Group 10 Study Development

Group 10: Tyler LaPier, Rae Tiner, Jamie Albert, Nikole Davison, &Kayla Kelly

1/22/2019

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCH. GROUP STUDY

·       Research Question: At what age do children develop empathy? 

·       Research Design: 

We will find 40 mothers with newborn babies throughout the state of Montana volunteering to case study, following the development of each infant to the age of 9 and monitoring monthly changes to determine when empathy has developed; separating data of genders and noting individual differences/characteristics.

                     Defined observation identifiers of empathy:

1.    Understands that she/he is a distinct person from those around her/him and that other people may have different feelings and perspective than her own.

2.    Can recognize feelings in themselves, others, and name the emotion.

3.    Can regulate her/his own emotional responses.

4.    Can put herself/himself in someone else’s shoes and imagine how someone might be feeling.

5.    Can imagine what kind of action or response might help a person feel better.

·       Hypothesis:

Children should develop empathy before puberty but anticipate outliers in the collected data, females will develop empathy before males.

·       Sample:

Randomly selecting 40 mothers with newborn babies throughout the state of Montana, following the development of each infant to the age of 9 (Ideally 20 male and 20 female). The sample size will maintain n<34 for statistical significance acknowledging/ possibility of losing 15% of participants.

·       Research Method:

Longitudinal design – Observational/Case Study

·       Explain why chosen research method is best suited method:

Characteristics will be determined through observation of the individual. Longitudinal design will give a detailed account of each individual developing empathy. The data will hopefully show a generalized average interval for the development of empathy for males & females. Parenting, environment, gender, and individual life events will contribute/influence development; observations and case study will allow for noting parental influences.

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