Chapter 1

The study of Human Development

Human Development: An Ever-Evolving Field

 Human Development – Scientific study of processes of change and stability throughout the
human life span.
 Developmental Psychology - focus on human growth and changes across the lifespan, including
physical, cognitive, social, intellectual, perceptual, personality and emotional growth.
- Developmental Scientists look at ways in which people change from conception through maturity
as well as at characteristics that remain fairly stable.
 Circadian Rhythms – is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle and
repeats roughly every 24 hours.

Studying the Life Span

- When the field of developmental psychology emerged as a scientific discipline, most researchers
focused on infant and child development.
- Now researchers consider life-span development to be to be “womb to tomb,” comprising the
entire human life span from conception to death.
 Life-span development – concept of human development as a life-long process, which can be
studied scientifically.
 Events such as the timing of parenthood, maternal employment, and marital satisfaction are now
also studied as a part of development psychology.

Why do we need to study Life-span Development?

- You can gain insight to your own life as a child, adolescent, and young adult.
- Life-span development is linked with many different areas of psychology.

Causes to develop

 Maturation - the ways in which we grow and develop throughout the lifespan.
 Learning - the process through which our experiences produce relatively permanent changes in
our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.

Human Development Today

 As the field of human development developed, its goals came to include description, explanation,
prediction, and intervention.
 Describe – to distinguish between typical and atypical behaviors and gain more accurate
understanding of human and animal behavior and thoughts.
 Explain – to provide answers to questions about why people react to certain stimuli in different
ways.
 Predict – After (describing and explaining), psychologist aims to predict if the behavior may
appear in the future, or if others might exhibit the same behavior.
 Intervene/Modify – aims to change, influence, or control behavior to make positive, constructive,
and lasting changes to influence their behavior for the better.

Reference: Khan, N. (2021). The Four Goals of Psychology: What are They? Better Help.

 Students of human development draw collaboratively from a wide range of disciplines,

including:  Genetics
 Psychology  Family Science
 Psychiatry  Education
 Sociology  History
 Anthropology  Medicine
 Biology

The Study of Human Development: Basic Concepts

  Developmentalists study processes of change and stability in all domains, or aspects of
development throughout all periods of the life span.

Domains of Development

 Three major domains: physical, cognitive, and psychosocial

 Physical Development – the growth of the body and brain, sensory capacities, motor skills, and
health.
 Cognitive Development – composed of learning, attention, memory, language, thinking,
reasoning.
 Psychosocial Development – composed of emotions, personality, and social relationships.

Periods of the Life Span

 Social Construction – a concept or practice that may appear natural or obvious to those who
accept it, but the reality is an invention of particular culture or society.
 Division of the life-span into periods is a social construction.
 Typical Major Developments in Eight Periods of Human Development.
 Prenatal (Conception – Birth)  Adolescence (11 – 20 years)
 Infancy and Toddlerhood (Birth – 3 years)  Emerging and Young Adulthood (20 – 40
 Early Childhood (3 – 6 years) years)
 Middle Childhood (6 – 11 years)  Middle Adulthood (40 – 65 years)
 Late Adulthood (65 years and over)
During early childhood - children gain more self- Young adulthood: establishing independent
control and become more interested in other lifestyles, occupations, and families.
children.
During middle childhood - control over behavior During middle adulthood - some decline in
gradually shifts from parent to child, and the peer physical capabilities is likely, find excitement and
group becomes increasingly important. challenge in life changes—launching new careers
and adult children.
Adolescence - the search for identity—personal, Late adulthood - people need to cope with losses
sexual, and occupational. Become physically in their faculties, the loss of loved ones, and
mature, they deal with conflicting needs and preparations for death. If they retire, they must
emotions as they prepare to leave the parental deal with the loss of work-based relationships but
nest. may get increased pleasure out of friendships,
Emerging adulthood - an exploratory period in family, volunteer work, and the opportunity to
the early to mid-twenties, many people are not yet explore previously neglected interest
ready to settle down.

Influences on Development

 Individual differences – the differences in characteristics, influences, and developmental

outcomes.
 Identify the universal influences on development, and then apply those to understanding
individual differences in developmental trajectories.

