PSY 3339 Tutorial Notes PDF

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PSY 3339 TUTORIAL NOTES 

Donna Keely -> honours course

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Presentation - Each student picks ONE side - Make sure that each person covers different arguments for their side - 6-minute limit - Describe your viewpoint and the supporting evidence - Evaluate methodological concerns - Make suggestions for future research - Discuss the policy/practical implications of your viewpoint - Engage the class at the end of your talks!

WEEK 4: METHODOLOGICAL AND CRITICAL APPRAISAL WEEK 4: methodological and critical appraisal Development of lying to conceal a transgression: children’s control of expressive behaviour during verbal deception 

Need cognitive skills

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Tells us about their moral development

Detecting children’s lie telling 

Successful liars regulate: - Verbal expressive behaviour - Non-verbal behaviour

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Feldman and colleagues (1979; 1980) ‘ - Children are bad at pretending to like/dislike stimuli (I.e. taste)

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Lewis et al.’s (1989) Temptation resistance paradigm: - Children told not to a peek at an object….

Today’s task 1. Children’s abilities to lie in relation to temptation and resistance 2. Children ages between 3 and 7, no it’s not representative as it only looks at middle to higher class 3. The set up wasn’t representative for a real-life situation 4. 5. The fact that the person the child was lying to be a stranger. May have been a different result if it was a parent or teacher 

Children that have stricter household may need to be really good lies, whereas, children that live in a household where you don’t need to lie they may be worse

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Lie telling of a younger child is worse than older children

WEEK 5: ESSAY TUTORIAL Essay topics 

Pick ONE question

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Answer ALL parts of the question

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Please include the essay number in the title of your submission

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Submit the right file, ON TIME!!

Defining your argument 

What does the essay question ask you to do?

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What are you trying to convince your readers of? -> your thesis e.g. gender has an effect on individuals’ involvement in prosocial behaviour

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Argument needs to be backed up by assertions (reasons) e.g. females tend to behave in more socially caring manners than males

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Assertions should be based on evidence- empirical and theoretical e.g. 25% of females actively participated in relief efforts following hurricane Katrina, compared to 10% of males

Writing the essay 

Reading widely! There is plenty of literature on all of the topics

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More readings -> more arguments -> a better essay!

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Keep notes on your readings so you know who to reference

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Decide on which arguments you want to use for your essay

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Organise your ideas so the paragraphs flow logically

Essay Structure 

Introduction: introduce the issue, outline where this essay is going

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Define some key concepts e.g. gender + pro-social behaviour you would want to define prosocial behaviour

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Key concepts that need definitions

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Body: presents your arguments, and the evidence you have to support your point of view (including critical evaluation of these studies) - Good idea to start by defining key concepts - Each body is its own essay of its own

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Paragraph should never be longer than a page -> should be a 1/3 of a page

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Each paragraph should have its own mini intro and conclusion

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When discussing studies, good to integrate discussion of their methods, results, and some critical evaluation (if space allows)

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Give a little background of the study that you are going to discuss

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Don’t have to describe the whole study

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Finding the balance between giving enough information and not wasting valuable words

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Conclusion: concluding paragraph/s should summarise your arguments, maybe tying into to the implications of the findings

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Read back through the intro and see if you convinced the reader and did you talk about everything that you planned to

Referencing 

Allowed to use APA 6 or 7

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Make sure you mention which apa you are using

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Referencing: APA 6th vs APA 7th essentials

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What’s different? – in-text – - The in-text citation for works with three or more authors is now shortened right from the first citation. You only include the first author’s name and “et al.” - The running head on the title page no longer includes the words “Running head:”. It now contains only a page number and the (shortened) paper title.

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Reference list -

When referencing books, social media, etc. the publisher location is no longer included in the reference

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Surnames and initials for up to 20 authors (instead of 7) should be provided in the reference list.

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DOIs are formatted the same as URLs (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2018.15604)

General style

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The singular “they” or “their” is endorsed as a gender-neutral pronoun.

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Instead of using adjectives as nouns to label groups of people, descriptive phrases are preferred (e.g. using “people living in poverty” instead of “the poor”)

WEEK 6 TUTORIAL NOTES Peers vs Parents influence over their children’s development Peers have most influence

Definitions: 

Children: individuals under the age of 18

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Peers: children of a similar age range

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Note: non-parent primary caregivers are considered in the definition of parents

Outline: peers influence on children’s development 

Social cognitive theory bandura

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How peers influence child’s cognitive development in learning environments

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How peers influence children’s personality/social behaviour

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Policies/practical implications for the future to help child development

Social cognitive theory in the classroom Bandura 1987 

MODELLING -The social-cognitive theory is a theoretical perspective in which learning by observing others is the focus of study.

