DevPsych

Human Development

• an ever-evolving field

• the scientific study of ways in which people change, as well as stay the same, from conception to death.

Developmental Psychology

• scientific study of processes of change and stability throughout the human lifespan.

• impact of family, peers, and school

Developmental Scientists

• they look at ways in which people change and study the characteristics that remain stable.

Lifespan Development

• most researchers focuses on infant and child development

• from womb to tomb

• timing of parenthood, employment, marital satisfaction are being studied.

Describe, Explain, Predict, Intervention

Lifespan development

Social Construction

concept or practice that is an invention of a particular culture or society

Digital Technology

analyzes how motherd and babies communicate

Physical, Cognitive, and Psychosocial

Domains of Development

Physical Development

growth of the body and brain, sensory capacities, motor skills, and health.

Cognitive Development

learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity.

Psychosocial Development

emotions, personality, and social relationships.

Individial Differences

• what makes each person unique

• height, weight, gender, body build, health, energy level, and temperament.

Heredity

• in born characteristics

• from our parents

Environment

• environment outside the body

• starts at concrption in the womb and continuing throughout life.

Maturation

this continues to influence certain biologic processes, such as brain development.

Nuclear Family

one or two parents and their children

Extended Family

multigeneral network of grandparents aunts, uncles, cousins, and more distant relatives is the traditional family form.

Risk Factors

conditions that increasd the likelihood of a negative developmental outcome

Culture and Race/Ethnicity

refers to a society's or group’s total ways of life (customd, traditions, laws, knowledge, beliefe, values, language, and physical product, from tools to artwork.)

Ethnic Group

united by ancestry, race, religion, language, or national origins, which contribute to a sense of shared identity.

Ethnic and Cultural Patterns.

influences the composition of a household, its economic and social resources, the way it’s members act toward one another.

Historical Context

the social, religious, economic, and political conditions, that existed during a certain time and place.

Normative and Non-Normative influenced

contributes to the complexity of human development as well as to the challenges people experience in trying to build their lives.

Normative influences

biological or environmental event that affects many or most people in a society.

Normative-age graded influences

• highly similar for people in a particular age group

• e.g. People don’t experience puberty at age 35 or menopause at 12

Normative history-graded influences

significant events (such as Great Depression and World War II) that shape the behavior and attitudes of a historical generation

Historical Generation

a group of people who experience the event at a formative time in their lives.

Non-normative influences

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

• e.g. atypical events: Beyond the control of the individual surviving a plane crash, death of parents when the child was still young

Critical Period

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

•e.g. If a woman receives X-rays, takes certain drugs, or contracts certain diseases at certain times during pregnancy, the fetus may show specific ill effects.

Plasticity

• range of modifiability of performance

• aggression can be minimized by behavior modification.

Sensitive periods

Times in development when a person is particularly open to certain kinds of experiences.

1. Lifelong

2. Multidirectional

3. Multidimensional

4. Relative influences of biology and culture shift over the life span

5. Development involves changing resource allocations

6. Development shows plasticity

7. Development is influenced by the historical and cultural context.

7 Key Principles