DEVELOPMENT

• The pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the lifespan

• Growth and maturity

• Development involves growth and decline brought on by aging or dying

LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE (Paul Baltes, 1939- 2006)

• Development is lifelong: Adulthood is not the endpoint of development. No age period dominates development.

• Development is multidimensional: age, body, mind, emotions, and relationships are changing and affecting each other.

• Development is multidirectional: the components of life may expand and/or shrink.

• Development is Plastic: The capacity for change

• Developmental science is multidisciplinary: it requires connections to various disciplines like psychology, biology, sociology, etc. to understand the complexities of growth.

• Development is contextual: occurs within a context or setting like families, schools, or peer groups, and each of these is influenced by historical, economic, and social-cultural factors.

Types of influence:

1. Normative age-graded influences: similar for individuals in a particular age group.

2. Normative history graded influences: common to people of a particular generation because of historical circumstances;

3. Non-normative life events: unusual occurrences that have a major impact on the lives of individual people and can influence people in different ways.

• Development involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss: the mastery of life often involves conflicts and competition.

• Development is a co-construction of biology, culture, and individuals: biological, cultural, and individual factors working together.

LIFE EXPECTANCY

• The average number of years that a person born in a particular year can expect to live (122 years)

SOME CONTEMPORARY CONCERNS

1. Health

2. Parenting and Education

3. Sociocultural Contexts and Diversity

• Culture: the behavior patterns, beliefs, and other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation.

• Cross-cultural: studies comparison of one culture with one or more other cultures.

• Ethnicity: comes from the Greek word for “nation”. A characteristic based on cultural heritage, nationality characteristics, race, religion, and language.

• Socioeconomic status (SES): position within society based on occupational, educational, and economic characteristics. Socioeconomic status implies certain inequalities.

• Gender: refers to the characteristics of people as males and females. Few aspects of our development are more central to our identity and social relationships than gender.

• Social policy: is a government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens. Values, economics, and politics all shape a nation’s social policy.

• Technology: refers to advancements in science and innovation and how they impact human development, such as how technology can shape learning and communication.

THE NATURE OF DEVELOPMENT 

• Biological Processes: physical changes, including genetic inheritance, brain development, growth in height and weight, motor skill changes, nutrition, exercise, puberty-related hormonal shifts, and cardiovascular changes, all influencing development

• Cognitive Processes: changes in an individual’s thought, intelligence, and language

• Socioemotional Processes: changes in an individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality

PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT

• Developmental period refers to a time frame in a person’s life that is characterized by certain features.

• The transition from adolescence to adulthood has been referred to as emerging adulthood, the period from approximately 18 to 25 years of age.

• Late adulthood has the longest span of any period of development.

Conceptions of Age

• Chronological age: number of years that have elapsed since birth.

• Biological age: age in terms of biological health

• Psychological age: adaptive capacities compared with those of other individuals of the same chronological age

• Social age: connectedness with others and the social roles individuals adopt. Individuals who have better social relationships with others are happier and more likely to live longer than individuals who are lonely.

DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

Nature- Nurture Issues: involves the extent to which development is influenced by nature (biological inheritance) and nurture.(environmental experiences).

Stability- Change Issues: the degree to which early traits and characteristics persist through life or change.

Continuity-Discontinuity Issue: the degree to which development involves either gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES:

• Describe the development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored by emotions.

• Psychoanalytic theorists emphasize that behavior is merely a surface characteristic and that a true understanding of development requires analyzing the symbolic meanings of behavior and the deep inner workings of the mind.

• Early experiences with parents extensively shape development.

1. Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)

• Freuds Theory:

  • Early-life experiences lead to adult problems.

  • Pleasure and sexual impulses shift through five stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

  • Adult personality is shaped by resolving conflicts between pleasure and reality.

• Modern Revision:

  • Less emphasis is placed on sexual instincts and more on cultural experiences.

  • Unconscious thought remains important, but conscious thought is emphasized.

  • Erik Erikson played a significant role in revising Freud's ideas.

2. Erik Erikson (1902- 1994)

• Erikson's Theory:

  • Eight stages of development throughout life.

  • Each stage presents a unique developmental task or crisis.

  • These crises are turning points with increased vulnerability and potential.

  • Successful resolution leads to healthier development.

COGNITIVE THEORIES

• Focuses on how people think, learn, and process information.

• It explores mental processes like perception, memory, problem-solving, and decision-making.

• Cognitive theorists believe that these mental processes influence behavior and development. They emphasize the importance of understanding and enhancing cognitive abilities.