How peers influence child’s cognitive development in learning environments 

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The current longitudinal study, the ability level and how skilled the peers are in a child's classroom has shown direct and positive effects on the child's cognitive skills, pre-reading skills, and expressive language skills

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Sample: The data used for this study were drawn from the Early Childhood Study (ECS) in Georgia, which began in 2001. The population included children who lived in Georgia who attended fulltime preschool in 2001–2002

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A probability sample included three groups of children (1) children enrolled in Georgia’s Pre-K Program; (2) children attending Head Start as four year olds; (Head Start is a national program that provides developmental services for low-income preschool children) (3) children attending private pre schools (private preschools are schools or child care centers that offer educational and developmental programs for four year olds in exchange for tuition or fees for these services)

Measures

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Developmental skills: Three types of developmental skills were measured for each child in the study at the beginning of preschool and the beginning of kindergarten. - cognitive skills, - two measures of language or pre-reading skills were taken, - An additional pre-reading skill was administered at the beginning of preschool and the beginning of kindergarten

Findings and policies/practical implications 

The study showed that neither time spent on discipline, nor teachers motivations explain the influences of peers on children’s skill development

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Future policies/practical implications - Research on peer effects for school-age children has shown disadvantaged children benefit most from peers with higher ability levels - It may be benefical to implement policies that allow a mix of children in classrooms with different abilities, instead of

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segregating the children in classes based on how skilled the children are Early puberty, negative peer influence, and problem behaviours in adolescent girls 

Conclusion 

Early puberty in girls has been linked with problem behavior in adolescence. Deviant peer affiliations may play a major role in this relationship, with early-maturing girls being more likely to affiliate with deviant peers and more

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susceptible to negative peer influences. However, little is known about the developmental timing and racial/ethnic differences in these processes. This study revealed that early puberty is a risk factor for

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stable delinquency and transient physical aggression for girls from all major racial/ethnic groups argument 2: parents rather than peers exert significant influence over their children’s development attachment theory 

Sroufe (2005): The Minnesota Study

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WEEK 7 Tutorial notes Physical punishment Argument 1: Parents should be able to physically punish their child if they want to 

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Intentional and prudential use of non-abusive physical punishment, as one tool within a wider collection of mild discipline techniques, can be of most benefit to young children

Baumrind (1996)- Theory Commentary Main findings 

Effectiveness of discipline method is mediated by the child’s perception of its legitimacy

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Use of reasoning, in conjunction with the discipline method, encourages internalization of behavioural control

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Non-abusive physical punishment is maximally effective before 6yo: ‘Authority Inception Period’ from Dublin & Dublin (1963)

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Physical discipline should be used judiciously to shape socially constructive behaviours

 Larzelere (2000)- Literature Review 

Updated systematic literature review of child outcomes from nonabusive physical punishment (2 swat spank before timeout) based on Larzelere (1996) and Gershoff (1999). 38 studies were chosen from an inclusion criteria: - Peer-reviewed journal - Child outcome variable for beneficial vs. detrimental outcomes - Includes one measure of non-abusive physical punishment by parents - Referent period for physical punishment to precede period for child outcome measure - Average age of children was under 13 year old

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Included studies had methods such as randomised clinical study, longitudinal study, sequential analysis

Main findings 

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2/3 of studies found beneficial or neutral child outcomes

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Beneficial at reducing non-compliance & enhanced effectiveness of complementary discipline techniques

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92% of articles finding beneficial outcomes had a sample of children with a mean age of less than 6yo

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Physical punishment works best when non-abusive, infrequent, flexible and used primarily as a back-up to milder tactics

Argument 2: Parents should be able to physicall punish their children if they want to 

Will be focussing specifically on spanking as a form of physical punishment

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- International data displays that a majority of children have been spanked within their childhood. Statistics indicate that 300 million children worldwide have been spanked

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- Studies show that spanking administered by warm and loving parents who hold good intentions in a non-abusive environment can be an effective form of punishment. The empirical research I will be drawing upon further supports and draws upon this idea.

