Topic I: Defining Developmental Psychology

PSYC 207 (Fall 2026)

Developmental Psychology

The scientific study of psychological change across the lifespan

Physical Domain

Refers to the biological and physical changes that occur in individuals as they grow and develop.

Cognitive Domain

Refers to the changes in thought/ information processing

Psychosocial Domain

Refers to changes in social/emotional & personal outcomes (ex. emotion regulation, identity, personality development)

Mind

____ = internal thought processes

Behavior

_____ = observable actions

Nativism

Perspective on development that emphasizes the role of innate, internal forces.

• Plato: “We do not learn, and what we call learning is only a process of recollection”

• Jean Jacques Rosseau: “Let us allow the child’s physical organs, senses, and faculties to develop on their own before we attempt to shape his intellect”

Empiricism

Perspective on development that emphasizes the role of direct experience or observation.

• Aristotle: “There is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the sense”

• John Locke: “The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone”

Charles Darwin

____ ____1809-1882

• Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

• Not an actual developmental psychologist, but very influential in the field

• Incredibly influential to…

  • Psychology

    • Continuity between animals & humans

    • Humans as valid topics of scientific inquiry

  • Developmental Psychology

    • Children as insight into human animal

    • Motivated foundational developmental psychologists

Darwin

____ was one of the first researchers to seriously consider empirically investigating child development (did not actual study it).

Baby Biography

An intensive study that describes the activities of an individual baby, typically the scientist’s own child or a close relative.

• Darwin wrote a very detailed diary of hos own child’s development from infancy.

G. Stanley Hall

__ _____ ____ (1844-1924)

• Father of Developmental Psychology

• Advocated for an evolutionarily-informed understanding of development

• Influential to….

  • Recapitulation

  • Maturational Process

  • Normative Approach

• Mentored Arnold Gesell who further developed normative approach

Recapitulation

Belief that developmental change mirrors evolutionary history

Maturational Process

Unfolds automatically under typical circumstances

Normative Approach

Norms computed over a large population

Arnold Gesell

Created the first large-scale research on normative development & was the first to provide parents with normative data.

Milestones

_____ were discovered through observation of many different child studies

James Mark Baldwin

_____ _____ _____ (1861-1934)

Major Contributions:

1. Early experimental research adopting an evolutionary approach to development

2. Proposed that development is a “step-wise” process, occurring through sudden, rather than gradual, change

3. Proposed the “Baldwin Effect”

Baldwin effect

1. Learning allows organisms to flexibly respond to environmental unpredictability

2. Although valuable, learning incurs several costs (developmental, metabolic, ignorance)

3. early arrival at the learned “endpoint” confers an evolutionary advantage (survival & reproduction)

4. These advantages created selective pressure for innate, instinctual knowledge

Baldwin effect examples

Bird Song

Some birds have innate songs that they do not need to learn — allows these birds to reproduce quicker than other birds who have to learn how to sing, therefore giving them an evolutionary advantage

Human Knowledge

Core Knowledge

John Watson

_____ B. _____ (1878-1958): Father of Behaviorism

• Believed that for Psychology to be taken seriously as a science…

  • Needed to adopt more rigorous methodologies

  • Must focus exclusively on observable behavior

• Perspective on Development

  • All development occurred as a result of conditioning

  • Children were passive recipients of information

• Best known for “Little Albert” study

  • demonstrated a conditioned fear response in a human infant

• BEHAVIORISM IS EXTREME END OF EMPIRICISM

Jean Piaget

_____ _____ (1896-1980): Conducted decades of research on cognitive development

• Came up with the Clinical Method

• Proposed Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

Described children’s development through stages, which predicted that children attained a certain set of cognitive skills at a certain age

• Sensorimotor stage (0-2): children learn about the world through basic actions/movements & the 5 senses

  • Key milestone: object permanence

• Preoperational stage (2-7): children begin using symbols & language, but cannot manipulate information logically

  • Key limitation: egocentricism, cannot take others perspective

• Concrete operational (7-11): children start thinking logically in an organized way about concrete, tangible things/events

