Developmental Psychology Overview

Developmental Psychology Overview

• Developmental psychology examines age-related changes in behavior and mental processes throughout the lifespan, from conception to death.
• Key areas of study include: Studying Development, Physical Development, Cognitive Development, Social, Moral, and Personality Development, and Living Psychology (meeting the challenges of adulthood).

Life Span Development

• A table outlining the approximate ages associated with each stage of life:
  • Prenatal: Conception to Birth
  • Infancy: Birth to 18 months
  • Early childhood: 18 months to 6 years
  • Middle childhood: 6-12 years
  • Adolescence: 12-20 years
  • Young adulthood: 20-45 years
  • Middle adulthood: 45-60 years
  • Later adulthood: 60 years to death

Studying Development

• Key theoretical debates:
  • Nature vs. Nurture (heredity vs. environment)
  • Continuity vs. Stages (continuous vs. periods of change)
  • Stability vs. Change (maintained vs. different characteristics)
• An interactionist perspective is preferred by psychologists, evolving into a biopsychosocial model.

Prenatal Physical Development

• Prenatal development begins at conception.
• Three periods of prenatal development:
  • Germinal period (conception to implantation)
  • Embryonic period (after implantation to 8 weeks)
  • Fetal period (8 weeks to birth)

Hazards to Prenatal Development

• Teratogens are environmental agents causing damage during prenatal development by crossing the placental barrier.
• Categories include:
  • Legal and illegal drugs
  • Diseases and malnutrition
  • Exposure to X-rays and stress

Early Childhood Physical Development

• Three key areas of change in early childhood: brain, motor, and sensory/perceptual development.

Brain Development

• Neurons grow in size and the number of dendrites and axons increases.
  • Growth is evident from birth through 24 months.

Motor Development

• Active movement skills emerge in an orderly sequence.
  • Examples shown include chin up, rolling over, sitting with support, sitting alone, standing holding furniture, walking, standing alone, walking alone, and walking up steps.

Sensory and Perceptual Development

• Senses of smell, taste, touch, and hearing are well-developed at birth.
• Sense of vision is less developed at birth.

Adolescence and Puberty

• Significant physical changes occur, including:
  • Underarm and pubic hair growth
  • Breast development, uterine enlargement (in females), and beginning of menstruation
  • Facial and underarm hair growth
  • Larynx enlargement, penis and testes growth, and beginning of ejaculation (in males)
  • Adrenal and pituitary glands play a role through hormone release.

Adulthood

• Middle Age:
  • Menopause for women is a significant life milestone.
  • Male climacteric occurs in men.
• Late Adulthood:
  • Primary aging (gradual changes)
  • Secondary aging (changes due to disease, disuse, or neglect)

Cognitive Development

• Piaget proposed stages of cognitive development
  • Schemas are basic units of intellect, acting as patterns organizing interactions with the environment. Assimilation involves absorbing new information, while accommodation involves adjusting existing schemas or creating new ones to accommodate new information.
  • Piaget's four stages:
    • Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years)
    • Preoperational (2 to 7 years)
    • Concrete Operational (7 to 11 years)
    • Formal Operational (11 years and up)
  • Key aspects of each stage are summarized as abilities and limitations.

Social, Moral, and Personality Development

• Social Development:

  • Attachment is a strong emotional bond with special others.
  • Attachment and Harlow's work with monkeys examined feeding vs. contact comfort.
  • Ainsworth's Strange Situation procedure identified three types of attachment (secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent).

• Moral Development:

  • Kohlberg developed a model based on responses to moral dilemmas, particularly the Heinz dilemma.
  • Stages include preconventional, conventional, and postconventional levels, containing a series of progressively more developed stages.

• Personality Development:

  • Erikson's 8 psychosocial stages:
    • Trust vs. Mistrust (0-1)
    • Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (1-3)
    • Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6)
    • Industry vs. Inferiority (6-12)
    • Identity vs. Role Confusion (adolescence)
    • Intimacy vs. Isolation (young adulthood)
    • Generativity vs. Stagnation (middle)
    • Ego Integrity vs. Despair (later adulthood).

Death and Dying

• Coping with death and dying varies culturally and by age.
• Kübler-Ross's stages of dying:
  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance