CHAPTER: 1 CONCEPT OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

How did the study of Human Development evolve?

From the moment of conception, human beings undergo processes of development. The field of
human development is the scientific study of processes of change and stability throughout the
human life span. Developmental scientists – professionals who study human development – are
interested in the ways in which people change throughout life, as well as in characteristics that
remain fairly stable.
The formal study of human development is a relatively new field of scientific inquiry. Since the
early nineteenth century when Itard studied Victor, efforts to understand children’s development
have gradually expanded to include the whole life span.

Early Approaches
Early forerunners of the scientific study of development were baby biographies, journals kept to
record the early development of a child. One early journal, published in 1787 in Germany,
contained Dietrich’s Tiedmann’s (1897/ 1787) observations of his son’s sensory, motor,
language, and cognitive behavior during the first 2 ½ years. These entries were typically
speculative in nature, and thus erroneous in conclusions. For example, after watching the infant
suck more on a cloth tied around something sweet than on a nurse’s finger, he concluded that
sucking appears “not to be instinctive, but acquired”.

It was Charles Darwin, originator of the theory of evolution, who first emphasized the
developmental nature of infant behavior. In 1877 Darwin published notes on his son Doddy’s
sensory, cognitive, and emotional development during his first twelve months. Darwin’s journal
gave baby biographies scientific respectability; about thirty more were published during the next
three decades.
By the end of the nineteenth century, several important trends in the western world were
preparing the way for scientific study of development.
 Scientists had unlocked the mystery of conception.
 They were arguing about the relative importance of “nature” and “nurture” (as in the case
of the wild boy of Aveyron)
 The discovery of germs and immunization made it possible for many more children to
survive infancy.
 Laws protecting children from long workdays let them spend more time in school, and
parents and teachers became more concerned with identifying and meeting children’s
developmental needs.
 The new science of psychology taught that people could understand themselves by
learning what had influenced them as children.
Still this new discipline had far to go. In the early years, as Siegel explained, “developmental
psychology was preoccupied with ages and stages”. And for the most part research was
concentrated on preschool and school age children. In fact, adolescence was not considered a
separate period of development until the earl twentieth century, when G. Stanley Hall, a pioneer
in child study, published a popular (though unscientific) book called Adolescence (1904/ 1916).
Hall also was one of the first psychologists to become interested in aging. In 1922, at age 78, he
published Senescence: The last Half of Life. But only a generation later did the study of aging
blossom.

Studying the Life Span

Today most developmental psychologists recognize that development goes on throughout life.
This concept of a lifelong process of development that can be studied scientifically is known as
life-span development.
Life-span studies in the US grew out of research designed to follow children through adulthood.
The Stanford Studies of Gifted Children (begun in 1921 under the direction of Lewis M.
Terman) traces the development of people who were identified as unusually intelligent in
childhood.
Because human beings are complex, the study of life-span development is inter-disciplinary,
drawing on many fields. These include psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology,
biology, genetics, family science (the study of family processes), education, history, philosophy,
and medicine.

Goals of developmental Psychology

As the field of human development became a scientific discipline, its goals evolved to include
description, explanation, prediction and modification of behavior. These four goals work
together, as we can see by looking at an example, say language development.

1. Describe: To describe when most normal children say their first word or how large their
vocabulary typically is at a certain age, development scientists observe large groups of
children and establish norms, or averages, for behavior at various ages.
2. Explain: Then the scientists attempt to explain what causes or influences the observed
behavior—for example, how children acquire and learn to use language, and why a child
like Victor, who may have lacked early exposure to language, did not learnt to speak.
3. Predict: This knowledge may make it possible to predict what language ability at a given
age can tell about later behavior. For example, about the likelihood that a child with
delayed language development might still be taught to speak.
4. Modify: Finally awareness of how language develops may be used to modify behavior, as
Itard attempted to do in tutoring Victor.

