Basic Methods of Research

Basic Methods of Research

A. Two fundamental Questions: (Guide what we do in developmental psychology):
1. How do people change as they develop?
2. What are the determinants of these changes?

B. Goals of developmental psychology:
1. Understand universal changes
2. Explain individual differences
3. Search for contextual influences

C. Research in Developmental Psychology:
1. Waterbeds for infants:
• Premature infants: standard beds vs. water beds
• Infants in waterbeds had far fewer apneic episodes.
• Research connects up to ways in which you can manage apneic episodes.

2. Resilient kids:
• Examined children from worst kind of conditions in Hawaii.
• What are the characteristics of children that will be resilient no matter the conditions?
• Three characteristics:
1. Sunny Personality
2. Healthy sense of self from very young age
3. One adult who was consistent caring influence in their lives

3. Consequences of divorce:
• Young boys: divorce has significant effects
1. Social development
2. Cognitive/ Educational development
• Young Girls:
1. No substantial educational effects
2. No substantial socialization effects
3. Effects of divorce- later in life

4. Using electric shock:
• Young child 9 months of age – bulimic
• Electrolytes becoming imbalanced.
• Vomiting started after child was fed some bad formula – had become conditioned to throw up after eating any food.
• Psychologist applied electric current to baby’s foot as soon as vomiting started to take place.
• After few sessions, baby stopped vomiting.
• If you understand principles of learning, you can use something like electric shock in a positive way.

D. Origins of Research Questions
1. Need for basic descriptive information
• How should cognitive function develop?
• Are we on a normal developmental trajectory?
2. Theories--- “So what’s the big deal about theories?”
• Explain what we can predict from individuals
• Serve as foundation for research questions
• Theoretical model theory example – positive emotions influence social behavior
i. Positive emotions protect children from aversive events

3. Important social issues
a. Does head start make a difference?
b. Resilience in a Time of War

E. Basic Methods of Research

1. Case Study:
• Intensively evaluate all of the issues associated with a single individuals development (or small group of people)
• Sean ? – study of his own daughters: how our brain develops
• Add to our knowledge and understanding of developmental issues

2. Observation: evaluating large number of persons
• Interested in just observing over a broad sample the behavior of individuals

3. Interview: asking specific questions of audience
• Can observe individual differences to the standard set of questions

4. Correlational Studies: Involve measuring at least two things in an individual and developing an understanding a relationship between the two things.

5. Longitudinal vs. Cross-Sectional
• Longitudinal- following a group of people across several years o Ex. Framingham heart study: 1950’s exact demographic of country. Asked question: what are the factors that influence heart disease.
• Learned: Overweight, Cholesterol levels, high blood pressure associated with heart disease o Advantage: help us understand some of the important processes that can influence behavior over time. o Disadvantages:
• Takes a long time to develop findings
• Expensive

• Cross-Sectional- sample individuals who are a certain age, sample another group of individuals at a later age, keep sampling age groups in accord with the research hypothesis. o Can get a sense of how a particular variable can change over time.
• Ex. Change of breathing patterns over time: When do differences of woman and men in how they breathe emerge? o Advantage: can gather significant information rapidly o Disadvantages: don’t tell us how and why things may be changing over time.

6. Experiment: Cause & Effect o How and why things occur??
• Controlled conditions: constant conditions for each participant
• Systematic change something – independent variable
• Evaluate Effects – dependent variable o Ex. Study of emotional state on children’s generosity o Independent variable- emotional state o Dependent variable- generosity o Randomly assigned each child to emotional state
• Control Group
• Random assignment

F. Ethical Issues in Research:

1. Protect the rights of subjects:
• Right to know they are in research project
• Informed consent – what is the project you are participating in and exactly what the project will entail.
• Right of non harmful treatment – institutional review board for the protection of human subjects
• Right to receive compensation for participation
• Right to knowledge of results – research must share findings if participant is interested

2. Cost vs. Benefit decisions:
• Institutional review boards – determine if benefits of research are going to justify the cost. o Ex. Burning mouth syndrome: women over 50
• Institutional review board had to determine if researcher could take piece of tissue from participants tongue.