Summary of the Area
Principles of the Developmental Area
  • Interested in psychological processes of development. Change and development is an on-going process which continues throughout our lifetime.
  • Behaviour may be learned (nurture) or innate (biological / nature).
  • Early experiences affect later development.
  • Development may happen in pre-determined stages.
 
Types of Behaviour Studied
  • Who are children influenced by most?
  • When do children know right from wrong?
 
Practical Applications
  • Issues of Mental Health – providing pregnant women with flu injections to prevent the child having Sz in later life.
  • Child Psychology – does your relationship as a child with your mother affect your adult relationships?
  • Criminal Psychology – is crime the product of an unhappy childhood?
 
Debate it strongly links with
It takes a strongly interactionist view of the nature/nurture debate as it assumes that both the upbringing and genes cause people’s behaviours and both factors interact in a person’s behaviour.
 
Strengths
  • Useful – gives an explanation of why people demonstrate different intellectual abilities, social skills and emotions
  • It adds to the nature / nurture debate
  • Gives the opportunity for participant(s) to be studied in their natural environment
  • Easy to apply to everyday life as we are constantly learning and developing due to maturation
 
Weaknesses
  • Theories about pre-determined stages of development are too rigid
  • Focuses mainly on childhood development and tends to neglect how adults mature
  • Behaviour is determined by upbringing, so suggest less free will
 
Research Methods
  • Methods can be longitudinal showing development of behaviour
  • Use of case studies open to subjectivity affecting validity
 
Methodological Issues
  • Low ecological validity and mundane realism as the setting/tasks are often artificial
  • Longitudinal research can suffer from attrition of participants
  • Collects both qualitative and quantitative data
  • Reliability is good if set in a laboratory due to standardised procedure
  • Replication of case study method is difficult
 
Core Studies