The scientific study of human development is an ever evolving endeavor. The questions that
developmental scientists seek to answer, the methods they use, and the explanations they propose
are not the same today as they were 25 years ago. These shifts reflect progress in understanding,
as new investigators build on or challenge earlier ones. They also reflect advances in technology
and changes in cultural attitudes.
 Sensitive instruments that measure eye movements, heat rate, blood pressure, muscle
tension, and the like are turning up intriguing connections between biological functions
and infant visual attentiveness and childhood intelligence.
 Cameras, video recorders, and computers allow investigators to scan infants’ facial
expressions for early signs of emotions and to analyze how mothers and babies
communicate.
 Advances in neurosciences and brain imaging now make it possible to probe the
mysteries of temperament, to pinpoint the sources of logical thought, and to compare
normally aging brain with the brain of a person with dementia.
 Increasingly, research findings have direct application to child rearing, education, health,
and social policy.
 For example, learning about childhood memory has helped determine the weight to be
given to children’s courtroom testimony. Identifying factors that increase the risks of
antisocial behavior has suggested ways to prevent it. Understanding how children think
about death has enabled professionals to help them deal with bereavement.
 An understanding of adult development, too, has practical implications. It can help
people deal with life’s transitions: a woman returning to work after maternity leave, a
person making a career change or about to retire, a widow or widower dealing with his
loss, someone coping with terminal illness.

Developmental process: Change and Stability

Change: Developmental scientists are interested in two kinds of developmental change:
quantitative and qualitative.
 Quantitative change is a change in number or amount, such as growth in height, weight,
vocabulary, aggressive behavior, or frequency of communication.
 Qualitative change is a change in kind, structure, or organization. It is marked by the
emergence of new phenomena that cannot be easily anticipated on the basis of an earlier
functioning, such as the change from an embryo to a baby, or from a nonverbal child to
one who understands words and can communicate verbally.
Stability: Developmental scientists are also interested in the underlying stability, or constancy, of
personality and behavior. For example, about 10 to 15 percent of children are consistently shy,
and another 10 to 15 percent are very bold. Although various influences can modify these traits
somewhat, they seem to persist to a moderate degree, especially in children at one extreme or the
other. Broad dimensions of personality, such as conscientiousness and openness to new
experience, seem to stabilize before or during young adulthood.
Indian View The Varnashramas:
Explanations drawn from the teachings of Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math
A person’s duties, in the Hindu tradition, are determined by the stage of life (Ashrama) to which
he belongs. Life, which is regarded by Hinduism as a journey to the shrine of truth, is marked by
four stages, each of which has its responsibilities and obligations. The four stages of life are:

1. Brahmacharya Ashram (first 25 years) – Student life observing celibacy:

The first stage of life covers the period of study, when a student cultivates his mind and prepares
himself for future service to society. He lives with his teacher and regards his teacher as his
spiritual father. He leads an austere life and conserves his energy, spurning the defilement of the
body and mind through evil words, thoughts and deeds. He shows respect to his elders and
teachers, and becomes acquainted with the cultural achievements of the race. Students, rich and
poor, live under the same roof and receive the same attention from the teacher and his wife.
When the studies are completed, the teacher gives the pupil the following instructions, as
described in the Taittiriya Upanishad:
Speak the truth. Practice Dharma. Do not neglect the study of the Vedas. Having brought to the
teacher the gift desired by him; enter the householder’s life and see that the line of progeny is not
cut off. Do not swerve from the truth. Do not swerve from Dharma (path of virtue). Do not
neglect prosperity. Do not neglect the study and the teaching of the Vedas. Do not neglect your
duties to the Gods. Treat your mother as Goddess. Treat your Father as God. Treat your Teacher
as God. Treat your Guest as God.
Whatever deeds are faultless, these are to be performed – not others. Whatever good works have
been performed by us, those should be performed by you.

