Areas of Human Development

Areas of Development

• Development includes physical, cognitive, and psychosocial domains
• Physical development encompasses biological processes
• Cognitive development includes mental processes
• Psychosocial development includes self, social, and interpersonal processes

Defining Development

• Development involves systematic changes and continuities over the lifespan
• Systematic changes are orderly, patterned, and relatively enduring
• Continuities refer to how individuals remain the same or continue to reflect past selves
• Biologically, development includes growth from conception to maturity, stability in early/middle adulthood, and ageing or physical deterioration later in life
• Development includes gains, losses, and neutral changes throughout life, encompassing more than just childhood growth and biological ageing in adulthood

Culture and Historical Influences

• Culture is a system of shared meanings transmitted across generations
• Age grades are socially defined age groups with distinct roles and responsibilities
• Age norms are expectations for behaviour at different life stages
• A social clock is a personal sense of being on time or off time in life, dictated by age norms
• Stereotypes are generalizations about group attributes assumed to apply to all members
• Ageism is prejudice or discrimination based on age

Nature vs. Nurture

• Nature refers to the influence of heredity and maturation
• Genes strongly influence development through maturation
• Nurture refers to the influence of the environment and learning
• Experiences and culture strongly influence development
• A genotype is a person's unique sequence of DNA
• A phenotype is a person's presentation of their genotype
• Epigenetics examines how behaviours and the environment can cause changes affecting gene expression

Lifespan Development as a Science

• Lifespan development aims for description, prediction, explanation, and optimism
• Development occurs throughout life and can take many directions
• Development involves gains and losses at every age and is characterized by plasticity, which is influenced by social and cultural context
• Development is influenced by multiple interacting factors and is best understood through multiple disciplines
• The Lifespan perspective sees development as multidirectional, involving different aspects of functioning with varied trajectories and as a lifelong process that applies from "womb to tomb"
• Development involves intertwined phases of gains and losses
• Plasticity is the capacity to change in response to positive and negative experiences.
• Historical and cultural events shape development
• Development is influenced by many interacting causes and studied across multiple disciplines
• Development is marked by systematic changes in physical, cognitive, and psychosocial functioning
• It takes place in various historical, cultural, and subcultural settings influenced by age grades, norms, and social clocks
• Both nature and nurture play roles
• There is an interaction of heredity, biology, and maturation with environment, experiences, and learning

Studying Development

• Developmental studies use the scientific method to generate ideas and test them through observations, leading to theories and hypotheses
• Data collection methods include self-reports, informant reports, behavioral observations, and physiological measures including Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
• Experiments aim to explain development by employing random assignment, manipulation of independent variables, and experimental control
• Developmental scientists confront ethical challenges and the need for cultural sensitivity in diverse ecological contexts

Data Collection Methods

• Verbal reports involve interviews, questionnaires, surveys, and ability/achievement tests
• Social desirability can limit verbal reports
• This method may not suit certain groups and could show comprehension/interpretation age differences rather than reflecting true differences

Behavioral observations involve observing subjects in natural or structured environments

• This method is unusable for rare/infrequent behaviors and can be hard to determine cause and effect
• Observer presence can influence behavior

Physiological measures are exemplified by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

• Hard to fake
• Useful to study infants
• Not always clear what the physiological measurement represents

Case studies involve in-depth examination of a small group or an individual

• Provides rich data about rare or complex attributes
• Conclusions cannot be generalized

Experiments have three key features: variables are manipulated/measured, random assignment, and experimental control

• Cause and effect can be established
• Explanation (and sometimes optimization) of human development is allowed
• External validity may be lacking
• Ethical issues may be a limitation

Correlational methods determine if two or more variables are related in a systematic way

• Relationship strength is calculated statistically
• Possible values range from +1.0/-1.0
• Can be used with unethical manipulation variables
• Examination of multiple factors is allowed
• Causal relationships are not established
• Directionality/third variable problems exist

Developmental Research Designs

• Such designs study systematic changes and continuities over the lifespan
• Differences are examined over life stages
• Cross-sectional designs involve people from different age groups (cohorts) at one time
• Longitudinal designs involve tracking the same group of people as they age
• An aging effect is a change in variable values among all cohorts as they age
• A cohort effect characterizes populations born at a certain time, but that will change regardless of aging

