Introduction to Lifespan Development

Introduction to Lifespan Development

• Lifespan development is a scientific study of human development throughout life.
• Key stages: Conception, Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence, Emerging Adulthood, Adulthood, and Gerontology.
• The study is multidisciplinary.

Definition of Developmental Psychology

• Developmental psychology (also known as human development or lifespan development) is the scientific study of how people change and stay the same from conception to death.
• Developmental psychologists explore predictable milestones, individual differences, nature vs. nurture, temperament, talent, traits, normative and non-normative transitions.
• Originally, the focus was only on infants and children, but now every stage of life is being studied.

Lifespan Perspective

• Development is a lifelong process.
• Development is multidirectional, multidimensional (physical, cognitive, psychosocial), and multidisciplinary.
• Development is characterized by plasticity (the ability to change).
• Development is multicontextual.

Normative Influences

• Normative age-graded influences: Events that typically occur at similar ages for most people (e.g., toddler, adolescent, senior stages.)
• Normative history-graded influences: Events that commonly affect a particular cohort (e.g., Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z, experienced the Great Recession of 2008)
• Non-normative life influences: Uncommon events that affect individuals in ways typically not expected for their age (e.g., life events not typical to that age group).

Cohort Changes in Adult and Late Life

• The late 20th century saw revolutions in lifestyles, particularly affecting the Baby Boomer generation (60s and early 70s).
• Positive changes include a more open society with greater freedom of choice.
• Negative changes include economic challenges (e.g., single parenthood, poverty)

Socioeconomic Status (SES)

• Socioeconomic status (SES) is a way to classify families and households based on shared levels of education, income, and occupation.

The Great Recession of 2008

• Income growth between 2000 and 2007 primarily benefited the top 10% of earners.
• The top 1% received a disproportionate share of the income growth.

Culture

• Culture encompasses shared language, knowledge, material objects, and behavior.
• Culture is learned from numerous sources throughout life (e.g., parents, schools, religion, media, friends).
• Ethnocentrism is the belief that ones own culture is superior. It can hinder understanding of cultures different from our own.

Conceptions of Age

• Chronological age: The number of years since birth.
• Biological age: The rate at which the body ages.
• Psychological age: The adaptive capacity of an individual compared to others of the same chronological age.
• Social age: The social norms and expectations of a culture related to a specific age group (e.g., college, retirement).

Age Periods

• Prenatal: Begins at conception, continues through uterine wall implantation, and ends at birth.
• Infancy and Toddlerhood: Starts at birth and lasts up to two years.
• Early Childhood: Starts at two and lasts up to six years.
• Middle and Late Childhood: Starts at six and continues until puberty.
• Adolescence: Begins at puberty and lasts until 18.
• Emerging Adulthood: Starts at 18 and continues until 25.
• Early Adulthood: Starts at 25 and lasts up to 40-45.
• Middle Adulthood: Starts at 40-45 and lasts until 65.
• Late Adulthood: Starts at 65 and continues onward

Issues in Lifespan Development

• Stage theories (discontinuous): Assume developmental change happens in qualitatively different stages in a set, universal sequence.
• Continuous development: A more slow and gradual process.

Changing Conceptions of Childhood

• Preformationism: The belief that a tiny fully formed human is implanted in the sperm or egg at conception.
• John Locke (1632-1704): Believed humans were born with a "tabula rasa" (blank slate), shaped by the environment.
• Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): Believed infants were innocent and should be nurtured.

Changing Conceptions of Childhood (Sigmund Freud)

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): Emphasized the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping personality and behavior.
• Psychodynamic perspective, psychosexual development.

Freud

• Psychoanalytic Theory: Childhood experiences shape personality and behavior.
• Age-Linked Stages: Psychosexual development.
• Criticisms: Difficult to test scientifically, issues with research.
• Later theories challenged his psychoanalytic theory.