2. Grihastha Ashrama (25 – 50 years) – Housekeeper, married life:

With marriage, a person enters the second stage of life. A normal person requires a mate; his
biological and emotional urges in this respect are legitimate. Debarred from marriage are those
who have a dangerous ailment that may be transmitted to children, or those rare souls who, as
students, forsake the world at the call of the spirit.
Children endow marriage with social responsibilities. Hinduism does not regard romance as the
whole of the married life. Husband and wife are co-partners in their spiritual progress, and the
family provides a training ground for the practice of unselfishness. A health householder is the
foundation of a good society, discharging his duties as a teacher, a soldier, a statesman, a
merchant, a scientist, or a manual worker. He should be ambitious to acquire wealth and enjoy
pleasures, but not deviating from the path of righteousness.
The five great duties of a householder are:
a) The study and the teaching of the Vedas.
b) Daily worship of the Gods through appropriate rituals.
 c) Gratification of the departed ancestors by offering their spirits food and drink according
to the scriptural injunctions.
d) Kindness to domestic animals.
e) Hospitality to guests, the homeless and destitute.

3. Vanaprastha Ashrama (50 – 75 years) - Scriptural studies and meditation on God:

When the skin wrinkles, the hair turns grey, or a grandchild is born, one is ready for the third
stage of life (by retiring from the householder’s responsibilities). At this stage, the pleasures and
excitements of youth appear stale and physical needs are reduced to a minimum. The third period
of life is devoted to Scriptural studies and meditation on God.

4. Sanyasa Ashrama (75 – 100 years) Cultivation of God consciousness – Monastic way
of life:

During the fourth stage, a man renounces the world and embraces the monastic way of life. He is
no longer bound by social laws. The call of the infinite becomes irresistible to him; even charity
and social service appear inadequate. He rises above worldly attachments, finite obligations, and
restricted loyalties; he is a friend of his fellow human beings, of the gods, and of the animals. No
longer tempted by riches, honour or power, a monk preserves equanimity of spirit under all
conditions. He turns away from the vanities of the world, devoting himself to the cultivation of
God-consciousness.
Through the disciplines of the four stages of life, a Hindu learns progressive non-attachment to
the transitory world. The movement of life has been aptly compared to that of the sun. At dawn
the sun rises from below the horizon, and as the morning progresses it goes on radiating heat and
light till it reaches the zenith at midday. During the afternoon it goes down, gradually
withdrawing its heat and light till it reaches the zenith and midday. During the afternoon it goes
down, gradually withdrawing its heat and light, and at dusk it sinks below the horizon, a mass of
radiance, to illuminate other regions.

Domains of development
Change and stability occur in various domains or dimensions, of the self. Developmental
scientists talk separately about physical development, cognitive development and psychosocial
development. Actually, though, these domains are intertwined. Throughout life, each affects the
others, and each domain is important throughout life.
1. Physical development: Growth of the body and brain, sensory capacities, motor skills,
and heath are part of physical development and may influence other domains of
development. For example, a child with frequent ear infections may develop language
more slowly than a child without this problem. During puberty, dramatic physical and
hormonal changes affect the developing sense of self. And, in some older adults, physical
changes in the brain may lead to intellectual and personality deterioration.
 2. Cognitive development: Change and stability in mental abilities, such as learning,
attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity constitute cognitive
development. Cognitive advances are closely related to physical and emotional growth.
The ability to speak depends on the physical development of the mouth and brain. A child
who has difficulty expressing herself in words may evoke negative reactions in others,
influencing her popularity and self-worth.
3. Psycho social development: Change and stability in emotions, personality, and social
relationships together constitute psychosocial development, and this can affect cognitive
and physical functioning. For example, anxiety about taking a test can impair
performance. Social support can help people cope with potentially negative effects of
stress on physical and mental health. Conversely, physical and cognitive capacities
contribute greatly to self-esteem and can affect social acceptance and choice of
occupation.

Although we look separately at physical, cognitive and psychosocial development, a person is

more than a bundle of isolated parts. Development is a unified process.

Theories of Human Development

Erik Erikson’s psychosocial development:

Erikson’s theory comes under the psychoanalytic perspective, which views development as
shaped by unconscious forces that motivate human behavior.

