Lifespan Development CHAP 1

Page 1-2: The Beginning — The Science of Human Development

  • Topic: The Science of Human Development (Chapter 1) and its scope

  • Focus: Understanding how and why people change or stay the same across the lifespan

  • Emphasis on a holistic view of development from conception to death

Page 3: Developmental Fact or Myth? (True/False) — Your Reason

  • 1) The science of human development is the study of how and why people change as they grow older, as well as how and why they remain the same.

  • 2) Most developmental psychologists prefer not to use the scientific method in studying human development.

  • 3) Children’s development – both physical and mental – follow a straight, linear growth pattern.

  • 4) Most of us are unaware of the culture we transmit.

  • 5) An experiment is always the best way to investigate a developmental issue.

  • Note: This activity encourages evaluating common assumptions about development and the scientific approach.

Page 4: Introduction to Developmental Psychology (Developmental Science)

  • Definition: The branch of psychology devoted to the study of changes in behaviors and abilities over the course of development.

  • The science of human development seeks to understand how and why people of all ages and circumstances change or remain the same over time.

  • Life-Span Perspective:

    • An approach to studying human development that includes all phases, from conception to death.

    • Multidisciplinary: insights from psychology, biology, history, sociology, etc.

Page 5: Understand How and Why? The Scientific Method

  • The scientific method: systematically gathering and evaluating empirical evidence

  • Five basic steps:
    1) Begin with curiosity — Pose a research question
    2) Develop a hypothesis
    3) Test the hypothesis — Gather empirical evidence (data)
    4) Draw conclusions
    5) Report the results; replication

Page 6: Example Study — Are there brain differences between musicians and non-musicians?

  • Step 1: Differences found in auditory areas and in inferior frontal regions

  • Step 2: Learning to play a musical instrument in childhood affects the brain, advancing emotional control, creativity, and memory

  • Step 3: Three groups of 6-year-olds were compared

  • Step 4: Conclusion — children in the music group showed improvements in several measures of brain development and cognition in auditory areas; most brain differences vs. other groups were not evident in all domains

  • Step 5: Research findings published; ongoing exploration of the music-brain relationship

Page 7-9: The Nature–Nurture Debate and Differential Susceptibility

  • Core questions:

    • How much of any trait, behavior, or emotion is due to genes and chromosomes (nature)?

    • How much is due to experiences, including those that affect biology and attitudes (nurture)?

  • Interaction: Example — Parenting as an interactional factor between genes and environment

  • Twin studies and adoption studies as methods to disentangle nature and nurture

  • Differential susceptibility (or differential sensitivity): Some inherited genes or past experiences make individuals more responsive to environmental influences

  • Orchid vs. Dandelion metaphor: Orchids highly responsive to favorable environments but vulnerable in adverse ones; Dandelions more resilient across environments

Page 10: The Life-Span Perspective

  • Key characteristics of human development:

    • Multi-dimensional

    • Multi-directional

    • Plastic

    • Multi-contextual

    • Multi-cultural

Page 11: Three Overlapping Developmental Domains

  • Physical/Biological Domain: Changes in physical nature

  • Cognitive Domain: Changes in thought processes, intellectual abilities, and language

  • Social/Emotional Domain: Changes in relationships, emotions, personality

  • Important concept: Development is multidimensional; changes in one domain influence others (domains overlap)

Page 12: Age Ranges for Different Periods of Development

  • Infancy: 0 to 2 years

  • Early childhood: 2 to 6 years

  • Middle childhood: 6 to 11 years

  • Adolescence: 11 to 18 years

  • Emerging adulthood: 18 to 25 years

  • Adulthood: 25 to 65 years

  • Late adulthood: 65 years and older

  • Note: Development is multi-directional; pace varies (continuity vs. discontinuity) and gains/losses occur over time

Page 13: Developmental Growth is Not Linear

  • Over time, human characteristics change in every direction; development is not linear

  • Pace of change varies: continuity and discontinuity

  • Gains and losses appear throughout life and can be observed historically and generation-to-generation

Page 14: Critical vs. Sensitive Periods; Plasticity

  • Critical period: A specific window when certain developments must occur for normal development (e.g., specific prenatal periods)

  • Sensitive period: A window when a particular development occurs most easily (e.g., language development)

  • Plasticity: Abilities, personality, and other characteristics can change over time

Page 15: Development is Multi-Contextual

  • Social context: Everyone who influences each developing person, directly and indirectly

  • Historical context: Cohort — people born within a few years of one another

  • Socioeconomic status (SES): Person’s position in society

Page 16: Ecological Systems Theory — Bronfenbrenner

  • Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005)

  • Individuals are affected by interactions among overlapping systems, which provide the context of development

Page 17: Development is Multicultural

  • Culture: System of shared beliefs, norms, behaviors, and expectations that persist over time and shape social behavior

  • Use of material tools (e.g., highchair, iPad) and symbolic tools (e.g., knowledge, beliefs, values) that accumulate and are passed on through social processes

  • Tools provide resources for human development

Page 18: Difference-Equals-Deficit Error

  • Tendency to believe one’s own nation or culture is superior to others

  • Risk: This belief becomes destructive if it reduces respect and appreciation for others

Page 19: Vygotsky (Cognitive Theory / Sociocultural Theory)

  • Emphasized social and cultural contexts as crucial in cognitive development

  • Individuals do not develop in isolation but in relation to their community’s culture, transmitted by words, objects, and actions of others

  • Note: We will learn more about his approach in Chapter 5

Page 20: Theories of Human Development — Why They Matter

  • A theory is an organized set of ideas about how things operate; explains past findings and predicts future ones

  • Why theories matter: Different theories offer different perspectives and explanations for the same observations of how and why people change

Page 21: Practice MC Question

  • Scenario: A father of a 4-year-old reassures a daughter about a nightly “monster” in the dark; next morning she doesn’t remember his attempts to reason with her

  • Question: He should probably:

    • a) try to understand the hidden causes and meaning of her dreams

    • b) reward her for staying in bed if she slept well

    • c) assume she cannot be rationally reasoned with due to her age

    • d) structure interactions to mentor her through her fear

Page 22: Major Theories of Human Development — Overview

  • Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Theories

    • Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

    • Erik Erikson (1902-1994)

  • Behaviorism (Learning Theory) emphasizes learning processes

    • Classical conditioning — Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

    • Operant conditioning — B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)

    • Social Learning Theory — Albert Bandura (1925-2021)

  • Cognitive Theory

    • Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

    • Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)

    • Information processing

  • Evolutionary Theory

    • Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Page 23: Psychoanalytic Theory — Freud (1856–1939)

  • First psychoanalyst

  • Proposed five psychosexual stages

  • Childhood parent–child interactions shape adult personality

  • Theory posits irrational unconscious drives and motives, often from childhood, underlie behavior

  • Interprets symbolic meanings of behavior

Page 24-25: Erikson — Psychosocial Development (Neo-Freudian)

  • Erikson expanded Freud’s ideas to life-span development with eight stages of psychosocial development

  • Each stage features a developmental crisis that must be resolved

  • Context: Culture and environment influence childhood development

  • Table: Erikson’s stages (summary)

    • Stage 1: Infancy — Trust vs. Mistrust; central question: How can I be secure? Basic strength: Hope

    • Stage 2: Toddler — Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt; How can I be independent? Basic strength: Will

    • Stage 3: Early Childhood (Play) — Initiative vs. Guilt; How can I be powerful? Basic strength: Purpose

    • Stage 4: School Age — Industry vs. Inferiority; How can I be good? Basic strength: Competence

    • Stage 5: Adolescence/Young Adulthood — Identity vs. Role Confusion; How do I fit into the adult world? Basic strength: Fidelity

    • Stage 6: Young Adulthood — Intimacy vs. Isolation; How can I love? Basic strength: Love

    • Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation — How can I fashion a gift? Basic strength: Care

    • Stage 8: Old Age — Ego Integrity vs. Despair; How can I receive a gift of life? Basic strength: Wisdom

Page 26-29: Behaviorism (Learning Theory) — Emphasis on Nurture

  • Focus on observable behavior; development is observable and learned through interaction with the environment

  • Classical conditioning: association between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus — Pavlov

  • Albert Bandura: Social-Cognitive Theory / Social-Learning Theory

    • Emphasizes the role of others influencing behavior

    • Behavior, environment, and cognitive factors interact to shape development

  • Key idea: Stimulus -> Internal mediators -> Behavior; internal factors can include rewards/punishments

Page 30-31: Piaget — Cognitive Theory

  • Focus: Active role of the child in development; thoughts and expectations shape actions, attitudes, beliefs

  • Four major stages of cognitive development (age-related):

    • Sensorimotor Stage: Birth to 2 years — Understanding the world through senses and actions; early symbolic thought emerges toward end of stage

    • Preoperational Stage: 2 to 7 years — Representing the world with words and images; symbolic thinking grows; limited logical reasoning

    • Concrete Operational Stage: 7 to 11 years — Logical reasoning about concrete events; classify objects into sets

    • Formal Operational Stage: 11 years through adulthood — Logical, abstract, and hypothetical reasoning

Page 32-36: Doing Science — Methods of Science in Developmental Science

  • Scientific Observation: Systematic and objective recording of behavior; conducted in naturalistic settings or laboratories

  • Experiments (Random Assignment): Establish causal relationships; manipulation of an independent variable and measurement of a dependent variable

    • Example schematic: Independent Variable (e.g., Levels of Meditation) -> Dependent Variable (e.g., Sleeping hours); participants assigned randomly to groups (e.g., 50 older adults; 25 in each group)

  • Surveys: Data collected from large numbers of people via interviews or questionnaires; challenges include honesty, changing minds, and question wording/sequence effects

  • Basic Research Designs (overall plans to study development over the life span):

    • Cross-Sectional Design: Compare groups of different ages at one point in time

    • Longitudinal Design: Collect data from the same individuals multiple times across years

    • Cross-Sequential (Cohort-Sequential) Design: Study several age groups over time; allows comparison of age effects and cohort effects

Page 35-36: Which Approach Is Best? Cross-Sectional, Longitudinal, or Cross-Sequential

  • Cross-Sectional:

    • Total time: A few days, plus analysis

    • Data collection: One-time

    • Pros: Quick, cheaper

    • Cons: Confounded by cohort effects; cannot distinguish age effects from cohort effects

  • Longitudinal:

    • Total time: Many years (e.g., decades)

    • Data collection: Repeatedly from the same individuals

    • Pros: Allows observation of development over time within individuals

    • Cons: Time-consuming, expensive, risk of participant dropout, historical changes may confound results

  • Cross-Sequential (Cohort-Sequential):

    • Total time: Long (e.g., 61 years in the diagram)

    • Combines cross-sectional and longitudinal elements

    • Pros: Can separate age, time, and cohort effects; more robust conclusions

    • Cons: Complex design and analysis; more resource-intensive

Quick connections and implications

  • The life-span view emphasizes that development is not limited to childhood but continues throughout adulthood and aging.

  • The interplay of nature and nurture is evident across theories and methods; twin/adoption studies help quantify genetic vs. environmental contributions.

  • Ethical considerations: Cultural bias, difference-equals-deficit errors, and ensuring respectful interpretation of cross-cultural data.

  • Practical implications: Education, parenting, and social policy should consider differential susceptibility, plasticity, and cultural context when designing interventions.

  • Form of evidence: No single theory or method is sufficient; converging evidence from multiple theories and designs provides the strongest understanding of human development.

Title

Chapter 1 Notes: The Science of Human Development — Comprehensive Overview (Slides Summary)