PSYC1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Postpartum Depression, Cognitive Development, Social Change
26 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
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TOPIC: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT!
Lect 1: The Importance of early environment !
Impoverished early environments (Early social deprivation and subsequent
stimulation)!
•Monkey experiments: Suomi & Harlow (1972) !
•Study of mother-infant bonds in monkeys to investigate the effect of total isolation
varying periods of early life"
•Results: Severity of behavioural disruption depends upon duration and age at
which isolation begins i.e. for first 3 month - “emotional shock” but recovery within a
month of return to grow cage/ isolation for first 12 month - social misfit and no signs
of recovery "
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•Orphanages: Goldfarb (1945) !
•Compared early (<3 month) and late (>3 years) placement of children in foster
homes from orphanages "
•Results: !
•Greater age of adoption, the lower eventual IQ attained"
•When institutional effect goes on for over 3 years, the effects are long laster
and irreversible i.e; cognitive (speech development/concentration/school
achievement) and socio-emotional (social immaturity, aggressiveness)"
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•Orphanages: English/Romanian (impoverished situation) Adoption study"
•Purpose: By examining the recovery of orphans following the removal from
impoverished circumstances will help determine if initial defects were caused by
early impoverishment "
•The sample: Romania (experimental) and English (contrast) adoptees who are
adapted into English family "
•Measurements: Physical (height, weight, head circumference), Congnitive/
Developmental "
•Conclusion: !
•Children who spent the first period of life in deprived (orphanage)
environments suffer lasting cognitive and social/emotional deficits i.e.
Congnitive impairment in 15% of Romanian adoptees compared with 2%
within UK adoptees"
•The effects of this deprivation can be overcome by a move to a stimulating
(enriched) environment and degree is reliant on period of time spent in
deprived environment "
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•Postnatal depression: Field (2010); Halligan, Herbert, Goodyer & Murray (2004) "
•Effects of maternal PND for children i.e. increased cortiso levels, a stress hormone
predictive of anxiety disorders "
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•Class differences (Socio-economic/disadvantaged children)!
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•The early environment has a substantial influence on the development of a child; deprivation can
cause deficits in cognitive, social, emotional as well as physical development. "
•The impact of the deprivation depends on the time spent in this situation"
•The effects of deprivation (SES) can be overcome i.e. through preschool interventions"
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Preschool interventions to enrich early environments !
•Head Start (Started in 1964, Woodhead 1985, Ziegler & Styfco 1994): Disadvantaged
children given special early education program "
•Finding: No lasting cognitive (IQ) gains but persisting gains in non- cognitive i.e.
social competence and completion of high school "
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•Abecederian program (Ramey & Ramey 2004)!
•Findings: Early high quality early childhood education improves the scholastic
success and educational attainment of poorer children even to early adulthood
(i.e. social, competence, IQ, school retention, job prospect)"
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•***Intervention must begin early (>3 years) and of sufficient quality and require parental
involvement to effectively improve a wide variety of skills and competence "
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Lect 2: Introduction/research methods!
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Developmental psychology!
•Developmental psychology: discipline that seeks to identify and explain the changes in
behaviour that individuals undergo from the moment of conception until they die "
•Areas of study "
•Physical growth and motor skills"
•Mental or reasoning ability (cognition and learning)"
•Emotional expression"
•Patterns of social behaviour"
•Personality "
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Areas of change in Developmental psychology
• Traditionally: Belief that babies lack sophisticated thoughts i.e. understand reasoning
• More recently: capable of sophisticated thoughts/hypothesis (able to absorb a lot of
information however unable to narrow down to one thought process - congenial
development)
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Interpreting children’s behaviour in an experimental context!
•Delayed gratification example: marshmallow test "
•Variable being tested - Measuring resistance control? Whether the children believe
that their environment is untrustworthy/trustworthy"
•Explaining the children’s sources of behaviour"
•Biological/Maturation (nature) "
•Experience (nurture) "
"
•Developmental Psychology is the discipline that seeks to identify and explain the changes in
behaviour that individual undergo over their lifespan "
•Developmental Psychology can look at all fields researched in Psychology "
•Be aware of design issues such as observer effects and selective attrition when testing
children"
•The three different research designs (cross-sectional, longitudinal and longitudinal-sequential)
all have their own strengths and weaknesses"
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Developmental research methods and challenges!
•Methodological consideration!
•Lab or natural observation (internal/external validity) "
•Who observes/tests"
•Change with age: Cross -section or longitudinal design !
•Design issues !
•Sampling bias (representative sample - to get a range of individual within the
population) "
•Observer effects (mother/teacher/researcher) "
•Selective attrition (problem in longitudinal studies - i.e. children with one parents are
more likely to drop out of the experiment) "
•Practice effects (repeated measures - influence performance i.e. replay same video
game, if new measure - change in variable) "
•Validity/reliability of test (test of children - modified adult tests) "
•Research designs !
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Cross sectional approach
Longitudinal approach
Longitudinal sequential
design
Definition
different subjects are studied at
different ages
the investigator studies the
same subject at variety of
ages as they develop
(cross sectional/ short term
longitudinal design)"
The design composed of a
sequence of samples of
different ages, each of
which is followed
longitudinally for a period of
time
i.e.
(<1yr)"
Age Group "
6 A"
10 B"
14 C
(~9yr)"
Age Group "
6 A"
10 A"
14 A
(5 yrs) "
Age Group "
6 A"
10 A B"
14 B
Advantage
Data collected over a wide age
range in a short time
Provide extensive
information about how
individuals develop
•More efficient that
longitudinal design "
•Reveals cultural/historical
facts: by employing a
time lagging
comparison (compare
samples born in different
year with one another at
the same time)
Disadvanta
ge
•Yields no information about
past determinants of the age
related change"
•Problems of cohort
variations (each group was
born in a different year and
therefore has experienced
different environmental
influences) "
•Does not yield any
information about individual
development
•Time and cost"
•Subject lost (selective
attrition)"
•Cross generational
change "
•Inflexibility (stuck with the
sample and the measures
we initially decided upon)
