Key Idea: Change has biological sources and learned ones, and it can be brought about on purpose. Claims of change, and of effectiveness, depend on how the change was measured.
Biological change
- Maturation: a timetable of development
- Neuroplasticity: experience reshapes the brain
- Hormones; recovery after injury
Behavioural change
- Learning a link; building a habit
- Rewards and consequences
- Barriers hold the old behaviour in place
Changing on purpose
- Promotion: for everyone
- Prevention: before the problem starts
- Intervention: for those who have it
Measuring change
- Measure the same thing more than once
- Rule out practice and regression to the mean
- A control group and a follow-up
The words to know
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Maturation | Development of the brain and body on a rough timetable |
| Neuroplasticity | The brain reshaping its connections through experience |
| Biological determinism | The view that behaviour is decided by biology |
| Habit formation | Repeating an action in the same situation until it is automatic |
| Operant conditioning | Learning from consequences: rewarded behaviour is repeated |
| Barrier to change | Something that holds an old behaviour in place |
| Longitudinal study | The same people are followed over months or years |
| Practice effect | Doing better on a test because you have taken it before |
| Regression to the mean | Extreme scores moving back towards the average |
| Prevalence | How common a problem is in a population |
What changed, how fast, what produced the change, and how do we know it is real?
Exam-style question
Context: Human development A school is considering whether to let its sixteen-year-old students set all their own deadlines for coursework. As the school psychologist, you have been asked for advice. Explain how brain maturation could inform this decision.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Important: "People change" says too little. Name what produced the change, and say how it was measured.
Tap each card to check yourself.
Which brain areas mature last, and what do they do? Those at the front: planning and self-control.
Sensitive or critical period: a window in which learning is easier? A sensitive period.
Why does knowledge of a risk rarely change behaviour? It removes none of the barriers: cues, immediate rewards, the social setting, low self-efficacy.
Environmental determinism or agency: smoking falls when prices rise? It supports environmental determinism.
Why does drop-out bias a measurement of change? Those who leave are often those the treatment did not help.
Significant, meaningful, lasting: which does a follow-up test? Whether the change is lasting.
Exam tips
- Name the source of a change: maturation, plasticity, learning, a strategy.
- Say what kind of change it is: gradual or sudden, planned or not.
- For a strategy, say which barrier it removes.
- For a claim that something worked, look for a control group and a follow-up.