DevPsy: Midterms L1 - Study of Human Development

Growth

• Refers to increase in size, height, weight, etc.

• Easily measured and observed

• It is limited. Starts with birth to reach the maximum at maturity.

• Limited to specific areas

• Quantitative change.

Development

• Refers to improvement in functioning of the body process.

• Cannot be measured easily.

• A continuous unending process all thru life.

• Concerned with various aspects and parts of body and behavior as a whole.

• Qualitative and Quantitative change.

Human Development

• The scientific study of the systemic processes of change and stability in people.

• Focus on infant and child development -> life span development.

Development Scientists

They look at ways in which people change from conception thru maturity as well as characteristics that remain stable.

• Physical Development

• Cognitive Development

• Psychosocial Development

3 Domains or Aspects of the Self

Physical Development

Increasing brain size

Cognitive Development

How we process information, involves intelligence, memory, and learning.

Cognitive Development

Changes that happen in the way we process information from childhood to old age.

Psychosocial Development

Involves the psychological, emotional, and social development, how we interact with people, how we handle emotions, getting the concept of right or wrong, moral principles, and values.

Social Construction

Division of a life span into periods.

8 Stages of Development Throughout Lifespan

• Prenatal (From conception to birth)

• Infancy (birth to age 2)

• Early Childhood (2-7)

• Middle Childhood (7-11)

• Adolescence (11-20)

• Young Adulthood (11-20)

• Middle Adulthood (40’s to 60s)

• Late Adulthood (60’s onwards)

Heredity

Inborn traits or characteristics inherited from the biological parents.

Environment

The world outside the self.

Maturation

Unfolding of a natural sequence of physical changes and behavior patterns naturally happens.

Environmental Influences on Development

• Family

• Socio-economic Status

• Culture and Race

Normative Influences

• Biological or environmental events that affect many or most people in a society in similar ways.

• A set of logically related concepts or statements that seek to describe and explain the development and to predict the kinds of behavior that might occur under certain conditions.

Normative Age-Graded Influences

Highly similar for people in a particular age group.

Social Construction

Division of the life span into periods.

Normative History-Graded Influences

• Significant events that shape the behavior and attitudes of a historical generation (groups of people who experience significant events at the same time)

• Not to be confused with cohort (group of people born at about the same time)

Non-Normative Influences

• Unusual events that have a major impact on individual lives because they disturb the expected sequence of the cycle.

• Some of the influences are largely beyond a person’s control such as a death of a parent.

Timing of Influences: Critical or Sensitive Periods

• Concept of Imprinting by Konrad Lorenz

• Critical Period

Concept of Imprinting

Author: Konrad Lorenz

Observed in ducklings, imprints on the first moving thing they see after hatching.

Critical Periods

Specific time when a given event, or its absence has a specific impact on development.

7 Key Principles of Lifespan Development

Author: Paul B. Baltes

• Lifelong

• Multidimensional

• Multidirectional

• Relative influence of biology and culture shift over the lifespan

• Involves changing resource allocations.

• Shows plasticity.

• Influenced by the historical and cultural event.