Human development

Physical development

Growth of body and brain, including change in sensory, motor skills, and health

Cognitive development

Pattern of change in mental abilities, as learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity

Psychosocial development

Pattern of change in emotions, personality, and social relationships

Social construction

Dividing the lifespan into periods and appears natural to those that accept it

Heredity

inborn traits or characteristics inherited from the biological parents

environment

nonhereditary or experiential influences on development

maturation

unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes

historical generation

a group of people strongly influenced by a major historical event during their formative period

Konrad Lorenz

imprinting is the result of a predisposition toward learning during a brief critical period

Human development research

description, explanation, prediction, intervention

Balte’s development approach

development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, influence shift over a life span, changing resource allocations, plasticity, and influence by historical and cultural context

Locke

a child is a blank slate

Rousseau

children are noble savages and are based on heredity/environmental influences

Mechanistic model

human development is a series of predictable responses to stimuli

Organismic model

views human development as internally initiated by an active organism occurring in different stages

Theoretical perspectives

psychoanalytic, learning, cognitive, contextual, evolutionary/sociobiological

Psychoanalytic theory (freud)

human development as shaped by unconscious forces that motivate human behavior

Personality (Freud)

id- governs newborn behavior and operates on the pleasure principle

Personality (Freud)

ego- represents reason develops gradually in early life and operates under the reality principle

Personality (Freud)

superego- develops later in childhood and includes the conscience

Psychosocial development (Erickson)

socially and culturally influenced process of development of the ego/self

Learning perspective

development that holds that changes in behavior result form experience or from adaptation to the enviornment

Behaviorism

emphasizes the predictable role of environment in causing observable behavior

Classical conditioning

learning based on associating a stimulus that does not ordinarily elicit a response with another stimulus that does elicit the response

operant conditioning

learning based on association of behavior with its consequences

Reinforcement (skinner)

the process by which a behavior is strengthened, increasing likelihood that the behavior will be repeated

Punishment (skinner)

the process by which a behavior is weakened, decreasing likelihood of repetition

Social learning theory

theory that behaviors are learned by observing and imitating models

Reciprocal determinism (Bandura)

the person acts on the world as the world acts on the person

Cognitive stage theory (Piaget)

children’s cognitive development is a series of four stages that go from distinct types to mental operations

Assimilation (Piaget)

incorporation of new information into an existing cognitive structure

Accommodation (Piaget)

changes in a cognitive structure to include new information

equilibration (Piaget)

tendency to seek a stable balance between cognitive structures and experiences

Sociocultural theory (vygotskys)

people learn through social interactions

zone of proximal development (vygotsky)

difference between what a child can do along and what the child can do with help

scaffolding (vygotsky)

temporary support to help a child master a task