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Guarendi (1990)- Observational Project

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PARENTS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO PHYSICALLY PUNISH THEIR CHILDREN IF THEY WANT TO

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ARGUMENT 2 

All forms of corporal punishment are predictive of externalising problems (aggression, intimate partner violence/dating violence) in both the short (childhood) and long term (adulthood)

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Externalising problems are “characterised primarily by actions in the external world, such as acting out, antisocial behaviour, hostility and aggression”

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ARGUMENT 3 

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Physical punishment does not teach them the difference between right and wrong

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Can lead to long term cognitive deficits

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Elevates risk of mental health disorders during adolescence

Elizabeth Gershoff (2002)- Corporal Punishment by Parents and Associated child behaviours and experiences: a meta-analytic and theoretical review 

Lack of moral internalisation

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Children may learn to resolve conflicts through the use of physical aggression

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May lead to delinquent, criminal, or antisocial behaviour

Methodological concerns 

Measuring parental corporal punishment at one point in time and future child behaviour may not be enough to infer causal direction

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Relies on studies in which data of disciplinary practices was gathered through parental reporting or adolescent recollections, rather than observations

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Varied definitions on what constitutes physical punishment

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Gershoff accounted for these methodological issues by not granting causal conclusions, rather presenting correlations between effects

Iragaray et al. (2013)- child maltreatment and later cognitive functioning: a systematic review 

Maltreatment during childhood has negative effects on cognitive functioning

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Children subjected to corporal punishment exhibited substantial memory impairment

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Adolescents who had suffered harsh physical punishment as children performed worse on tasks designed to measure attention

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Children who suffer physical punishment often perform worse at school

Methodological concerns 

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Prior studies into the effects of physical punishment on cognition suffered from the following shortcomings:

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No standardization of assessment in cognitive function Small sample size Adult centred samples - recall bias Wide variability in study design to identify maltreatment

Ferguson et al. (1997) Physical punishment/maltreatment during childhood and adjustment in young adulthood 

Children who are spanked more frequently display more socioemotional problems

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The use of physical punishment may affect attachment bonds between parent and child, leading to poorer parent-child relationship

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Children often possess lower self-esteem in cultures where physical punishment is not normative behaviour

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Children may internalize their reactions to physical punishment, and become sad, fearful, or withdrawn.

Methodological concerns 

Elevated risk of mental health disorders may be accounted by social and contextual factors

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Retrospective reporting

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Lack of cultural diversity of subjects

Policy/practical implications 

Corporal punishment is still legal in Australia

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Parents and guardian must be educated on the long-term effects of physical punishment

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Defence of “reasonable” corporal punishment must be abolished

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The United Conventions on the Rights of the child, which Australia has ratified, states that accords children rights against “all forms of violence and against degrading treatment or punishment

Future research 

Conditions under which corporal punishment is more likely to occur

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Corporal punishment with same sex parents

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Cross cultural validity

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Standardising definition and measures of corporal punishment

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Determining causal direction

Overall thoughts of the class 

Different forms of physical punishment -> spectrum

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mild gender differences

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more boys with corporal punishment

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mothers tend to spank children more than fathers

WEEK 8 children are reliable vs unreliable witnesses Argument 1: children are NOT reliable witnesses 1. unintentional false report- production of spontaneous false memories 2. intentional false report- coaching by adults spreading activation and spontaneous false memories 

spontaneous memories ae caused by internal spreading activation process whereby a word or concept activates related items

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negative life experiences of maltreated children sensitise them towards negative items, and once encountered, would automatically

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activate memory representations, and spreads to related concepts that were not there at a time of encoding Baugerud, Howe, Magnussen and Melinder (2016) 

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Participants: -

Thirty-one 8-12-year-old non-maltreated children and twenty-six 712-year-old maltreated children.

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Middle-class

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SES background

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Participants were recruited from same geographic location

Method – -

Both groups of children were tested on the Deese/Roediger– McDermott (DRM) false memory task

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Word lists with neutral words and negative emotional words were presented

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After a 15 second distractor task, participants were asked to recall all the words from the list.

Methodological concerns: -

Small sample size- low statistical power

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Low external validity>

90% of non-maltreated children and 63% of maltreated children had caucasian backgrounds

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Similar SES

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Maltreated individuals were on the extreme end of maltreatment spectrum

Major findings -

Maltreated children were 2.5 times more likely to develop spontaneous negative false memories for negatively emotional items than their non-maltreated counterparts.

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Negatively emotional words lead to a growth in child’s emotional false memories over time

Baugerud, Howe, Magnussen & Melinder(2016) & Howe, Candel, Otgaar, Malone & Wimmer (2010) ...