INTRODUCTI

ON
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
AAMNA TAYYABA KHAN

Psychology Dept., Lahore Garrison

University
 COURSE OBJECTIVES
 The course will provide students insight about the major developmental mile stones and stages of
development.

 This course will enable students to think critically about the developmental issues such as
parenting styles, identity crisis, family& culture.

 It would also help develop an understanding of Developmental theories and their application in the
Pakistani cultural context.
 LEARNING OUTCOMES OF THIS
COURSE
• At the completion of this course the student will be able to:

 identify major developmental milestones

 think critically about the developmental issues

 apply knowledge from Development theories in the Pakistani cultural context.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Nature and scope of developmental psychology

• Historical perspective of developmental psychology

• Research methods for studying developmental changes

• Ethical issues in research on developmental psychology

 NATURE AND SCOPE OF
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
• Developmental psychology is the scientific study of changes that occur in human
beings over the course of their life span.
• The pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the life cycle.
• Early adulthood is not the endpoint of development; rather, no age period dominates
development.
• Researchers increasingly study the experiences and psychological orientations of
adults at different points in their lives.
 Development is Multidimensional
•  Whatever your age, your body, your mind, your emotions, and your
relationships are changing and affecting each other.
•  Development consists of biological, cognitive, and socioemotional
dimensions.
•  Even within a dimension, there are many components for example,
attention, memory, abstract thinking, speed of processing information,
and social intelligence are just a few of the components of the
cognitive dimension.
 Periods of Development
•  The interplay of biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes produces
the periods of the human life span.

•  A developmental period refers to a time frame in a person’s life that is

characterized by certain features.
•  For the purposes of organization and understanding, we commonly describe
development in terms of these periods.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
OF DEVELOPMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
• In the mid 18th century, Jean Jacques Rousseau described the 3
stages of development:
1. Infancy
2. Childhood
3. Adolescence
• In the 19th century, psychologists started seeking the evolutionary
description of psychological development, as inspired by Darwin
• G. Stanley Hall: devised 190 questionnaires to research child
development. And correlated the development of children in his era
with those before him.
• James Mark Baldwin: he favoured the study of individual
differences, and wrote several essays about developmental psychology
and studied experimental psychology.
 Psychodynamic perspective
• Sigmund Freud
• Emphasis on the role of the unconscious mind > Behavior is motivated by inner forces and conflicts
about which we have little awareness or control.
• Id : what we are born with. ‘Me’ instinct. The ‘I want’ part of personality
• Superego: the ethical component; provides moral standards . Develops during the first 5 years
(phallic stage).
• Ego: mediates between the Id and Superego; trying to keep both aspects relatively happy and in
check.
• A/c to Freud many of the impulses that are forbidden or punished by parents and society during
childhood are derived from innate instincts. Each of us are born with these impulses.
• All our actions have a cause but that cause is often an unconscious motive rather than a rational one.
• The unconscious can be understood through dreams and ‘Freudian slips’ [hypnosis, free association,
dream interpretation].
 Behaviourism
John B. Watson (1913)
• Behaviour is learnt through experience
• The study of observable behaviors and the influence of the environment.
• Define behavior as Stimulus and Response
• Strongly believe on observably behavioral activities, rather than to focus on
brain and nervous system.
• This paradigm grew out of rejection of psychology’s early emphasis on the
inner workings of the mind. Instead they said we should focus on observable
behavior.
• A/c to Watson, one could gain a complete understanding of behavior by
studying and modifying the environment in which people operate.
• By controlling environment, it is possible to elicit any desired type of behavior.
• B.F Skinner: influence in the area of learning processes. Operant conditioning, schedules
of reinforcement and punishment
• Example: Regard to aggression- children are more likely to express aggressive impulses
( like hitting another child). When such responses are rewarded-other child withdraws
• When responses are punished-other child counter attacks.

 Classical conditioning (Pavlov, Watson) > learning through association

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvhlOtQAU0A
 Operant conditioning (Skinner) > consequence of behavior (reinforcement)
 Social learning theory (Bandura) > learning through observing
 Cognitive Psychology
Neisser was the “father of cognitive psychology”.
Beck , Jean Piaget, Miller, Noam Chomsky, Albert Ellis, Hermann Ebbinghaus .

• Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such

as "attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving,
creativity, and thinking".
• Not based on introspection.
• Example: simple act of recognizing” who it is” when you receive a call
from someone and says hello. Sample of voices are stored in long term
memory- so just match and think that voice with your stored memory.
Research Methods
Qualitative
Quantitative
Content analysis methodologies
 Qualitative Research:
A form of a social inquiry which used
to discover and gain an in-depth
understanding of individual
experiences, thoughts, opinions, and
trends, and to dig deeper into the
problem at hand.
• The purpose is detailed description.
• The researcher has a rough idea of
what he will be going to ask.
• Conducts inquiry in subjective,
biased manner.
• Data is in form of words or pictures.
Quantitative Research:
A form of social inquiry which is used to
quantify the problem by way of generating
numerical data or data that can be
transformed into usable statistics. It is used to
quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and
other defined variables. 
• The purpose is to classify features, count
them and to represent them as a statistical
data.
• The researcher knows exactly what details
are to be found.
• Conducts inquiry in objective form,
unbiased manner.
• Data collected is in form of numerical data.
Observation Method
We use vision as the data collection tool
• Controlled observation
• Naturalistic observation
Can be further distinguished into either
• Participant observation • Non-Participant observation
 Researcher is himself involved  Researcher is behind a
 He is part of the environment camera/screen/audio/video recording
 He might be hidden or not  Subject being observed doesn’t know
hidden that the researcher is present.
e.g. Stanford prison exp e.g. transmission of aggression through
models/imitators
Controlled Observation:
Carried out in a psychology laboratory
Researcher decides:
1. Where the observation will take place.
2. At what time.
3. With which participants.
4. In what circumstances.
5. Uses a standardized procedure.
6. It is usually non- participant kind of research.
7. Lacks validity as people being observed know they are under
observation.
Naturalistic Observation:
• involves studying the spontaneous behavior of participants in
natural surroundings.
• are less reliable as other variables cannot be controlled so repeated
experiments cannot be done.
• No control over extraneous variables which means cause and effect
relationships cannot be established.
• It is Participant Observation.
 Experimental Method
To know the behavior , we study independent and dependent variable.
Independent Variable is a variable which the researcher can change.
Dependent variable is the effect that researcher is measuring.
• A hypothesis is a tentative statement or guesses about the possible relationship
between two or more variables.
• The purpose of the experiment is then to either support or fail to support this
hypothesis.
• We study cause and effect relationship.
• Example : If a researcher was investigating how sleep influences test scores, the
amount of sleep an individual gets would be the independent variable.
Interview Method

Structured Interview
• There is a list of questions already decided that are to be asked.
Semi Structured Interview
• There is a list of question along with reason behind the answers.
Un-structured Interview
• Only topic is already decided ,no pre-planned questions are there.
• In-depth information can be found.
Questionnaire Method

Open-ended Questions
• Subjective questions are asked.
• Answers are elaborate.
Close-ended Questions
• Objective questions are asked.
• Answers are in form of limited options.
Ethical Issues in
Developmental
Psychological
Goals of Psychology
• We can define Ethics as a method, procedure, or perspective
for analyzing complex problems and issues. For instance, in
considering a complex issue like global warming, one may
take an economic, ecological, political, or ethical
perspectives on the problem
• The British Psychological Society (BPS) and the American
Psychological Association (APA) have provided an ethical
framework for psychologists to attempt to adhere to when
conducting psychological research.
While conducting psychological research, it is important
to know these ethical principles:

1. Protection From Harm - the most important ethical principle is

that participants should be protected from harm, psychological or
otherwise.
2. Right to Withdraw - Giving participants the right to withdraw
does not just informing them that they can leave the study at any
time, but also informing them that they have the right to withdraw
their results from the study at any time.
3. Confidentiality- Ensuring that results are anonymous and no
one from outside of the experiment and ideally in the experiment
too, should be able to identify the participants from the results.
4. Informed Consent- Informed Consent is a voluntary
agreement to participate in research.
• It is not merely a form that is signed but is a process, in which
the subject has an understanding of the research and its risks.
• Informed consent is essential before enrolling a participant and
ongoing once enrolled.
• Debrief