Week 2: Theories of Human Development

Human development is...

inherently personal and contextually based

Lifespan development principles

lifelong, multidirectional, contextual, multidimensional, plastic, and multidisciplinary

A lifespan perspective: lifelong

development continues across the entire lifespan; later life is not simply an endpoint

A lifespan perspective: multidirectional

growth and loss can occur at the same time and in different domains

A lifespan perspective: contextual

development occurs within families, communities, cultures, institutions, and historical periods

A lifespan perspective: multidimesional

biological, cognitive, emotional, relational, and sociocultural processes interact

A lifespan perspective: plastic

developmental pathways can change, although possibilities and constraints differ over time

A lifespan perspective: multidisciplinary

no single discipline holds the complexity of development; humility is important; recognizing when you don't know things=important

"Nature versus nurture" is the wrong question

true

Why is nature vs. nurture the wrong question?

It's an either/or question: asks whether a characteristic is caused primarily by biological inheritance or environmental experiences; it encourages linear explanations and implies that influences can easily be seperated

The developmental question

asks how biological susceptibilities, lived experiences, relationships, culture, and developmental timing continually interact; most complex psychological traits are polygenic and multifactorial

Epigenetic framework

describes psychological development as the result of an ongoing, bi-directional interchange between heredity and the environment

Biological processes across development

changes in an individual's physical nature

Cognitive processes across development

changes in an individual's thought, intelligence, and language

Socioemotional processes across development

changes in an individual's relationships, emotions, and personality

What is a theory?

A theory is an interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain phenomena and facilitate predictions; they are central to the work we do as psychologists in case formulation, treatment planning, and research; they are not facts, but they set guidelines for investigation and practice, and they gain credibility through research that fails to disprove them

Developmental theories

offer explanations about how we develop, why we change over time, and the kinds of influences that impact development

Psychodynamic/psychosocial theories about development

How do early relationships, conflicts, identity, and developmental tasks shape later functioning?

Cognitive theories about development

How do thinking, language, representation, and problem-solving capacities change?

Behavioral/social cognitive theories about development

How do consequences, observation, expectations, and reciprocal influence shape behavior?

Evolutionary/attachment theories about development

How do biologically prepared systems interact with caregiving and relationships?

Ecological theories about development

How do settings, systems, culture, institutions, and historical time shape development?

Who developed the psychoanalytic theories

Freud and Erickson

Psychoanalytic theories: Freud

defined five stages of psychosexual development and proposed that adult personality is determined by the way we resolve conflicts between sources of pleasure at each stage and the demands of reality

Criticism of Freud's psychoanalytic theory

Lack of scientific support; overemphasized the influence of sexual feelings on development

Erikson's Psychosocial Theory

the primary motivation for behavior is social in nature; he believed that our personality continues to take shape throughout our lifespan as we face these challenges in living

Criticism of Erickson's Psychosocial Theory

Assumed that the completion of one stage is prerequisite for the next crisis of development; focused on the social expectations that are found in certain cultures, but not all

Piaget's Theory

children go through four stages of cognitive development as they actively construct their understanding of the world

Vygotsky's Theory

emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide and are inseparable from cognitive development

information-processing theory

emphasizes that individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. Central to this theory are the processes of memory and thinking

Criticisms of Cognitive Theories

skepticism about the pureness of stages; inadequate attention to individual variations

Behavioral and social cognitive theories

development can be described in terms of behaviors learned through interactions with our surroundings

Skinner's Operant Conditioning

development can be described in terms of the behaviors learned through interactions with the environment

Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory

emphasizes behavior, environment, and cognition as the key factors in development

Criticisms of behavioral and social cognitive theories

Little emphasis on cognition in Skinner's theory; inadequate attention paid to developmental changes

Evolutionary/Attachment Theory

stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to evolution, and is characterized by experiences during critical or sensitive periods

Konrad Lorenz

helped bring ethology to prominence by showing the developmental importance of the imprinting behavior of geese(imprinted on Lorenz instead of the mother goose)

critical period

a certain, very early point at which imprinting must take place

John Bowlby

determined that attachment to a caregiver over the first year of life has important consequences for optimal social relationship development throughout the life span

Sensitive period

the time attachment should optimally occur

Criticisms of evolutionary/attachment theory

too much emphasis on biological foundations; the critical and sensitive period concepts might be too rigid

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory

development reflects the influence of five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem; all are affected by eachother and by events occurring over time

Microsystem

setting in which the individual lives and helps to construct; closest, most direct settings an individual interacts with daily (family, peers, neighborhood play area)

Mesosystem

the relations between microsystems of connections between contexts (parent teacher conference connecting home life and school, communication between a daycare provider and parents)

Exosystem

links between a social setting in which the individual has a passive role and their immediate context (a parent's stressful workplace which impacts their mood/behavior at home, local budget cuts that reduce school funding)

Macrosystem

the culture in which individuals live (cultural attitudes toward gender roles or education, national legal systems)

Chronosystem

the patterning the environmental events and transitions over the life course (growing up during a major historical event like war or COVID, changing family structures like divorce)

Criticisms of ecological theory

inadequate attention to biological factors; too little emphasis on cognitive factors

Developmental Theories in Research:

Attachment Theory(Bowlby/Ainsworth)

research on childhood attachment styles-->predicts adult relationships, conflict resolution styles, and mood disorders

Developmental Theories in Research: Piaget's Cognitive Stages

studying how children with ADHD differ in problem-solving compared to typical developmental trajectories

Developmental Theories in Research: Brofenbrenner's Ecological Systems

research on how poverty, schools, and community violence contribute to child psychopathology

Developmental theory informs assessment: developmental expectations

interpret behavior and performance relative to age, developmental tasks, and the person's opportunity to learn

Developmental theory informs assessment: task demands

ask whether language, abstraction, attention, memory, speed, or self-regulation demands affected performance

Developmental theory informs assessment: scaffolding and learning

examine what the person can do with support, how much support is needed, and whether learning transfers

Developmental theory informs assessment: context and convergence

integrate tests with history, observation, records, culture, relationships, and functioning across settings (ex: CBT is not for 5 year olds)

Developmental theory informs intervention: cognitive capacity

can the client understand the language, abstraction, time perspective, casual reasoning, and metacognitive demands of the intervention?

Developmental theory informs intervention: emotional and relational capacity

can the client identify internal states, regulate enough to participate, use the therapeutic relationship, and tolerate the emotional work?

Developmental theory informs intervention: developmental context

how should caregivers, peers, school, culture, autonomy, identity, health, work, and family roles be incorporated into treatment?

Equifinality

different developmental pathways can lead to a similar outcome (ex: two adolescents may both have depression, but one pathway may involve chronic peer rejection while another involves family conflict and illness)

Multifinality

similar early experiences can lead to very different outcomes (ex: children exposed to the same family stressor may develop anxiety, externalizing behavior, exceptional competence, relationship difficulties, or no lasting clinical disorder)

Risk factor across time

increases the probability of difficulty; it is not a diagnosis or a deterministic cause

Protective factor across time

supports adaptation, reduces exposure, changes meaning, or buffers the effect of risk

T/F: the same event can have different effects depending on age, prior adaptation, duration, available relationships, cultural meaning, and what developmental tasks are underway

true

T/F Prenatal stress matters, but its effects are not uniform or deterministic.

True. Outcomes vary substantially across individuals and studies