Cultures and Empirical Data

When I was completing this weeks reading assignment I couldn't help but think about how culture affects everyone differently and how we perceive things differently depending on where we're from. I think many American's forget about the world out side of our country and how others lives are so much different from ours depending on where and how we were raised. For example if I got up Saturday morning and decided to go to market downtown Lancaster I'd shop at the different stands and purchase some local fruit and vegetables. I can't help but wonder what it would be like if I lived in say Thailand. As the text shows, The Developing Person Through the Life Span, a market in Thailand is in boats by a river. To me this is completely fascinating, but at the same time I'm sure someone in Thailand would think we have fascinating customs as well.

I also thought while completing the reading how difficult it must be to collect empirical data on people no matter the circumstance. As I stated above, everyone is different and life is different depending on where you come from. Also as the text said even in controlled studies it's difficult to determine the outcome, especially in a long term study. This is because people, as the text says, drop out of the study, move, die, or even find out the purpose of the study and alter their behavior to help attain a certain outcome. It's also difficult because we can't perform every study imaginable on people because it is unethical. I understand we can do experiments on lab rats or mice, but the information gained is, while valuable, may not be anywhere near the outcome when talking about a different species.

I found this chapter to be interesting and enlightening. It just seems to me there are a lot of limitations when it comes to collecting empirical data in development. Psychologists can't alter a persons life just see how things turn out later in life because it is unethical, but they can study people and how they go through life based on the problems they have faced in the past.