Erik Erikson

• Psychosocial Theory (1902-1994): Development continues throughout life, with 8 stages.
• Psychosocial Crises: Unique challenges that must be overcome at each stage.

Psychosocial Development: Erikson

• Father of lifespan development.
• Believed in continuous development throughout the lifespan.
• Identified eight stages of psychosocial crises that occur from infancy through old age.
• Crisis mastery is necessary for dealing with later stages.

Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development

• Lists different approximate ages to correlate with certain psychological crises, such as trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, and industry vs. inferiority.

Contemporary Theories on Development

• Learning theory/Behaviorism: Focus only on observable behavior, and not the mind.
• Social Learning Theory: Learn through observation and modeling.
• Cognitive Theory: Focuses on changes in how we think over time (stages and continuity).
• Jean Piaget (1896-1980): Notable for describing different cognitive stages of development and how children learn.
• Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934): Viewed development through a sociocultural lens, emphasizing social interaction.

Behaviorism

• Based on the idea that the mind can't be objectively studied, thus focusing on observable behavior.
• Application of rewards/reinforcements.
• Provided insights into the Nature-Nurture debate.

Bandura (Social Learning Theory)

• Emphasized cognition and modeling, how we learn through observing others.

B.F. Skinner (Operant Conditioning)

• Focuses on learning through reward or reinforcement of behaviors.

Social Learning Theory

• Includes reciprocal determinism: interplay between personality, way we interpret events, and how they influence us.

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

• Describes stages for cognitive development, including Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational, including the characteristics of each stage (e.g., object permanence).

Age-Linked Theories: Piaget

• Developed a cognitive-developmental theory based on observation of his own children.
• Believed children's intelligence changed over time through maturation, not training.
• Cognitive development occurs in stages with qualitatively different ways of thinking.

Cognitive Development: Piaget

• Tried to understand the unique qualities of cognition in childhood
• Setting up tests and observing children's actions.

Theories of Development

• Theories explain individual behavior; allow us to predict and intervene to change the behavior.
• Includes the Nature/Nurture perspective: the interplay between biological and environmental forces shaping development.

The Developmental Systems Perspective

• Highlighting multiple forces in human development.
• The total ecology (life situation) influences development.
• Children's experiences are shaped by larger forces like family, school, religion, and cultural contexts.

The Scientific Method

• Assumptions, rules, and procedures for conducting research.
• Stages include reviewing literature, formulating a hypothesis, designing a study, collecting data, drawing conclusions, and reporting findings.

Research Methods

• Research Design: Determines how data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted.
• Descriptive Research: Describes what is happening at a specific point in time.
• This includes case studies (individual or small group descriptive), naturalistic observation (everyday settings), laboratory observation (research controlled environment), interviews, and surveys.
• Case Study: Descriptive record of an individual or small group. Examples include Piaget observing his children.
• Naturalistic Observation: Observing behavior in natural settings; no control over the environment.
• Laboratory Observation: Observing behavior in a controlled environment.
• Survey: A questionnaire used to collect data on beliefs and behavior.
• Interviews: Asking direct questions.
• Correlational Research: Examines relationships between variables.
• Experiments: Methods for identifying cause-and-effect relationships (variables).

Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies

• Cross-Sectional: Testing/comparing different age groups at the same time.
• Longitudinal: Testing the same group over a long time.
• Sequential: Combines elements of both, studying different cohorts over time.

Quantitative and Qualitative Research

• Quantitative: Using numerical data, groups, analyses to make general predictions about behavior.
• Qualitative: Studying a single person, focused observation, interviews, observing in-depth.

Measuring Variables in Developmental Research

• Strategies for measuring behaviors and concepts of interest.

Explore the key stages of human development from conception to old age in this quiz. Understand the principles of developmental psychology, its multidisciplinary approaches, and how individual differences shape our life experiences. Test your knowledge on the various transitions and milestones throughout the lifespan.