1. Jean Piaget (1896- 1980)

• Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory:

  • Four stages of cognitive development; Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational.

  • Cognitive development involves the active construction of understanding.

  • Processes: organization (sorting and connecting ideas) and adaptation (adjusting to new demands).

  • Each stage is age-related, marked by distinct ways of thinking.

  • A child's stage is determined by how they think, not their knowledge.

2. Lev Vygotsky (1896- 1934)

• Vygotsky's Sociocultural Cognitive Theory:

  • Emphasizes the role of culture and social interaction in cognitive development.

  • Views a child's development as closely tied to social and cultural activities.

  • Cognitive development involves using societal inventions like language and math.

  • Learning methods vary across cultures (e.g., computer vs. beads for counting).

  •  Social interaction with skilled adults and peers is vital for cognitive development.

  •  Interaction helps children use tools to adapt and succeed in their culture.

3. George A. Miller and Richard Shiffrin

•  Information-Processing Theory:

  • Emphasizes how individuals handle, monitor, and strategize with information.

  • Doesn't describe development as stage-like (unlike Piaget).

  • Similar to Vygotsky, it sees development as a gradual increase in information-processing capacity.

  • This increased capacity enables the acquisition of more complex knowledge and skills.

BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORIES

• we can study scientifically only what can be directly observed and measured.

• tradition grew the belief that development is observable behavior that can be learned through experience with the environment.

1. Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904–1990)

• Skinner's Operant Conditioning:

  • Involves consequences shaping the likelihood of a behavior's occurrence.

  • A behavior followed by a rewarding stimulus is more likely to be repeated, while one followed by a punishing stimulus is less likely to be repeated.

  • Rewards and punishments play a significant role in development.

  • He focused on behavior, not thoughts or feelings, as the core of development.

  • Development, to Skinner, is about the pattern of behavioral changes driven by rewards and punishments.

  • For instance, Skinner suggested that shyness is learned through experiences, and modifying the environment can help a shy person become more socially oriented.

2. Albert Bandura (1925-2021)

• Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory:

  • Acknowledges that development is learned and heavily influenced by environmental interactions.

  • Unlike Skinner, it emphasizes the significance of cognition in understanding development.

  • Combines behavioral and cognitive elements to explain how individuals learn and develop.

  • Recognizes the role of observational learning, self-efficacy, and personal agency in shaping behavior and development.

  • Suggests that individuals observe and cognitively represent the behavior of others, sometimes adopting it themselves.

  • Bandura's most recent model includes three elements: behavior, the person/cognition, and the environment.

ETHOLOGICAL THEORY

• Emphasizes that behavior is heavily influenced by biology and tied to evolution.

• Highlights critical or sensitive periods, specific time frames when certain experiences have a lasting impact on individuals.

1. Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)

• Theory of Imprinting in Psychology

  • studied greylag geese, showcasing the importance of imprinting, where young animals form strong attachments to their caregivers early in life.

2. John Bowlby (1907-1990)

• Attachment Theory

  • Bowlby stresses that attachment to a caregiver over the first five years of his life has important consequences throughout his lifespan.

  • In his view, if this attachment is positive and secure, the individual will likely develop positively in childhood and adulthood. If the attachment is negative and insecure, development will likely not be optimal.

ECOLOGICAL THEORY

1. Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917- 2005)

• Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory:

  •  Development is influenced by multiple environmental systems.

  • Identifies five environmental systems:

    • Microsystem: Closest social and physical environment (e.g., family, school).

    • Mesosystem: Connections between microsystems (e.g., interaction between family and school).

    • Exosystem: External settings indirectly affecting development (e.g., parent's workplace).

    • Macrosystem: Cultural and societal contexts (e.g., values, beliefs).

    • Chronosystem: Changes over time (e.g., historical events, life transitions).

  • Bronfenbrenner's theory highlights how these systems interact and shape an individual's development.

RESEARCH IN LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT

Methods of Collecting Data:

• Observation: The most significant and common technique of data collection.

• Survey and Interview: the quickest way to get information about people.

• Standardized Test: has uniform procedures for administration and scoring.

• Case Study: provides information about one person’s experiences.

Research Designs:

• Descriptive Research: aims to observe and record behavior.

• Correlation Research: provides information that will help us predict how people will behave. Determine the relationship between two or more variables.

• Experimental Research: to study casualties

Time Span of Research:

• Cross-Sectional Approach: simultaneously compares individuals of different ages.

• Longitudinal Approach: the same individual is studied over a period of time.

• Cohort Effect: a group of people who are born at a similar point in history and share similar experiences as a result.