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Lecture 3

Uploaded by

Jack Hirschberg
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Theories of adolescent development

© Copyright
Content belonging to instructors shared in online courses, including, but not limited to, online lectures, course
notes, and video recordings of classes remain the intellectual property of the faculty member. It may not be
distributed, published or broadcast, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the faculty member.
Students are also forbidden to use their own means of recording any elements of an online class or lecture
without express permission of the instructor. Any unauthorized sharing of course content may constitute a breach
of the Academic Code of Conduct and/or the Code of Rights and Responsibilities.
Cognitive Theories of Development
 Cognitive Theory (Piaget): Intellectual functioning develops by a
process involving brain maturation and interaction with the
environment
 At each stage of development, the brain matures and we become capable
of learning material that we were previously incapable of understanding
 At each stage, the capability can only be fulfilled if we are exposed to the
learning from the environment
 We learn to form schemas
 We modify the schemas based on experience
 “assimilation”: incorporation new information into existing schemas
 “accommodation”: new information forces a change in existing schemas
 Early adolescence is when we develop the capacity for abstract thinking
(“formal operations”)
 This leads to highly idealistic and binary thinking
Moral Development Theory
 Kohlberg and Gilligan: thinking about moral issues develops
through stages and involves both intellectual development and
exposure to moral thinking
 We can only advance one stage at a time
 We advance in moral thinking by being in “contact” with someone who is one
stage ahead of us
 During adolescence most people advance to the “conventional” stages of moral
thinking
 Males and females develop through the same stages in the same way. However the
themes of the stages are different for males and females
 For males the “conventional stage” emphasizes reasoning based on the need for

social order and social conformity


 For females the “conventional stage” emphasizes reasoning based on the need

for social caring and altruism


Learning Theories of Development
 Based on continuous and nurture theories of development (Skinner & Bandura): we are
born as a “tabula rasa” and everything about us is a result of learning from our environment
 We can learn by direct interaction with the environment (behaviourism), or by observation
and imitation of events in the environment (social learning theory)
 Classical and Operant Conditioning
 Reinforcement: any event that increases the probability of a particular behaviour
 Positive reinforcement: providing someone with something
that increases the probability of a particular behaviour
 Negative reinforcement: removing something from someone

that increases the probability of a particular behaviour


 Punishment: any event that decreases the probability of a particular behaviour
 Modeling: people performing acts that an observer can imitate and learn
Bronfenbrenner’s Sociological Theory of Development
Broad system of
Societal cultural beliefs and
institutions that values
affect us

Interconnection
between
microsystems

Changes that
occur over time
Place where we
experience our
daily lives
Bronfenbrenner’s Importance
Cultural beliefs and values are the basis for many of
the other conditions of children’s development
The importance of historical changes (the
chronosystem) as influences on development
 The Seattle Longitudinal Study (SLS; Hertzog, 2010;
Schaie, 1996a, b, 2000, 2005a) demonstrated that
generational differences in intelligence were mostly due
to the chronosystem
Children and adolescents are active participants in
their development, not merely the passive recipients
of external influences
Research Methods
Quantitative Research in adolescent development

© Copyright
Content belonging to instructors shared in online courses, including, but not limited to, online lectures, course
notes, and video recordings of classes remain the intellectual property of the faculty member. It may not be
distributed, published or broadcast, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the faculty member.
Students are also forbidden to use their own means of recording any elements of an online class or lecture without
express permission of the instructor. Any unauthorized sharing of course content may constitute a breach of the
Academic Code of Conduct and/or the Code of Rights and Responsibilities.
The Experimental Method
• Quantitative research involves measuring items and analyzing the
data mathematically, then forming conclusions based on the analysis
results.

• This is often called the experimental method

• A true experiment has at least one experimental group and one


control group

• The experimental group and control group are picked at random from
a population and either randomly assigned to each group or the
groups are matched in some way.

• The two groups are supposed to be representative of the population.


Applying Standards of the
Scientific Method
Hypotheses – finding an answer to an important
question that emerges from theory or previous
research
Sampling – choosing participants to represent the
population of interest
Procedure – the way the study is conducted and data
is collected
Methods – strategies for collecting data
The experimental analysis
• The experimental group receives the independent variable (IV)
• The control group has all the same conditions as the
experimental group except for the independent variable
• The resulting behaviour that is being studied is the dependent
variable (DP)
• The difference in DP between the experimental group and
control group represents the true effect of the IV.
• The difference between the experimental group and control
group must be large enough that we are statistically 95% sure
the results are not just chance (significance or p<.05)
• The experimental method is the only research method that
determines cause and effect
The Meaning of Significance

Significance in science and


the courtroom analogy

Copyright © Pearson Education 2010


Research Issue:
Sampling a Population
A researcher surveys young adults in a drug rehabilitation
program to find out about the frequency of drug use
among American urban adolescents. She determines that
100% of the young adults in the sample have used drugs.

Can we generalize this sample across the entire


population?
Research Issue:
Reliability & Validity
You have a 50 pound weight that has been tested on a NASA
scale. You put it on your bathroom scale and it reads 45
pounds. You weigh it five more times, each yielding a result of
45 pounds.

Is your scale a reliable measure? Is your scale a valid


measure?

•The scale is reliable because it obtains the same results every time.
•The scale is NOT valid because it is NOT truly or accurately measuring the
weight (given that the NASA scale is valid).
Research Issue:
Experimental Bias

• Knowing the hypothesis while analysing the data


can lead to experimenter bias in the interpretation
of the data
• The Hawthorn Effect
• Pygmalion in the Classroom

• The only true way to avoid experimenter bias is to


run the experiment as a double-blind.

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