DevPsy: Lecture 1. Intro to DevPsych

Development

The pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the life span.

Most of it involves growth, although it also includes decline brought on by aging and dying.

3 Broad Domains: Physical Development

The growth of the body and its organs the functioning of physiological systems including the brain, physical signs of aging, changes in motor abilities, and so on.

3 Broad Domains: Cognitive Development.

Changes and continuities in perception, language, learning, memory, problem solving, and other mental processes.

3 Broad Domains: Psychosocial Development

Changes and carryover in personal and interpersonal aspects of development such as motives, emotions, personality traits, interpersonal skills and relationships, and roles played in the family and in the larger society.

Life-span Perspective

The perspective that development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual; involves growth, maintenance, and regulation; and is constructed through biological, sociocultural, and individual factors working together.

Development Is Lifelong

People continue to develop throughout their lives, and that no age period dominates development.

Development occurs throughout all periods of life.

Development is Multidimensional

Change happens across many different aspects of a human life. Biological (or physical), cognitive (or mental) and socioemotional changes all take place at the same time. Not only that, those three dimensions interact with each other in different ways.

Development is Multidirectional

Closely related to multidimensionality is the idea that development is multidirectional. That is, dimensions and specific components of dimensions grow and shrink during different points in a person's development.

Development is Plastic

It means that characteristics are malleable or changeable.

It denotes intrapersonal variability and focuses heavily on the potentials and limits of the nature of human development.

Developmental Science Is Multidisciplinary

Any single discipline’s account of development across the lifespan would not be able to express all aspects of this theoretical framework.

That is why it is suggested explicitly by lifespan researchers that a combination of disciplines is necessary to understand development.

Developmental is Contextual

Development occurs in context and varies from person to person, depending on factors such as a person’s biology, family, school, church, profession, nationality, and ethnicity.

In Baltes’ theory, the paradigm of contextualism refers to the idea that three systems of biological and environmental influences work together to influence development.

Contextual: Normative Age-graded Influences

These are those biological and environmental factors that have a strong correlation with chronological age, such as puberty or menopause, or age-based social practices such as beginning school or entering retirement.

Contextual: Normative History-graded Influences

These are associated with a specific time period that defines the broader environmental and cultural context in which an individual develops.

Contextual: Non-normative Influences

These are unpredictable and not tied to a certain developmental time in a person’s development or to a historical period. They are the unique experiences of an individual, whether biological or environmental, that shape the development process.

Development Involves Growth, Maintenance, and Regulation of Loss

As individuals age into middle and late adulthood, the maintenance and regulation of loss in their capacities takes center stage away from growth. Thus, a 75-year-old man might aim not to improve his memory or his golf swing but to maintain his independence and his ability to play golf at all.

Development is a Co-construction of Biological, Cultural, and Individual Factors Working Together

It is also shaped by culture and the experiences that individuals have or pursue.

In terms of individual factors, we can go beyond what our genetic inheritance and environment give us.

We can author a unique developmental path by actively choosing from the environment the things that optimize our lives.

Biological Processes

Produce changes in an individual’s physical nature.

The physical nature of touch and responsiveness to it.

Genes inherited from parents.

Examples: development of the brain, height and weight gains, changes in motor skills, nutrition, exercise, the hormonal changes of puberty, and cardiovascular decline.

Cognitive Processes

Refer to changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence, and language.

The ability to understand intentional acts.

Socioemotional Processes

Involve changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality.

The act of smiling that often reflects a positive emotional feeling and helps to connect us in positive ways with other human beings.

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Which explores links between development, cognitive processes, and the brain.

Developmental Social Neuroscience

Which examines connections between socioemotional processes, development, and the brain.

The Prenatal Period

Is the time from conception to birth. It involves tremendous growth—from a single cell to an organism complete with brain and behavioral capabilities—and takes place in approximately a nine-month period.

Infancy

The developmental period from birth to 18 or 24 months.

It is a time of extreme dependence upon adults.

During this period, many psychological activities— language, symbolic thought, sensorimotor coordination, and social learning, for example—are just beginning.

Early Childhood

It is the developmental period from the end of infancy to age 5 or 6.

This period is sometimes called the “preschool years.”

During this time, young children learn to become more self-sufficient and to care for themselves, develop school readiness skills (following instructions, identifying letters), and spend many hours in play with peers.

First grade typically marks the end of early childhood.

Middle and Late Childhood

It is the developmental period from about 6 to 11 years of age, approximately corresponding to the elementary school years.

During this period, the fundamental skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic are mastered.

The child is formally exposed to the larger world and its culture. Achievement becomes a more central theme of the child’s world, and self-control increases.

Puberty

It is the period during which growing boys or girls undergo the process of sexual maturation.

It involves a series of physical stages or steps that lead to the achievement of fertility and the development of the so-called secondary sex characteristics, the physical features associated with adult males and females (such as the growth of pubic hair).

While it involves a series of biological or physical transformations, the process can also have an effect on the psychosocial and emotional development of the adolescent.

Adolescence

It is the developmental period of transition from childhood to early adulthood, entered at approximately 10 to 12 years of age and ending at 18 to 21 years of age.

It begins with rapid physical changes—dramatic gains in height and weight, changes in body contour, and the development of sexual characteristics such as enlargement of the breasts, growth of pubic and facial hair, and deepening of the voice. The pursuit of independence and an identity are prominent. Thought is more logical, abstract, and idealistic. More time is spent outside the family.

Early Adulthood

It is the developmental period that begins in the early 20s and lasts through the 30s.

It is a time of establishing personal and economic independence, career development, and for many, selecting a mate, learning to live with someonein an intimate way, starting a family, and rearing children.

Late Adulthood

It is the developmental period that begins in the 60s or 70s and lasts until death. It is a time of life review, retirement, and adjustment to new social roles involving decreasing strength and health.

It has the longest span of any period of development.

Old Age

Also called senescence, in human beings, the final stage of the normal life span. This is the stage of life from the 60s onward; it constitutes the last stage of physical change.

The skin continues to lose elasticity, reaction time slows further, and muscle strength diminishes. Hearing and vision—so sharp in our twenties—decline significantly; cataracts, or cloudy areas of the eyes that result in vision loss, are frequent. The immune system is weakened, and many older people are more susceptible to illness. The aging process generally results in changes and lower functioning in the brain, leading to problems like memory loss and decreased intellectual function.

Nature and Nurture

Involves the extent to which development is influenced by nature and by nurture.

Nature to an organism’s biological inheritance, nurture to its environmental experiences.

Stability and Change

Involves the degree to which we become older renditions of our early experience (stability) or whether we develop into someone different from who we were at an earlier point in development (change).

Continuity and Discontinuity

Focuses on the degree to which development involves either gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).

In terms of continuity, as the oak grows from seedling to giant oak, it becomes more of an oak—its development is continuous .