Module 1 Chapter 1 Guiding Questions These are the guiding questions for Chapter 1. You are encouraged to make notes of relevant chapter content and indicate pages numbers and slide numbers where you find question-related content as you read assigned chapters and review the PowerPoint chapter summaries. Highlighting terms and marking pages will also be very helpful in preparation for taking the quiz and the exam. Advanced preparation will enhance your learning and your likelihood of doing well on the quiz and exam. 1. What are the five steps of the scientific method? Begin with curiosity, Develop a hypothesis, Test the hypothesis, analyze the evidence, report the results 2. What is the difference between asking a question (Step 1) and developing a hypothesis (Step 2)? Asking a questions is just the basis of theory, or a personal observation that poses a question. Developing a hypothesis is where you shape that question into a hypothesis so a specific prediction can be tested. 3. Why is replication important for scientific progress? Replication is important because it solidifies a researchers experiment and conclusion 4. What is the basic question at the heart of the nature–nurture controversy? Does nature or nurture affect a person more 5. At what point does nature begins to influence nurture in the developmental process? From post conception 6. How does differential susceptibility apply to responses to a low exam grade? One person could have a panic attack because they feel like this ruins their life, and one person could feel like that is a chance to work harder. 7. Which aspects of development show continuity? Characteristics of a human continually change over time 8. What is the difference between a critical period and a sensitive period? Critical period is when certain events (ether biological or social) must occur in order for development to proceed normally. A sensitive period is when a certain development is most likely to occur 9. Why it is useful to know when sensitive periods occur? You can do research and take advantage of capabilities or take measures to prevent something 10. What does Bronfenbrenner emphasize in his ecological-systems approach? Emphasizes a perspective on human development that considers all the influences from the various contexts of development 11. What are some of the social contexts of life? Family, school, church 12. What are differences between cohorts and age groups? Cohorts are people born within the same historical period who move through life together. Age groups are not related to history. 13. How might male–female differences be examples of the difference-equals-deficit error? Male example is men showing emotion and crying. For women an example is being handy and working on cars. 14. What are differences between race and ethnicity? Race is categorizing people based on inherited traits, powerful social construction, not valid biological concept. Ethnicity is people whose ancestors were born in the same part of the world 15. What factors comprise a person’s SES? Income, occupation, education, and place of residence 16. What are the problems with each discipline having its own silo? It can seem like a specific discipline has more influence on development based on the more research it has? 17. How is human development “plastic”? Abilities, personality, neurons, and so on are moldable 18. Why can’t careful observations prove “what causes what”? Because that would be a correlation not causation 19. Why do experimenters use a control (or comparison) group as well as an experimental group? The control group gives a base line for what the results are without a change to the dependent variable. Compared to the experimental group where you’re testing what the dependent variable results are 20. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the survey method? Strengths is it’s cheap and able to collect information from a large number of people and a weakness would be that people can be influenced by wording, people can lie or change their minds – challenging in acquiring valid information. 21. Why would a scientist conduct cross-sectional research? It is quick and least expensive also allows you to compare people who differ in age but are similar in other important characteristics. 22. What are advantages and disadvantages of longitudinal research? Those same individuals who are followed over time may not be similar in every way, except age, and historical context. An advantage would be that you’re examining their development over time and how they change compared to others. 23. Why do developmentalists use cross-sequential research? To study changes in age over time with different development over certain subjects 24. Why doesn’t correlation prove causation? Because they are observed variables that cannot be proved one causes the other 25. What are advantages and disadvantages of quantitative research? It shows data that can be expressed with numbers, such as ranked scales; the disadvantage would be there is no individuality. 26. What are advantages and disadvantages of qualitative research? It shows qualities, and expresses individuality; a disadvantage would be that there is no rank or scales 27. What is the role of a Institutional Review Board (IRB)? The Institutional Review Board ensures that research follows established guidelines and remains ethical 28. Why might a political leader avoid funding developmental research? It could cause confusion to what the people already know and ask more questions that they don’t want to deal with 29. What are some questions of human development that remain to be answered? How different races compare to each other in how their development changes overtime