological changes that occur throughout a person’s lifespan
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What do Developmental psychologists study?
Developmental psychologist study a wide range of theoretical areas such as biological, social, emotion and cognitive processes.
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What are the assumptions of developmental psychology ? (ongoing process)
Behaviour is an ongoing process that occurs throughout the lifespan.
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What are the assumptions of developmental psychology ? (childhood)
Development occurs mostly during childhood, but people continue to develop during the early adulthood, middle age and senior years.
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What are the assumptions of developmental psychology ? (nature-nurture)
Developmental changes result from an interaction of nature and nurture.
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Is it Nature or Nurture?
The developmental approach takes into account both sides of the debate as it assumes behaviour is investigated by maturational/genetic factors as well as lifetime experiences.
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Reductionism or Holism?
The developmental approach takes into account many factors so can be considered holistic.
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How useful is the research?
Developmental psychology is very useful as it adds to our knowledge and has many practical applications. However ecological validity may affect usefulness of research
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Psychology as a science?
scientific due to the use of laboratory experiments with high levels of standardisation however use of questionnaires lesses the scientific nature of developmental psychology as they are open to interpretation
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What are the ethical considerations?
unethical as often children participants are used who are not old enough to give consent for participants and therefore may not understand right to withdraw and may become distress through experimentation
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What are the strengths of Developmental psychology? (longitudinal)
most research in this area uses the longitudinal design which allows the researcher to investigate the developmental of behaviour over time
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What are the strengths of Developmental psychology? (reductionistic)
is not reductionistic because it takes into account both sides of the nature - nurture debate
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What are the strengths of Developmental psychology? (applications)
has provided many useful applications to real life, for example helping children learn and deal with emotional difficulties
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What are the weakness of Developmental psychology? (children - ethical)
tends to use children within research and therefore demand characteristics may occur, reducing the validity of explanations
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What are the weakness of Developmental psychology? (children - demand)
using children within research raises many ethical issues surrounding informed consent and debriefing
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What are the weakness of Developmental psychology? (limited sample)
often uses small limited samples within research, and therefore findings tend to lack generalisability
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
What do Developmental psychologists study?
Back
Developmental psychologist study a wide range of theoretical areas such as biological, social, emotion and cognitive processes.
Card 3
Front
What are the assumptions of developmental psychology ? (ongoing process)
Back
Card 4
Front
What are the assumptions of developmental psychology ? (childhood)
Back
Card 5
Front
What are the assumptions of developmental psychology ? (nature-nurture)
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