Basics of Lifespan Development PDF

Chapter 1  Basics of Lifespan Development  Check-In  Development ▪ Refers to change over time ▪ Is a lifelong process from birth to death ▪ Lifespan development: Field of study that examines patterns of growth,...

Chapter 1  Basics of Lifespan Development  Check-In  Development ▪ Refers to change over time ▪ Is a lifelong process from birth to death ▪ Lifespan development: Field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire lifespan  Human Development ▪ Some of the topics that are explored include: ▪ Universal principles of development ▪ Cultural, racial, ethnic differences ▪ Individual traits and characteristics ▪ Developmental psychologists take a scientific approach ▪ Test their assumptions by applying scientific methods ▪ Develop theories about development and use scientific techniques to validate accuracy of their assumptions  Topical Areas in Lifespan Development ▪ Physical Development ▪ involves the body’s physical makeup, including the brain, nervous system, muscles, and senses, and the need for food, drink, and sleep as a determinant of behavior. ▪ Cognitive Development ▪ involves the way that growth and change in learning, memory, problem solving, and intelligence influence a person’s behavior. ▪ Personality & Social Development ▪ Personality development involves the ways that the enduring characteristics that differentiate one person from another change over the life span. ▪ Social development is the way in which individuals’ interactions with others and their social relationships grow, change, and remain stable over the course of life.   Typical Age Ranges ▪ Prenatal period (conception to birth) ▪ Infancy and toddlerhood (birth to age 3) ▪ Preschool period (ages 3 to 6) ▪ Middle childhood (ages 6 to 12) ▪ Adolescence (ages 12 to 20) ▪ Young adulthood (ages 20 to 40) ▪ Middle adulthood (ages 40 to 60) ▪ Late adulthood (age 60 to death)  Typical Age Ranges ▪ What we call these periods of life (e.g., childhood, adolescence) are social constructions ▪ Widely accepted but a function of society and culture at a given time ▪ Culturally defined ▪ Sometimes arbitrary ▪ Remember that individual differences exist in the timing of events in people’s lives.  Developing with Others in a Social Context ▪ Cohort: A group of people born around the same time and same place ▪ Cohorts are affected by: ▪ History-graded influences ▪ Age-graded influences ▪ Sociocultural-graded influences ▪ Non-normative life events  Check Your Understanding The time when children utter their first complete sentence is an example of: A) a history-graded influence B) an age-graded influence C) a sociocultural-graded influence D) a non-normative life event  Key Issues and Questions of Developmental Psychology ▪ There are four issues/questions that are consistently explored in the field. We will explore three: ▪ Continuous Change vs. Discontinuous Change ▪ Existence of Critical/Sensitive Periods ▪ Nature vs. Nurture *4-Lifespan Approach vs. Focus on Particular Periods  Key Issues and Questions of Developmental Psychology ▪ Continuity and discontinuity  Key Issues and Questions of Developmental Psychology ▪ Critical and Sensitive Periods help us understand how the timing of environmental events can influence development differently. ▪ Critical period: Specific time during development when a particular event has its greatest consequence and the absence of certain kinds of environmental influences is likely to produce permanent, irreversible consequences ▪ Sensitive period: Point in development when organisms are particularly susceptible to certain kinds of stimuli in their environments, but the absence of those stimuli does not always produce irreversible consequences ▪ Highlights the plasticity of developing humans.   Key Issues and Questions of Developmental Psychology Nature Nurture ▪ Our genetics determine our ▪ Our environment, upbringing, and life behavior. Our personality traits experiences determine our behavior. and abilities are in our “nature.” We are “nurtured” to behave in certain ways  Check Your Understanding A __________ is a specific time during development when a particular event has its greatest consequence. A) critical period B) sensitive period C) genetic period D) embryo period  Chapter 1  Theoretical Perspectives of Lifespan Development  Theoretical Perspectives ▪ Theories are explanations and predictions concerning phenomena of interest, that provide a framework for understanding the relationships among an organized set of facts or principles ▪ There are six major theoretical perspectives used in the field of lifespan development  Theoretical Perspectives in Developmental Psychology 1. Psychodynamic 2. Behavioral 3. Cognitive 4. Humanistic 5. Contextual 6. Evolutionary   1. Psychodynamic Perspective ▪ Approach that states behavior is motivated by inner focus, memories, and conflicts of which a person has little awareness or control Erik Erikson Sigmund Freud  Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory ▪ Psychoanalytic theory: Suggests unconscious forces determine personality and behavior ▪ Freud posited that personality has three aspects: ▪ Id (pleasure principle) ▪ Ego (reality principle) ▪ Superego (conscience) ▪ Develops about age 5 or 6 ▪ Learned from parents, teachers, significant figures  Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory ▪ Freud’s psychosexual development: Series of stages that children pass through in which pleasure, or gratification, is focused on a particular biological function and body part ▪ Oral stage (birth to 12–18 months) ▪ Anal stage (12–18 months to 3 years) ▪ Phallic stage (3 to 5–6 years) ▪ Latency stage (5–6 years to adolescence) ▪ Genital stage (adolescence to adulthood) ▪ Fixation occurs if children are unable to gratify themselves ▪ Behavior demonstrating regression may occur  Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory ▪ Psychosocial Theory: An approach that encompasses changes in our understanding of individuals, their interactions with others, and their standing as members of society ▪ Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory ▪ Each stage emerges in a fixed pattern ▪ Each stage presents a crisis that must be addressed ▪ No crisis is ever fully resolved ▪ Erikson believed that development continued throughout the life span  Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory ▪ Consists of stages with “crises” that must be addressed ▪ Trust vs. Mistrust (birth to 12–18 