Developmental Psychology Overview

Study Notes

The scientific study of how individuals change and remain consistent from conception to death.
Also known as Human Development and Lifespan Development.

Physical Development: Growth of the body and brain, sensory capacities, motor skills, and health.
Cognitive Development: Changes in mental abilities, learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity.
Psychosocial Development: Changes in emotions, personality, and social relationships.

Family: Includes biological, adopted, and stepchildren.
- Nuclear Family: One or two parents and their children.
- Extended Family: Multigenerational network of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and more distant relatives.
- Common in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Socioeconomic Status: Based on family income and the educational and occupational levels of adults in the household.
- Poverty can have a significant impact on development.
Culture: Refers to a society's or group's total way of life, including customs, traditions, laws, knowledge, beliefs, values, language, and physical products.
- Individualistic Culture: People prioritize personal goals over collective goals.
- Collectivistic Culture: People prioritize collaborative social goals over individual goals.
Ethnicity and Race: An ethnic group is united by a distinctive culture, ancestry, religion, language, or national origin.

Development is lifelong: Change continues throughout life, influenced by past experiences and the acquisition of new skills.
Development is multidimensional: Multiple interacting dimensions, including biological, psychological, and social.
Development is multidirectional: People may gain in one area while losing in another, sometimes concurrently.
Relative influences of biology and culture shift over the lifespan: Both play a role in development, but their relative influence changes over time.

Empiricism: Processes are acquired through interactions with the environment.
Developmental Theories
- Reactive Development: Children absorb experiences and are shaped by environmental input.
  - Mechanistic Model: People are like machines that react to environmental input.
- Active Development: People create their own experiences and are motivated to learn.
  - Organismic Model: Individuals are actively involved in their development.