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THE LIFE-SPAN
PERSPECTIVE
• Development: pattern of movement or
change that begins at conception and
continues through the human life span.
• The importance of studying life-span
development:
• Prepares us to take responsibility of children.
• Gives us insight about our own lives.
• Gives us knowledge about what our lives will
be like as we age.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE
(PART 1)
Development is:
• Lifelong – there is no endpoint to development and no age period dominates
development either.
• Multidimensional – body, mind, emotions, and relationships are changing and
affecting each other at every age.
• Development has biological, cognitive, and socioemotional dimensions; each with many
components.
• Multidirectional – throughout life, some dimensions (or components of dimensions)
expand while others shrink.
• Capacity to acquire a 2nd language decreases in development but decision-making abilities
increase.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE
(PART 2)
• Plastic – plasticity refers to our capacity for change and adaptation
• Multidisciplinary – psychology, sociology, anthropology, neuroscience, and even
conventional medicine all share interest in researching the development
throughout the life span.
• Contextual – development occurs withing a context or setting. (families, schools,
peer groups, churches, cities, neighborhoods, universities, countries, etc.).
• There are historical, economic, social, and cultural factors in each setting.
• A process that involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss.

TYPES OF CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES
Normative age-graded influences: biological or environmental events that are similar for
individuals in a particular age group.
o Biological stages – puberty, menopause, andropause.
o Start elementary at 6, graduate high school at 18, graduate college in early 20s
o Average age for voluntary life changes – marriage, retirement
Normative history-graded influences: common for people of a particular generation, or cohort,
because of historical circumstances.
o Epidemics, wars, the state of the economy, etc.
Nonnormative life events: unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an individual’s life;
not related to chronological age.
o Negative – accident, illness
o Positive – winning the lottery, being promoted

CONTEMPORATY CONCERNS
Factors that are believed to have a significant effect in human
development:
• Health and well-being
• Parenting and education
• Sociocultural contexts and diversity
• Culture: behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group
that is passed on from generation to generation.

CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES
These studies compare aspects of 2 or more cultures. This comparison provides
information about how similar (or universal) development is across cultures, or what
aspects are culture-specific.
• Ethnicity – may include race and nationality
• Socioeconomic status
• The gender spectrum
• Religious affiliations (or lack thereof)
• Social policy – their government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare
of its citizens.
• Access to technology

Biological processes

Changes in an individual’s physical nature

Cognitive processes
• Changes in an individual’s thought,
intelligence, and language
Socioemotional processes
• Changes in an individual’s relationship with
other people, emotions, and personality
Socioemotional processes

PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT
• Prenatal period – conception to birth
• Infancy – birth to 18-24 months
• Early childhood – 3-5 years
• Middle and late childhood – 6-10/11 years
• Adolescence – puberty to 18-21 years
• Early adulthood – 20s and 30s
• Middle adulthood – 40s and 50s
• Late adulthood – 60s to death

CONCEPTIONS OF AGE
• Chronological age – time elapsed since birth (months/years)
• Biological age – in terms of biological health
• Psychological age – adaptive capacities compared to those of
same chronological age
• Social age – based on societal expectations of an individual’s
involvement in social roles

DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES
Nature-nurture issue: Debate about whether development is primarily
influenced by nature or nurture.
• Nature – organism’s biological inheritance
• Nurture – environmental experiences
Stability-change issue: Debates the direction of development.
• Do we become older renditions of our early selves?
Do we develop into someone different from who we were at an earlier stage?

RESEARCHING DEVELOPMENT
Scientific method: a research approach that can be used to obtain accurate
information.
• Conceptualize a process or problem to be studied
• Collect research information
• Analyze data
• Draw conclusions and make claims
• Theory: interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain a phenomenon
and facilitate predictions.
• Hypothesis: specific assumptions and predictions that can be tested to determine
their accuracy.

METHODS FOR COLLECTING DATA
• Observation
• Laboratory: controlled setting in which may of the complex factors of the real world are
removed.
• Naturalistic observation: observing behavior in real-world settings
• Survey and interview
• Standardized test: uniform procedures for administration and scoring purposes.
• Case study: in-depth look at a single individual
• Physiological measures

RESEARCH DESIGN
• Descriptive research: designed to observe and record behavior
• Correlational research: describes the strength and type of relationship between 2
or more variables.
• Argues mere association, not cause and effect.
• Experimental research: seeks a cause-and-effect relationship between variables
while 1 or more of the factors are manipulated and all other factors are held
constant.
• Independent and dependent variables
• Experimental and control groups

TIME SPAN OF RESEARCH
• Cross-sectional approach: individuals of different ages
are compared at one time.
• Longitudinal approach: same individuals are studied
over a period of time, usually several years or more.

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
• Psychoanalytic theories
• Cognitive theories
• Behavioral and social cognitive theories
• Ethological theory
• Ecological theory
• An eclectic theoretical orientation

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES
Describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored by
emotion.
• Freud’s 5 stages of psychosexual development
• Erikson’s 8 stages of psychosocial development

COGNITIVE THEORIES
Emphasizes on a developmental framework, the influence of family
relationships, and the conscious aspects of the mind.
• Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development
• Vygotsky’s theory on culture and social interaction guiding cognitive
development

BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORIES
Describe development in terms of behaviors learned through
interactions with surroundings.
• Pavlov’s classical conditioning
• Skinner’s operant conditioning
• Bandura’s social cognitive theory (observational learning)