months) ▪ Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (12–18 months to 3 years) ▪ Initiative vs. Guilt (3 to 5–6 years) ▪ Industry vs. Inferiority (5–6 years to adolescence) ▪ Identity vs. Role Diffusion (adolescence to adulthood) ▪ Intimacy vs. Isolation (early adulthood) ▪ Generativity vs. Stagnation (middle adulthood) ▪ Ego Integrity vs. Despair (late adulthood)  Assessing the Psychodynamic Perspective ▪ Current research: ▪ Supports unconscious influences behavior ▪ Does not support that progress through stages determine adult personalities ▪ Unlikely that Freud’s theory generalizes to multiple populations ▪ Erikson’s view that development is lifelong is supported ▪ Erikson focused on men more than women ▪ Psychodynamic perspective provides good description of past behavior but imprecise predictions of future behavior  2. Behavioral Perspective ▪ Behavioral perspective: Suggests that keys to understanding development are observable behavior and outside stimuli in the environment ▪ Behaviorists reject that people pass through stages ▪ Development occurs because of exposure to specific factors in the environment ▪ Three key types of learning  Learning According to the Behavioral Perspective ▪ Classical Conditioning (John B. Watson) ▪ Occurs when an organism responds in a particular way to a neutral stimulus that normally does not bring about that type of response ▪ Ex: Pavlov’s Dogs ▪ Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner) ▪ Occurs when a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened, depending on its association with positive or negative consequences ▪ Consequences of behavior include reinforcement or punishment ▪ When behavior is not reinforced or punished, it will extinguish    Learning According to the Behavioral Perspective ▪ Social-Cognitive Learning Theory (Albert Bandura) ▪ learning occurs by observing and imitating behavior of a model  3. Cognitive Perspective ▪ Cognitive perspective: Focuses on the processes that allow people to know, understand, and think about the world Jean Piaget  Cognitive Developmental Theories ▪ Piaget proposed people move through fixed stages. In each stage, the quantity and quality of information grows ▪ Proposed thinking is arranged in schemas ▪ Proposed growth of children’s understanding is due to assimilation and accommodation  Cognitive Developmental Theories Child’s schema (understanding) for birds: has wings, has feathers, and can fly  Cognitive Developmental Theories ▪ Information-Processing Approaches ▪ Seek to identify the ways individuals take in, use, and store information ▪ Theory grew out of computer age ▪ Assumption that complex behaviors can be broken into steps ▪ Aging results in better control in mental processing  Cognitive Developmental Theories ▪ Cognitive Neuroscience Approaches ▪ Look at cognitive development through brain processes ▪ Seek to identify locations and functions in the brain for cognitive activities ▪ Are actively studying autism spectrum disorder  Assessing Cognitive Perspectives ▪ Piaget: supported by research, but some cognitive skills emerge earlier than Piaget suggested; inattention to social influence ▪ Info-Processing: Pays little attention to behaviors like creativity, and does not take into account social context of development ▪ Cognitive Neuroscience: May provide more of a description than an explanation; relatively new field  Check Your Understanding The __________ perspective suggests that the key to understanding one’s actions involves observation of those actions and the outside stimuli in the environment. A) psychodynamic B) cognitive C) behavioral D) operant conditioning  4. Humanistic Perspective ▪ Humanistic perspective: Contends that people have a natural capacity to make decisions about their lives and control their behavior ▪ Emphasizes free will ▪ Each individual has the ability and motivation to reach his or her full potential ▪ Carl Rogers: Suggests all people have a need for positive regard ▪ Abraham Maslow: Suggests self-actualization is the primary goal in life ▪ Well being and enviornment ▪ Not a strong perspective for lifespan development  5. Contextual Perspective ▪ Contextual perspective: Considers relationship between individuals and their physical, cognitive, personality, and social worlds ▪ Two main theories ▪ Bronfenbrenner – ecological systems ▪ Vygotsky - sociocultural Lev Vygotsky   Contextual Perspective ▪ Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological approach focuses on four tenets: Process – Person – Context – and Time ▪ States that five levels of environment simultaneously influence individuals: ▪ Microsystem (immediate environment) ▪ Mesosystem (connections between microsystems) ▪ Exosystem (broad influencers – local) ▪ Macrosystem (broad influencers – general) ▪ Chronosystem (time)   Contextual Perspective ▪ Sociocultural theory: Approach that emphasizes how cognitive development proceeds as a result of social interactions between members of a culture ▪ Vygotsky argues children’s understanding of the world is due to interactions with others ▪ Proposed culture must be taken in consideration ▪ Focuses on reciprocal transactions ▪ Zone of Proximal Development; Scaffolding   Assessing Contextual Perspectives ▪ Bronfenbrenner ▪ Biological influences are stressed less than ecological influences ▪ Approach suggests the multiple levels of environment that affect child development ▪ Vygotsky ▪ First to acknowledge impact of culture ▪ Some suggest it ignores biological factors ▪ Minimizes role individuals play in their own development  6. Evolutionary Theory ▪ Evolutionary perspective: Seeks to identify behavior in today’s humans that is a result of our genetic inheritance from our ancestors ▪ Born out of Darwin’s work ▪ Argues our genetic inheritance determines not only physical traits, but personality traits and social behaviors as well ▪ Encompasses behavioral genetics, which studies the effects of heredity on behavior ▪ But… ▪ Insufficient attention to environment and social factors ▪ No good way to test theories experimentally  Why “Which Approach Is Right?” Is the Wrong Question ▪ Each perspective emphasizes a different aspect of development ▪ Psychodynamic: Emotions, motivational conflicts, and unconscious determinants ▪ Behavioral: Overt behavior ▪ Cognitive and humanistic: What people think, not what they do ▪ Contextual: Examines social and cultural influences ▪ Evolutionary: Inherited biological factors ▪ Each based on its own premise ▪ Some developmentalists use an eclectic approach