3.2 Human Development Questionbank

Source 1: Researchers at an institute studying youth conducted a large-scale survey of 400 adolescents. The participants came from a variety of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, and were all between the ages of 15-17. Participants were assured that the data would be anonymised and not shared with anyone outside the team of researchers. Using data and findings from previous studies on adolescents and risk-taking, the researchers generated a list of activities qualified as risk-taking or unsafe. This included, but is not limited to: speeding on a bicycle, car or similar vehicle; climbing or playing in unsafe places; engaging in the consumption of alcohol or recreational drugs; engaging in violent fights or altercations; and skipping school. The researchers administered this list, asking adolescents to mark the activities they had engaged in and to what frequency within the last 6 months. The researchers also asked participants to self-report sensation-seeking motivation (measured on a 1-7 scale).

Source 2: A qualitative study sought to explore what motivated adolescents, aged 16 to 18, to take risks. The sample consisted of 20 individuals, who took part in semi-structured interviews wherein they were questioned about what encouraged them to partake in “risky” behaviour. Researchers recorded and transcribed the interviews, before analysing the transcripts thematically.

Source 3: An undergraduate student studying psychology conducted a survey, using their own classmates as the sample. They wanted to understand why older adolescents (age 18 to 19) would engage in risky behaviour and why. The final sample included 50 classmates. The student researcher asked two open-ended questions: “Why do you engage in risky behaviours (if at all)?” and “Do you see these behaviours as harmful or helpful?”. The researcher then coded responses into three categories:

Source 4: An experiment tested how motivational framing influenced risk-taking in a simulated driving task. Ninety adolescents (ages 15 to 16) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions:

Competition framing: “Try to beat others’ scores on the driving task.”

Curiosity framing: “See how far you can push your driving skills.”

Control: No framing.

The researchers then recorded the average number of risky decisions (e.g., speeding through yellow lights) made:

Chen and Alvarez (2015) investigated how children develop theory of mind across cultures. Their aim was to examine whether cultural differences in communication norms affect the age at which children succeed in false-belief tasks.

The study involved 200 children aged 4–8 from two countries: Country A, where parents encouraged early discussion of thoughts and feelings, and Country B, where such discussions were less common. Children were given a standard false-belief test, such as the “Sally-Anne” task, in which they had to predict where a character would search for an object that had been moved without their knowledge.

Results showed that children in Country A typically passed the task by age 5, while children in Country B often did not succeed until age 7 or 8. Researchers concluded that cultural norms around discussing mental states influence the developmental timeline of theory of mind.

[Note: Fictionalised but inspired by cross-cultural research into theory of mind development, e.g., Wellman et al. (2001).]

Researchers follow a group of adolescents as they transition through puberty. Brain scans show changes in regions associated with emotional regulation and decision-making, raising questions about the role of biology in development.

A developmental psychologist observes immigrant children adjusting to new schools in a foreign country. While some children adapt quickly, others struggle to balance their home culture with the expectations of their new environment.

Chen and Ramirez (2015) investigated how acculturation influenced memory strategies in immigrant children. Acculturation refers to the process of adapting to a new culture, and the researchers were interested in whether this cultural shift would be reflected in children’s cognitive processes.

The sample included 120 children aged 10–12 who had recently immigrated to a large metropolitan city. Over four years, participants completed free-recall memory tasks at three points in time. Each task involved recalling two types of word lists: one that contained culturally familiar items (e.g., local foods, holidays, household objects) and another with culturally unfamiliar items (e.g., foreign tools, traditions, or animals). Teachers were also asked to provide reports about each child’s level of social integration, which researchers used to classify students into “integrated” or “isolated” groups.

Results showed that children in the integrated group increasingly used categorical clustering strategies (organising words by meaning) over time, while children in the isolated group primarily relied on rote rehearsal (repeating words in order). The researchers concluded that acculturation processes are linked to changes in memory strategies.

[Note: Fictionalised but inspired by research on acculturation and cognition.]

A developmental psychologist interviews teenagers who recently moved from rural areas to large cities. When describing their cultural traditions, the teenagers often adapt details or leave things out in ways that reflect their new environment.