  • Key milestone: conservation

• Formal operational (12+): gain the ability to think abstractly, test hypotheses, & use deductive reasoning for hypotheticals

Lev Vygotsky

____ _______ (1896-1934)

• Proposed the Sociocultural Theory of Development

• Believed that not just exploration/experience contributed to a child’s development, but also social & cultural interactions

• Unlike Piaget, he believed the stages could be disrupted by sociocultural forces & does not have to go through each stage in order

Sociocultural theory of development

Proposes that development is shaped by social & cultural forces

• Allowing the transmission of: values, beliefs, attitudes, skills

• Proposed as a STAGE THEORY — however these stages could be disrupted by sociocultural forces

• Central concepts include: dialectical process & ZPD

Dialectical process

A process of shared problem solving

Zone of proximal development

the gap between what a learner has already mastered and what he or she can achieve with the help of a knowledgeable other

Erik Erikson

______ ______ (1902-1994)

Proposed a Psychosocial Theory composed of 8 stages — each stage representing a relevant developmental crisis

• Conceptualized development as a lifelong process

Urie bronfenbrenner

____ __________ (1917-2005)

Proposed the Ecological Systems theory

• Recognized that development occurs in & depends on ecological context — conceptualized as multiple layers that interacted w/ one another

evolutionary psychology

An approach to the study of psychology that holds that being well informed about the process of evolution as well as the circumstance in which our ancestors lived during our evolutionary history will aid us in understanding the function & design of the human mind

Why evolutionary psychology?

Evolutionary psychology has utility to developmental research because…

1. It disqualifies theories & hypotheses inconsistent with evolutionary theory (ex. Tabula rasa theory, people are born w/ reflexes & have trouble overriding instinctual behavior)

2. It directs inquiry towards hypotheses that are viable

3. It readily accommodates interactions between genes & the environment

current issues in developmental psychology

Refers to situations two or more approaches/perspectives exist on a given topic — often framed dichotomously

• Plasticity v. Stability

• Continuity v. Discontinuity

  • Do characteristics change in a smooth continuous manner or in broad discrete stages?

• Normative development v. Individual development differences

  • Does a given characteristic have a universal developmental trajectory or does it vary?

continuity

Changes that are gradual and quantitative

discontinuity

Changes that are sudden and qualitative

plasticity

Functional change that happens by design as environmental or behavioral factors — allows an organism to adapt to its environment.

• Corresponds to variable aspects of ancestral environments (ex. risk taking behavior, timing of puberty)

• Among plastic traits, the question remains as tot he nature of the change, particularly whether they are best explained by environmental factors or maturational factors

Stability

Describes traits that are relatively stable across the lifespan, or at least after some early point on in development

• Corresponds to consistent aspects of ancestral environments (ex. temperament, attachment style)

Normative development

Research in which norms or averages are calculated over a large population

• Useful in determining what is typical

• Milestones are approximate

  • ex. language development & course of motor development

individual development differences

Research which attempts to identify variation in developmental outcomes & sources of that variation

• ex. childhood psychopathology & timing of motor development

organizing themes

1. Interactionism

2. Functionality

3. Instinct blindness

4. Empirical evidence

5. Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA)

6. Development as a lifelong process

interactionism

• Nature & nurture work together to create a developing organism

• We may prefer simplistic “either or” dichotomies, but they rarely apply to the real world

functionality

• Human traits & psychological processes are adaptations, & thus have a function

• Adaptations are specific solutions to specific problems recurrent in a species past

Instinct blindness

• We are often unaware of the complexity underlying our psychology

• they are so intuitive to us that we take them for granted

Empirical evidence

• Developmental psychology is an evidence-based field

• Knowledge is gathered using the scientific method

Environment of evolutionary adaptedness

• Aka EEA

• Our current environment varies from the one for which we evolved

• Traits that were beneficial to ancestral humans may be harmful in current contexts

Development as life long process

• Many classic theories only concern childhood development—often stopping at adolescence

• Development proceeds “from womb to the tomb”