Intelligence and Van Leeuwen et al. (2008)

Background: what psychologists mean by intelligence — a general factor (g) versus multiple intelligences — and which biological factors could affect it (genes, prenatal environment, nutrition, brain structure).

Key research — Van Leeuwen et al. (2008), a twin-family study of general IQ. A Dutch study measuring IQ in twins and their parents and siblings — a design that is more powerful than twins alone, because it lets the researchers separate genetic transmission from shared environment and check for assortative mating (do intelligent people partner with each other?).

• Findings: individual differences in general intelligence were explained largely by genetic factors, with little evidence for an effect of shared family environment on g in this sample. Parental IQ scores were correlated with one another, consistent with assortative mating (phenotypic assortment).
• Application: at least one method of assessing intelligence — e.g. a standardised IQ test (mean 100, standardised and normed) — and its limitations, including the cultural bias that Gould exposed.

Evaluate it: a large, well-designed family study with an objective standardised measure — but IQ tests are a narrow operationalisation of 'intelligence', the sample is Dutch (limiting generalisability), and heritability estimates apply to populations, not individuals, and are specific to the environment sampled. It is also socially sensitive: heritability claims about intelligence have a long history of misuse.

Pre-adult brain development and Barkley-Levenson and Galván (2014)

Background: the adolescent brain is not simply an immature adult brain. Subcortical reward systems (the ventral striatum) mature earlier than the prefrontal cortex, which governs inhibition and long-term planning — a developmental mismatch that helps explain risk-taking.

Key research — Barkley-Levenson and Galván (2014). Adolescents and adults completed a gambling task while being scanned with fMRI, so the researchers could measure the neural representation of expected value.

• Findings: adolescents showed greater activation in the ventral striatum to increasing expected value than adults did, and were more willing to accept gambles. Reward is represented more strongly in the adolescent brain.
• Application: at least one strategy to reduce risk-taking using this knowledge — for example, reducing the immediate reward salience of risky options, increasing immediate rewards for safe behaviour, or graduated driver licensing that limits the situations (night driving, peer passengers) in which reward-seeking overwhelms control.

The adolescent brain

Perceptual development and Gibson and Walk (1960)

Background: is depth perception innate (nativist) or learned (empiricist)? And how can you study perception in babies and animals who cannot report what they see?

Key research — Gibson and Walk (1960), The visual cliff. A glass-topped table with a shallow side and an apparent drop (the 'deep' side). 36 infants aged 6-14 months were placed on the central board and their mothers called them from each side.

• Findings: of the 36 infants, 27 crawled onto the shallow side at least once, but only three crept off the brink onto the deep side. Many crawled away from their mother when she called from the deep side, or cried. Animal species tested (chicks, kids, lambs, kittens, rats) avoided the deep side from the moment they could move.
• Conclusion: depth perception is present by the time an infant can crawl — but because they can already crawl, it cannot be shown to be entirely innate in humans (they have had some visual experience).
• Application: at least one play strategy to develop perception in young children — e.g. high-contrast mobiles and toys, mirrors, stacking and posting games that require depth and size judgements, and crawling over varied surfaces.

Which topic does the key research belong to?

Tap a card, then tap the type of topic OCR places it under.

Cognitive development and Wood et al. (1976)

Background: cognitive development and its impact on education — including Piaget's stages and Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (the gap between what a child can do alone and what they can do with help).

Key research — Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976), The role of tutoring in problem-solving. Children aged 3, 4 and 5 were tutored individually in building a three-dimensional pyramid from interlocking blocks. Wood coined the term scaffolding for the support a tutor gives.

• The six scaffolding functions: recruitment (engaging the child's interest), reduction in degrees of freedom (simplifying the task), direction maintenance (keeping the child on track), marking critical features (highlighting what matters), frustration control (keeping the child from giving up) and demonstration (modelling a solution for the child to imitate).
• Findings: tutoring had to be contingent on the child's level — the youngest children needed far more direct demonstration, while five-year-olds could work from verbal hints. Effective scaffolding is gradually withdrawn as competence grows.
• Application: at least one cognitive strategy to improve revision or learning — e.g. breaking a task into steps, worked examples that fade into independent practice, and prompts that are withdrawn as the learner improves.

Scaffolding

The development of attachment and Ainsworth and Bell (1970)

Background: how attachment develops in babies, and the impact of failing to form one. Bowlby's monotropy, the internal working model, and the consequences of deprivation and privation.

Key research — Ainsworth and Bell (1970), the Strange Situation. 56 one-year-old infants from white, middle-class American families were observed through a one-way mirror in eight episodes of about three minutes each, involving a stranger, two separations and two reunions.