Erik Erikson (1902 - 1994), a German born psychoanalyst, modified and extended Freudian
theory by emphasizing the influence of society on the developing personality. Erikson was a
pioneer in the lifespan perspective. Whereas Freud maintained that early childhood experiences
permanently shape personality, Ericsson contended that ego development is lifelong. He applied
his own theory to well-known public figures, writing psychological biographies or
‘psychohistories’ of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi.
Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development covers eight stages across the lifespan. Each stage
involves what Erikson originally called a ‘crisis’ in personality -- a major psychosocial theme
that is particularly important at that time and will remain an issue to some degree throughout the
rest of life. These issues, which emerge according to a maturational timetable, must be
satisfactorily resolved for healthy ego development.
Each stage requires the balancing of a positive tendency and a corresponding negative one.
Although the positive quality should predominate, some degree of the negative is needed as well.
The critical theme of infancy, for example, is basic trust vs basic mistrust. People need to trust
the world and the people in it, but they also need to learn some mistrust to protect themselves
from danger. The successful outcome of each stage is the development of a particular “virtue” or
strength -- in this case, the virtue of hope.

Following are the developmental sages according to Erikson:

Psychosocial stage Age Developmental Task

Basic Trust versus Mistrust Birth to 12-18 months Baby develops a sense of
whether world is a good and
safe place.
Virtue: HOPE
Autonomy versus Shame and 12-18 months to 3 years Child develops a balance of
doubt independence and self-
sufficiency over shame and
doubt.
Virtue: Will
Initiative versus Guilt 3 to 6 years Child develops initiative when
trying out new activities and is
not overwhelmed by guilt.
Virtue: Purpose
Industry versus Inferiority 6 years to puberty Child must learn skills of the
culture or face feelings of
incompetence.
Virtue: Skill
Identity versus Identity Puberty to young adulthood Adolescent must determine
confusion own sense of self (Who am I?)
or experience confusion about
roles.
Virtue: Fidelity
Intimacy versus isolation Young adulthood Person seeks to make
commitments to others; if
unsuccessful, may suffer from
isolation and self-absorption.
Virtue: Love
Generativity versus stagnation Middle adulthood Mature adult is concerned
with establishing and guiding
the next generation or feels
personal impoverishment.
Virtue: Care
Ego integrity versus despair Late adulthood Elderly person achieves
acceptance of own life,
allowing acceptance of death,
or else despairs over inability
to relive life.
Virtue: Wisdom
Erikson’s theory has held up better than Freud's, especially in its emphasis on the importance of
social and cultural influences and on development beyond adolescence. However, some of
Erikson’s concepts do not lend themselves to rigorous testing.

Urie Bronfenbrenner's Bio ecological Theory

Bronfenbrenner’s theory comes under the contextual perspective, which views development as
that which can be understood only in its social context. Contextualists see the individual not as a
separate identity interacting with the environment, but as an inseparable part of it.
The American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner’s currently influential bio ecological theory
describes the range of interacting influences that affect a developing person. Every biological
organism develops within the context of ecological systems that support or stifle its growth. Just
as we need to understand the ecology of the ocean or the forest if we wish to understand the
development of a fish or a tree, we need to understand the ecology of the human environment if
we wish to understand how people develop.

According to Bronfenbrenner, development occurs through increasingly complex processes of

interaction between a developing person and the immediate, everyday environment- processes
that are affected by more remote contexts of which the individual may not be aware. To
understand the processes, we must study the multiple contexts in which they occur. These begin
with the home, classroom, workplace, and neighborhood; connect outward to societal
institutions, such as educational and transportation systems; and finally encompass cultural and
historical patterns that affect the family, the school and virtually everything else in a person’s
life. By highlighting the interrelated contexts of, and influences on development,
Bronfenbrenner’s theory provides a key to understanding the processes that underlie such diverse
phenomena as academic achievement and antisocial behavior.

