A topical approach to life span development, 6e chapter 1

The Nature of Development• Continuity and discontinuity • Continuity - development involves gradual cumulative changes • Discontinuity - development involves distinct stages... Psychoana

Live Span Perspective

• Chapter 1

Development is:

• Lifelong - No age period dominates

development

• Multidimensional - Body, mind, emotions, and

relationships are changing and affecting each other

• Biological Dimensions

• Cognitive Dimensions

• Socioemotional Dimensions

Development is:

• Multidirectional - These dimensions or

components of these dimension expand and others shrink

• Ex: Language Skills, Relationships, Wisdom

• Plastic - These dimensions have the capacity

for change

• Ex: Cognition can improve for the elderly

Development is:

• Contextual - situational

• Ex: Families, schools, churches, countries,

etc

• Influenced by history, economics, social

and cultural factors

Development is:

• 3 Types of Contextual Influences

• Normative age-graded - Similar for individuals in a particular age groups

• Ex: Puberty and menopause

• Normative history-graded - generational

• Ex: Civil Rights Movement, Great Depression, Wars

• No normative life events - Unusual occurrences that impact lives

• Death of a child, winning a lottery

Development is:

• A Co-Construction of Biology, Culture, and the

Individual factors working together

• Each shapes each other

Periods of Development

• A time frame in a person's life that is characterized by certain features.

• 8 period sequence

• Prenatal- Conception to birth

• Infancy- birth to 24 months

• Early childhood- 3-5 years

• Middle and late childhood-6 to 10/11 years

All are Important

The Nature of Development

• Nature and Nurture

• Nature- biological inheritance

• Nurture-environmental experiences

The Nature of Development

• Stability and Change

• Stability- we become older renditions of

early experiences

The Nature of Development

• Continuity and discontinuity

• Continuity - development involves gradual

cumulative changes

• Discontinuity - development involves

distinct stages

Scientific Method

• Four step process

1 Conceptualize a process of problem to be

studied

2 Collect research information (data)

3 Analyze the data

4 Draw conclusions

In Formulating a Program

(step 1)

• Researchers draw on a theories and develop

hypotheses

• Theory-An interrelated, coherent set of

ideas that helps to explain phenomena and facilitate predictions

• Hypotheses- Specific assumptions and

predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy

Psychoanalytic Orientations to Development

• Development is primarily unconscious

• Emotive

• Deep inner workings of the mind

• Symbolic meanings of behavior

• Early experienced with parents shape development

Psychoanalytic Orientations to Development

• Freud's Psychosexual Stages - "if the need for

pleasure at any stage is either under gratified or over gratified, an individual may become fixated, at that stage of development.

• Oral - pleasure is centered on the mouth

• Anal- pleasure focuses on the anus

• Phallic- pleasure focuses on the genitals

• Latency-develops social and intellectual skills

• Genital- sexual pleasure

Psychoanalytic Orientations to Development

• Erikson's 8 Psychosocial stages of human

development

• Each stage consists of a unique

developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis (turning point) that must be resolved

• The more successful an individual resolves

each crisis, the healthier development will

be

• Early and later experiences

Psychoanalytic Orientations to Development

Cognitive Orientations to

Development

thoughts)

• Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory

• Vygotsky's Sociocultural Cognitive Theory

• Information-processing Theory

Cognitive Orientations to

Development

(understanding the world)

experiences with physical actions (Birth to 2 years)

symbolic thinking (2-7 years)

reason logically (7 to 11)

idealistic and logical (11-15)

Cognitive Orientations to

Development

• Vygotsky's Sociocultural Cognitive Theory

• How culture and social interaction guide

cognitive development

• Learning to use language, math, memory

• Childs social interactions with adults and

peers

Cognitive Orientations to

Development

• Information-Processing Theory

• Individuals manipulate information,

monitor it, and strategize about it

• Memory and thinking are central

• Individuals develop a gradually increasing

capacity for processing information, which allow them to acquire increasingly complete knowledge and skills

Behavioral and Social Cognitive Orientations to

Development

• We can study only what can be directly

observed and measured

• Development is observable behavior that

can be learned through experience with the environment

• Skinner's Operant Conditioning

• Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory

Behavioral and Social

Cognitive Orientations to

Development

• Skinner's Operant Conditioning - The

consequences of a behavior produce

changes in the probability of the

behavior's occurrence

development (not thoughts and feelings)

Behavioral and Social

Cognitive Orientations to

Development

• Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory-

Behavior, environment, and cognition are the key factors in development

• Observed learning is key

• People acquire a wide range of behaviors,

thoughts, and feelings through observing others' behavior

Ethological Orientations

to Development

• Behavior is strongly influenced by

biology, is tied to evolution, and characterized by critical or sensitive periods

• Presence or absence of certain

experiences has a long-lasting influence

on individuals

• Imprinting -the rapid innate learning that

involves attachment to the first moving object

Ecological Orientations to

Development

environmental systems

individual does not have an active role and the individuals contexts

traditions over the life course, as well as sociobiological circumstances

Eclectic Orientations to

Development

• Does not follow any one theoretical

approach but rather selects from each

theory whatever is considered its best

features