• What is coded: proximity- and contact-seeking, contact-maintaining, avoidance, resistance, and exploratory behaviour — the use of the caregiver as a secure base.
• Findings: exploration and play dropped sharply when the mother left and when the stranger was present; crying increased. The infants' behaviour at reunion was the most revealing, and produced the classifications: secure (B), insecure-avoidant (A) and insecure-resistant (C).
• Application: at least one strategy for an attachment-friendly environment — e.g. a consistent key worker in a nursery, low child-to-staff ratios, gradual settling-in with the parent present, and predictable routines and goodbyes.

Evaluate it: highly standardised, replicable, with good inter-rater reliability. But the sample is narrow (56 white, middle-class American infants), the procedure is deliberately stressful, and it may be an imposed etic — behaviour that looks 'avoidant' by American standards may reflect a culture that values early independence.

Match the key research to its application

Tap a study on the left, then the application OCR requires.

The impact of advertising and Johnson and Young (2002)

Background: the influence of television advertising on children (who may not distinguish advertising from programming at younger ages) and the gender stereotyping such advertising contains.

Key research — Johnson and Young (2002), Gendered voices in children's advertising. A content analysis of a large sample of North American television toy commercials, coding the language used, particularly the verbs.

• Findings: the language was strongly gendered. Commercials aimed at boys used far more power and action verbs (such as attack, battle, build) and more aggressive, competitive framing; commercials aimed at girls used more feeling and nurturing language, with softer, more limited action. Boy-oriented and girl-oriented adverts were also distinguished by voice-over gender and by tone.
• Conclusion: advertising does not just sell toys; it transmits gender norms — a social learning mechanism (Bandura) operating through models and language.
• Application: at least one strategy to reduce the impact of advertising aimed at children — e.g. media literacy teaching (helping children recognise persuasive intent), watershed and advertising regulation, gender-neutral marketing codes, and co-viewing so that a parent can challenge the message.

Evaluate the method: content analysis uses secondary data (no participants, no ethical risk) and can be checked for inter-rater reliability. But coding requires interpretation, and the study shows only what adverts contain — it does not demonstrate an effect on children's behaviour.

Method spotlight

The visual cliff

Debates in child psychology

• Nature/nurture: Van Leeuwen (genetic influence on IQ) and Gibson and Walk (early depth perception) pull towards nature; Wood (scaffolding), Johnson and Young (advertising) and Ainsworth (the caregiver's sensitivity) pull towards nurture. Barkley-Levenson shows a biological developmental timetable interacting with an environment full of tempting rewards.
• Determinism: if IQ is largely heritable and the adolescent brain drives risk-taking, how responsible is the child? This has direct implications for education policy and the age of criminal responsibility.
• Ethnocentrism: Ainsworth's 56 white middle-class American infants and the imposed etic of the Strange Situation; the cultural bias of IQ tests (Gould).
• Socially sensitive research: heritability claims about intelligence have been used to justify segregated schooling and immigration restriction. Findings about day care and attachment are used to tell mothers how to live.
• Usefulness: the applications here are genuinely practical — scaffolding in classrooms, key workers in nurseries, graduated driver licensing, media literacy teaching.

Which key research?

Applying the option

The methods used in this option

• Van Leeuwen et al. (2008) — a twin-family correlational design. Powerful for separating genes from shared environment, but heritability applies to populations, not individuals, and IQ is a narrow measure.
• Barkley-Levenson and Galván (2014) — fMRI with a quasi-experimental group comparison (adolescents vs adults). Objective brain data, but the IV (age group) is not manipulated.
• Gibson and Walk (1960) — a controlled observation using a laboratory apparatus. Clever and replicable, but the infants could already crawl, so 'innate' cannot be proved.
• Wood et al. (1976) — an observational study of tutoring. Rich and directly applicable to teaching, but small-scale.
• Ainsworth and Bell (1970) — a controlled observation. Standardised and reliable, but stressful, narrow in sample, and possibly an imposed etic.
• Johnson and Young (2002) — a content analysis using secondary data. No ethical risk and checkable for reliability, but shows content, not effect.

How this option is assessed

Child psychology is one of the two applied options you choose in Section B of Component 03, alongside the compulsory Issues in mental health.

• Every topic can be examined through its background, its key research, or its application — and the application must be applied to a novel situation you have not seen.
• Debates run through the whole option: nature/nurture (IQ, perception), determinism (the adolescent brain), ethnocentrism (the Strange Situation, IQ tests) and socially sensitive research (heritability of intelligence).

Learn one detail per key research — 36 infants and only 3 onto the deep side (Gibson and Walk); six scaffolding functions (Wood); 56 one-year-olds and eight episodes (Ainsworth and Bell). Precision is what separates the bands.

The big ideas to know

Child psychology is one of four applied options — remember you choose TWO. Press Finish to see your score.