Bronfenbrenner identifies five interlocking contextual systems, from the most intimate to the
broadest: the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Although
we separate the various levels of influence for purposes of illustration, in reality they continually
interact.

a. A microsystem is a pattern of activities, roles, and relationships within a setting, such as

the home, school, workplace, or neighbourhood, in which a person functions on a first-
hand, day-to-day basis. It is through the microsystem that more distant influences, such as
social institutions and cultural values, reach the developing person.
A microsystem involves personal, face-to-face relationships, and bidirectional influences flow
back and forth. How, for example, does a new baby affect the parents' lives? How do their
feelings and attitudes affect the baby? How does an employer’s treatment of employees affect
their productivity, and how does their productivity affect the employer’s treatment of them?
 b. A mesosystem is the interaction of two or more microsystems that contain the
developing person. It may include linkages between home and school (such as parent-
teacher conferences) or between the family and the peer group. Attention to mesosystems
can alert us to differences in the ways the same person acts in different settings. For
example, a child who can satisfactorily complete a school assignment at home may be
tongue-tied when asked a question about the assignment in class.

c. An exosystem, like a mesosystem, consists of linkages between two or more settings, but
in an exosystem, unlike a mesosystem, at least one of these settings - such as parents'
workplaces and parents' social networks - does not contain the developing person and
thus affects him or her indirectly. A woman whose employer encouraged breast-feeding
by providing pumping and milk storage facilities may be more likely to continue nursing
her baby.

d. The macro system consists of overall cultural patterns, like dominant values, beliefs,
customs, and economic and social systems of a culture or subculture, which filter down in
countless ways to individuals' daily lives. For example, whether a child grows up in a
nuclear or extended family household is strongly influenced by a culture’s macro system.
We can see a more subtle macro system in the individualistic values stressed in th United
States, as contrasted with the predominant value of group harmony in Chinese culture.

e. The chronosystem adds the dimension of time: the degree of stability or change in a
child’s world. This can include changes in family composition, place of residence of
parents employed as well as larger events such as wars, economic cycles and the waves
of migration. Changes in family patterns (such as increase in working mothers in western
industrial societies and the decline of the extended family household in developing
countries) are chronosystem factors.
According to Bronfenbrenner, a person is not merely an outcome of development, but a shaper of
it. People affect their own development through their biological and psychological
characteristics, talents, skills, disabilities and temperament.

Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural Theory:

The Russian psychologist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a prominent proponent of
the contextual perspective, particularly as it applies to children’s cognitive development. In
contrast with Bronfenbrenner, who sees contextual systems as centred around the individual
person, Vygotsky’s central focus is the social, cultural and historical complex of which a child is
a part. To understand cognitive development, he maintained, one must look to the social
processes from which a child’s thinking is derived.
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory like Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, stresses
children’s active engagement with their environment. But whereas Piaget described the solo
mind taking in and interpreting information about the world, Vygotsky saw cognitive growth as a
collaborative process. Children, said Vygotsky, learn through social interaction. They acquire
cognitive skills as part of their induction into a way of life. Shared activities help children to
internalize their society’s ways of thinking and behaving and to make those ways their own.
According to Vygotsky, adults must help direct and organize a child’s learning before the child
can master and internalize it. This guidance is most effective in helping children across the zone
of proximal development (ZPD), the gap between what they are already able to do and what
they are not quite ready to accomplish by themselves. Children in the ZPD for a particular task
can almost, but not quite perform the task on their own. With the right kind of guidance, however
they can do it successfully. In the course of the collaboration, responsibility for directing and
monitoring learning gradually shifts to the child.

When an adult teaches a child to float, the adult first supports the child in the water and then let’s
go gradually as the child’s body relaxes into a horizontal position. When the child seems ready,
the adult withdraws all but one finger and finally lets the child float freely. Some followers of
Vygotsky have applied the metaphors of scaffolds - the temporary platforms on which
construction workers stand - to this way of teaching. Scaffolding, then, is the temporary support
that parents, teachers or others give a child to do a task until the child can do it alone.