Heredity, Environment, and Maturation

 Heredity - inborn traits or characteristics inherited from the biological parents.

o Can be conceptualized as the genetic roll of the dice.
 Environment - totality of nonhereditary, or experiential, influences on development.
o Outside the body, starting at conception with the prenatal environment in the womb and
continuing throughout life.
- The relative influence of nature (heredity and biological processes) and nurture (environmental
influences) is fiercely debated, and theorists differ in the weight they assign to each.
 Maturation - unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes.
o Maturation continues to influence certain biological processes, such as brain
development.

Contexts on Development

 Race and Ethnicity

 Historical Context
  Family
 Socioeconomic Status (SES)
 Culture

Family

- Great changes, over time, place to place

 Nuclear Family - Two generations: parents and children
o Two-generational kinship, economic, and household unit consisting of one or two
parents and their biological children, adopted children, or stepchildren.
o Dominant in Western societies
o Increasing numbers of Working parents: Stepchildren, Gay/lesbian homes, Single parents
 Extended family - Multigenerational kinship network of parents, children, and other relatives,
sometimes living together in an extendedfamily household.
o A multigenerational kinship Includes grandparents, cousins, aunts/uncles, and more.
o Social roles are flexible Historically, common in Asian, African, and Latin American
cultures.
o Becoming less typical

Socioeconomic Status (SES)

- Includes income, education, and occupation

- Poor children are more likely to:
o Have emotional and behavior problems
o Not reach cognitive potential
o Have poorer school performance
 Low SES & Related Risk Factors
- Poverty-related risks that increase chance of negative outcomes include:
o Living in neighborhoods with high unemployment
o Lack of social support
o Social support less likely in high-unemployment neighborhoods

Culture

- A way of life or living

- A societies or group’s total way of life, including customs, traditions, beliefs, values, language,
and physical products— all learned behavior, passed on from parents to children.
- Includes: Customs, Traditions, Artwork, learned behavior, passed on to children

Race and Ethnicity

 Ethnic Group – A shared identity United by ancestry, religion, or origin

o Contributes to shared attitudes and beliefs
 Race – A socially constructed term Scholars have no real consensus on definition
o Categories ―” fluid” – shaped by society and politics
 Ethnic Gloss: Overgeneralization that obscures cultural differences within a group
o Examples: ― “Black” or ― “Hispanic”

Historical

- Unique time in which people live and grow up.

- Types of influences — normative and nonnormative
- 2 types of normative influences:
o 1. Normative age-graded influences
o 2. Normative history-graded influences
 Non-Normative Influences: Unusual events affecting individual lives
- Typical events at atypical times
o Death of a parent while the child is young
- Atypical events
o Surviving Covid -19
 o Winning the lotter

Time of Influences

 Imprinting - Instinctively following first moving object seen after birth; usually mother
- A well-known study of Konrad Lorenz (1957) that newly hatched ducklings will instinctively
follow the first moving object they see and it indicates predisposition or readiness to learn.
 CRITICAL PERIOD - Specific time when an event (or its absence) has specific impact on
development.
 SENSITIVE PERIOD - Developmental timing when child is particularly responsive to certain
experiences.

Life Span Developmental Approach of Baltes

1. Development is lifelong

2. Development is multidimensional

3. Development is multidirectional

4. Relative influences of biology and culture shift over the life span

5. Development involves changing resource allocations.

6. Development shows plasticity

7. Development is influenced by the historical and cultural context

Five Theorical Perspectives on Human Development

a) Psycho-Analytic.
- Behavior is controlled by powerful unconscious urges. (Freud’s psychosexual theory, Erikson’s
psychosocial theory)
b) Learning.
- People are responders; the environment controls behavior. (Behaviorism, or traditional learning
theory; Pavlov, Skinner, Watson) Social learning theory of Bandura
c) Cognitive.
- Qualitative changes in thought occur with development. Children are active initiators of
development. (Piaget’s cognitive-stage theory and Lev Vgotsky)
d) Contextual.
- Development occurs through interaction between a developing person and five surrounding,
interlocking contextual systems of influences. (Bronfenbenner’s bioecological theory)
e) Evolutionary/sociobiological.
- Human beings are the product of adaptive processes, which interact with the current
environment to shape behavior. (Bowlby’s attachment theory; evolutionary psychology)