AICE Psych 08/27/13

1. AICE Psych 08/27/13

2. Developmental Psych • discovering the psychological processes of development • The four core studies in this section all focus on how children develop • developmental psychologists also study adulthood too

3. Developmental Psych • Bandura • Aggression • demonstrated that children learn development from role • emphasisethe way we learn behaviour from others, our environment, experiences and so on. • observing and imitating role models.

4. Developmental Psych • Freud (1909) • emotional development • psychodynamic approach argued that a child's early experiences will shape its personality in later life • children pass through a number of psycho-sexual stages as they develop • Little Hans provides a detailed account of a young boy coming to terms with his emotional conflicts.

5. Developmental Psych • main assumption of developmental approach • Cognitive • Emotional • Behavioural • ongoing process • changes result from an interaction of nature and nurture

6. Developmental Psych • Strength • longitudinalwhich means that they do get to investigate changes and how these changes are influenced • developmental psychology to neglect adult development.

7. Developmental Psych • Strength • provides useful information about how we can better understand how children learn and deal with emotional difficulties • improve the lives • Bandura - how adults should act in the presence of children • Freud - talking cures that have enabled individuals to cope with earlier traumatic experiences.

8. Developmental Psych • Weakness • tendency to generalise • findings from often very limited samples • general patterns of development based on non representative samples • Freud, for example argued that all children experience psychosexual stages based on case studies such as the one carried out on little Hans and his own introspections • However, many studies such as the one carried out by Bandura have been replicated in other cultures again showing the importance of role models on shaping childrensbehaviour.

9. Developmental psych • Weakness • validity of measuring children’s behaviour and thoughts • Can psychologists actually measuring what they are attempting to measure especially as children? • qualitatively different thoughts to adults • Bandura’s study could be criticised for interpreting the children’s behaviour towards the Bobo doll as aggression. Perhaps the children interpreted their own behaviour as play. • Freud’s interpretation of Hans’ behaviour as the case study is really Freud's interpretations of Hans' father's interpretation of his son's own phobia. Again this seriously reduces the validity of the study.