Vygotsky’s theory has important implications for education and for cognitive testing. Tests
based on the ZPD, which focus on a child’s potential, provide a valuable alternative to standard
intelligence tests that assess what the child has already learned; and many children may benefit
from the sort of expert guidance Vygotsky prescribes.

A major contribution of the contextual perspective has been its emphasis on the social
component in development. Research attention has shifted from the individual to larger,
international units – parent and child, sibling and sibling, entire family, neighbourhood, broader
societal institutions. The contextual perspective also reminded us that the development of
children in one culture or one group within a culture (such as white, middle class Americans)
may not be an appropriate norm for children in other societies and cultural groups.

Research Designs in the study of Human Development

Information about ontogenetic development is most commonly gathered by cross-sectional o

longitudinal studies.
Longitudinal Method
In a longitudinal design, a group of participants is studied repeatedly at different ages, and
developmental changes are noted as the participants mature. The time span may be relatively
short (a few months to several years) or very long (a decade or even a lifetime).
 In this research approach, scientists study the same individual at different points of their
life. These people can be compared with themselves at regular intervals between birth
and death, and the changes that occur over time in their behavior and characteristics can
be noted.
 The method allows researchers to plot individual growth curves in such areas as ---
language, motor and cognitive development.
 Longitudinal research provides a means for discovering which childhood behaviors are
marked for future use and which will be lost along the way.
 The method also offers insight into why people turn out similarly or differently during
adulthood.
 Longitudinal studies have yielded data on subjects ranging from religion to politics,
through illness, marriage, and emotional development to family history and careers.
 Since the same individual is studied is observed from elementary school to high school to
college, the method is useful to answer questions with age as independent variable. For
example, evolution of behaviors within an individual, stability of the individual as he
grows, effects of early events of a child’s life on his subsequent behavior patterns.

A classic longitudinal study by Lewis Terman: 1921

 He followed 1528 gifted (based on IQS between 135 and 200) children from California
Pubic School --- who later came to be known as Termites – and a control group of
children of average intelligence from an early age to adulthood.
 When Terman launched his study the widely held assumption was that of you were bright
as a child, your later life would be marred by physical or mental illness, eccentricity or
social manipulation.
 Terman’s research proved otherwise as the research revealed that in later life the
exceptionally bright youngsters had become better educated, more successful and more
effective and productive members of society than the average American.

Advantages of the longitudinal method:

1. Since this method tracks the performance of each person over time, researchers can
identify common patterns as well as individual differences in development.
2. It assesses continuity between early childhood and adult behaviors. Sensitive to
individual patterns of change, since data about individuals can be tracked.
3. It avoids the problem of sample non-equivalence.
 4. Useful to study age related behaviors such as evolution of behaviors, stability of
behavior, impact of early events in child’s life on subsequent behavior patterns.
5. Large samples are not required.

Disadvantages of the longitudinal method:

1. Biased sampling: People who willingly participate in research that requires them to be
continually observed and tested over many years are likely to have unique characteristics
– at the very least, a special appreciation for the scientific value of research. They also
tend to be of higher than average socio-economic status and intelligence. As a result we
cannot easily generalize data about them to the rest of the population.
2. Selective attrition: This is the selective loss of participants during an investigation, which
generally leads to further biased sampling in longitudinal studies. Participants may move
away or drop out for other reasons, and the ones who remain are likely to differ in
important ways from the ones who do not continue.
3. Sample shrinkage: Subjects drop out because they become ill or die, because they move
away or simply become ‘fed up’. Those who remain come from the most co-operative
and stable families, which biases the sample.
4. The method requires a great deal of time and money.
5. On a long term basis, the turnover in staff impairs research continuity.
6. Practice effects: With repeated testing, participants may become ‘test-wise’. Their
performance may improve because of practice effects – better test-taking skills and
increased familiarity with the tests – not because of factors commonly associated with
development.
7. If research funds are stopped at a certain time, it results in the wastage of previous
expenditure of time and money.
8. Researchers must continually relocate the same subject for retesting.
9. Cohort effects: Children developing in the same time period who are influenced by
particular cultural and historical conditions make up a cohort (for example, the hippie
culture, children studied during WW2). Longitudinal studies examine the development of
cohorts. Results based on one cohort may not apply to children growing up at other times.
For example, children’s intelligence test performance has risen since the middle of the
20th century and is still rising (Flynn effect). Gains in nutrition, the stimulating quality of
schooling and daily life, and parental attitudes toward fostering children’s mental
development may be involved.
10. There is a problem of finding out tomorrow what relevant factors one should have taken
into account yesterday. Once set in motion the project is difficult to alter in the light of
newer techniques and theories. When innovations are introduced, it is impossible to
recapture data using the new or revised methods with the subjects at their earlier ages.
Locks researcher into an earlier research design and theory.
Cross-sectional Method
The length of time it takes for many behaviors to change, even in limited longitudinal studies,
has led researchers to a more convenient strategy for studying development. In the cross
sectional design, groups of people differing in age are studied at the same point in time.
 It provides information about differences in development among different age groups,
rather than changes with age in the same person.
 For instance, a researcher might investigate language development by selecting sixty
children of a number of age levels – 8 months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, 3
years, 4 years and 5 years.
 Such a technique has the advantage of saving a good deal of time.
 The researcher need not wait for many years until the subjects reach the particular age for
retesting.
 And the researcher need not have to relocate the subjects.
 Cross sectional research requires careful sampling procedures to make the successive age
levels of different subjects reasonably comparable. This is the main weakness of the
method as we can never be sure that the reported age related differences between the
subjects are not the product of other differences of the group. For example, groups may
differ in social environment, intelligence or diet. So the comparability of groups can only
be assumed – an assumption that is often invalid.

Example of cross sectional study:

 In one study, people of six different age groups from the age of 6 to old age took a battery
of cognitive tests.
 Age differences in performance appeared: middle aged subjects scored highest, and the
younger and older people scored lowest.
 We cannot conclude from these findings that when the younger subjects in this study
become older themselves, their scores would drop to lower levels of the older people in
the original sample.
 The older subjects may have had as a cohort, poorer education or experiences that
affected their performance so that they may have never scored as well as the middle aged
subjects.

Advantages of the cross sectional method:

1. Saves a great deal of time and costs less money than longitudinal studies.
2. Demands no continuity or long term co-operation among workers.
3. Does not require that data be ‘frozen’ over long periods until the subject reaches the
desired age for retesting.
4. Subjects are not drop out as in the case of longitudinal studies.
 5. Establishes normative data for different age groups. A norm decides the average age at
which a characteristic is seen to develop and the variability in the development of that
characteristic.

Disadvantages of the cross sectional method:

1. The study puts together children of the same chronological age, but different maturational
age. Such averaging may conceal changes like those associated with the growth spurt at
puberty.
2. The methods only looks a group averages. The changes at the individual level is not
available.
3. Comparability of the age groups being studied is always uncertain.
4. Neglects continuity of development as occurring in a single individual.
5. Cannot be used to study the stability of behavior over time, or to examine the impact of
early experiences on subsequent behavior.
6. Cross sectional studies can be threatened by cohort effects. For example, comparisons of
5 year old cohorts and 15 year old cohorts, may not really represent age related changes.
Instead, they may reflect unique experiences associated with the time period in which
each age group grew up.

Graph showing Longitudinal and Cross-sectional Method of data collection:

10 yrs
Cross-sectional sample
8yrs

6yrs Longitudinal
sample
4yrs

2yrs

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

The graph shows the two important ways to obtain data about development.
 In the Cross sectional study, people of different ages are measured at one time. Here,
groups of 2, 4, 6 and 8 year olds were tested in 1985, that is, at one time, to obtain data
about age difference in performance.
  In the longitudinal study, the sample people were measured more than once. They were
measured first in 1985, when they were 2 year old, follow up studies were done on the
same sample in 1987, 1989 and 1991, when the children would be 4, 6 and 8 years
respectively. This technique shows age changes in performance.