Longitudinal designs track people as they age

• Can examine human change and strengthen causal claims
• Age and time of measurement effects occurring when collecting data are limited
• Costly and time-consuming limitations
• Measurement methods can become obsolete, plus participants are lost along the way
• Repeated testing effects also limit longitudinal designs

Sequential designs combine cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches for a single study

• Can compare people from different cohorts over time
• Age, cohort, and time of measurement effects can be disentangled

Developmental Theories

• A group of ideas, generalisations, and assumptions that provides a framework for understanding how people change as they go through the lifespan
• Guide the collection and interpretation of facts
• Nature, nurture influences on heredity, biology, maturation, environment, and experiences with learning

Key issues include:

• the interaction of nature and nurture
• whether there are active contributions to change, or if it's shaped by elements beyond control
• if change is gradual, continuous, or abrupt and stage-like
• if development is similar for everyone, or context-dependent

Freud's Psychosexual Theory

• Humans are motivated by unconscious instincts
• Three aspects of personality influence the gratification of biological needs, shifting between body parts
• Id: Impulsive, irrational and selfish part of personality (satisfies instincts)
• Ego: Rational aspect that seeks to gratify instincts in realistic ways
• Superego: Internalized moral standards
• Libido: Psychic energy of the sex instinct, shifts between body parts to gratify biological needs
• Psychic conflicts cause anxiety which leads to ego defense mechanisms
• Psychosexual development occurs in 5 stages
• Conflicts can result in fixation and impact personality
• Many valuable insights
• Highlights unconscious processes
• Emphasized importance of early experience and emotions
• Difficulty includes testability and are not falsifiable
• Viewed as sexist

Erikson's Psychosocial Theory

• Erikson's psychosocial development places emphasis on social influences as drivers of development
• Development is divided into 8 systematic stages
• Crisis/conflict in each stage has to be resolved
• The resolution stage pushes individual to growth to the end stages
• Failure to resolve crisises complicate later developmental stages
• Focuses on interaction between social and biological influences
• Lifelong development
• Is vague to test
• Describes how but doesn't explain

Learning Theories

• Behavior is the result of learning in the environment
• Learning is a continuous process of behavioral change through classical/operant conditioning
• Environment/Outside stimuli is key to understanding development

Classic conditioning is a type of learning where stimulus can be neutral, and eventually the result is associated

Operant conditioning is the form where voluntary response is strengthened/weakened depending on positive/negative responses

People change through observational learning where cognitive function motivates

• Includes mental representation from memory to influence behaviour
• Includes learning by observing others in a vicarious fashion

Strong focus on nurture/environment which changes from person to person

Additional Learning Theories

• Performance depends on vicarious reinforcement
• There is human agency to have control
• There is self-efficacy to have abilities/behave
• Shows reciprocal determinism with shaping in interaction with people
• Precise and testable
• Can be used at any age/lifespan
• Inadequate accounts of change as weaknesses, and little consideration for genetics

Humanistic Theories

• Focus is on the individual's goodness with the intention towards growth/development
• People want to strive for self-actualization
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs involves basic needs of essential development, and growth needs that move them towards potential
• There are five basic needs across Power and belonging involving love and freedom from satisfaction
• Positive wellness is key to study/understand theory/criticism
• Too broad, immeasurable, and understudied which prevents it to universalise at the hierarchy levels

Cognitive theories

Focus is to know, understand, and think about the world around us

• Biology maturation + experience drives cognitive development

Constructivism emphasizes children that construct new world understandings through experiences

Vygotsky: Sociocultural theory highlights how cognitive development drives from members of the culture

• Disagrees upon the universal stage cognitive development
• Social constructivism includes influence of societal culture

Theorized that well researched, but not too many considered societal motivation/emotion and Piaget undervalued capabilities

System Theories are developmental

• Changes driven over time from biological and environmental
• Interrelationships shape the organism
• Is part of a larger dynamic system
• Environment nested structures affect development
• Includes interactions for development over time in historical pattern

Is hard to test/formulate to create unique experience Is also the starting point from evolution where survival enables adaptation to the environment-humans change deliberately