Cross-sequential method
A number of researchers have proposed a combination of the above two approaches which would
link a cross-sectional approach, with a modified form of longitudinal approach. It is called
sequential because it is composed of a sequence of samples, each of which is followed
longitudinally.
Richard Bell outlined a ‘convergence approach’. He undertook a series of short term longitudinal
studies that employed overlapping age ranges.
One group is tested at 3, 4 and 5 years, another at 5, 6 and 7 years, while another at 7, 8 and 9
years.
Overlapping ages are taken as they will serve as checkpoints to compare different subjects at the
same age.

Ethics of research

Should research that might harm its participants ever be undertaken? How can we balance the
possible benefits against the risk of mental, emotional or psychical injury to individuals?
Objections to the study of ‘little Albert’, as well as several other early studies gave rise to today’s
more stringent ethical standards. Federally mandatory committees at colleges, universities and
other institutions review proposed research from an ethical standpoint. Guidelines of the
American Psychological Association and the Society for Research in Child Development cover
such issues as informed consent, avoidance of deception, protection of participants from harm
and loss of dignity, guarantees of privacy and confidentiality, the right to decline or withdraw
from an experiment at any time, and the responsibility of investigators to correct any undesirable
effects.
Still, ethical dilemmas sometimes exist. Different kinds of research may entail different ethical
issues. For example, a study in which a new drug is being tested or compared with an established
treatment is much riskier than an observational study of children playing together in a laboratory
setting with their parents present.
Let’s look more closely at a few of the ethical considerations that can present problems.

1. Right to informed consent

Informed consent exists when participants voluntarily agree to be in a study, are competent to
give consent, are fully aware of the risks as well as the potential benefits, and are not being
exploited. The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of biomedical and
behavioural research (1978) recommends that children age seven or over be asked to give their
own consent to take part in research and the children’s objections should be over ruled only if the
research promises direct benefit to the child, as in the use of a new experimental drug.
However, some ethicists argue that young children cannot give meaningful, voluntary consent,
since they cannot fully understand what is involved; they can merely assent, that is, agree to
participate. The usual procedure, therefore, when children under 18 are involved, is to ask the
parents or legal guardians, and sometimes school personnel, to give consent.
Some studies rely on participants who may be especially vulnerable. For example, studies that
seek the causes and treatments for Alzheimer’s disease need participants whose mental status
may preclude their being fully or even partially aware of what is involved. What if a person gives
consent and later forgets having done so? Current practice, to be on the safe side, is to ask both
participants and caregivers for consent.

2. Avoidance of Deception
Can informed consent exist if participants are deceived about the nature purpose of a study, or
about the procedures they will be subjected to? Suppose that children are told they are trying out
a new game when they are actually being tested on their reactions to see success or failure?
Experiments like these, which cannot be carried out without deception, have been done - and
they gave added significantly to our knowledge, but at the cost of the participants' right to know
what they were getting involved in.
Ethical guidelines call for withholding information only when it is essential to the study; and
then, investigators should avoid methods that could cause pain, anxiety, or harm. Participants
should be debriefed afterward to let them know the true nature of the study and why deception
was necessary and to make sure they have not suffered as a result.

3. Right to Privacy and Confidentiality

Is it ethical to use one - way mirrors and hidden cameras to observe people without their
knowledge? How can we protect the confidentiality of personal information that participants may
reveal in interviews or questionnaires?
What if, during the course of research, an investigator notices that a child or adult seems to have
a learning disability or some other treatable condition? Is the researcher obliged to share such
information with the participant, or with parents or guardians, or to recommend services that may
help, when sharing the information might contaminate the research findings? Such a decision
should not be made lightly, since sharing information of uncertain validity may create damaging
misconceptions about a child. On the other hand, researchers need to know, and inform
participants of, their legal responsibility to report abuse or neglect or any other illegal activity of
which they become aware.