Chapter 1

• Characteristics of Lifespan development:

  1. Biological
  2. cognitive
  3. social
  4. emotional
  5. multidirectional
• Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological theory: how parents experience at work can indirectly affect children’s well being.
• Three domains of development:

  1. Physical/biological
  2. Cognitive
  3. Emotional and social
• Chronological age: age counted from birth.
• Biological age: Biomarkers, vital organs
• Psychological age: adaptive capacities
• Social age: connectedness with others and the social roles adopted.
• Nature vs. Nurture: The idea that some aspects of our behavior are influenced by our genes and some are influenced by our environment.
• Plasticity: the degree and conditions where development is open to change and intervention.
• Critical period: specific environment or biological events must occur for development to proceed normally.
• Sensitive period: lack of a particular experience has an effect that if it was experienced at another time.
• Continuity-discontinuity issue: The extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).
• Locke

  • rejected the widespread belief that there are vast innate differences among people
  • education is important in shaping people
• Rousseau

  • People develop in stages
  • Negative social influences
• 5 stages of psychosexual development:

  1. oral stage (Infant
  2. Anal (2-3)
  3. Phallic (4-6)
  4. Latency (6-12)
  5. Genital (Puberty+)
• Erikson’s 8 stages of psychosocial development:

  • trust vs. mistrust (infancy)
  • autonomy vs. shame/doubt (toddlerhood, 1-3)
  • Initiative vs. guilt (3-5)
  • industry vs. Inferiority (6-puberty)
  • Identity vs. role confusion (adolescence, 10-20)
  • intimacy vs. isolation (Young Adulthood)
  • Generatively vs. Self absorption and stagnation (Adulthood)
  • Ego integrity vs. despair (Old age)
• Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive development:

  • sensorimotor stage
  • preoperational stage
  • Concrete operational stage
  • formal operational stage
• Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development is that children develop through social interactions with others.
• information-processing theory: individuals develop a gradually increasing capacity for processing information
• naturalistic observation:

  • pros: rich description of behaviour
  • cons: lack control, observer bias, no information about how people feel and think
• Structured observation:

  • Pros: control
  • cons: observer bias, no information about how people think or feel
• Clinical Interview 

  • Flexible, conversational style, unstructured
  • Pros: large amount of information 
  • Cons: Social desirability, verbal demands, lack of standardization 
• Structured Interview/ Questionnaires 

  • Same set of questions asked the same way
  • Pros: easy to score, standardization 
  • Cons: social desirability, “shallow’ information
• Standardized and unstandardized tests 

  • Type of self-report 
  • Pros: controlled, allow comparison 
  • Cons: competence vs. Performance 
• Psychophysiological methods 

  • Autonomic measures (heart rate, galvanic skin response)
  • Stress measure (cortisol
  • Brain measure (EEG, ERP, fMRI) 
  • Pros: aspect of functioning captured 
  • Cons: can’t always explain psychological phenomena, interpretation 
• Clinical or case study 

  • In-depth analysis of single case 
  • Pros: rare phenomena study, new ideas and hypothesis 
  • Cons: generalizability (eternal facility), researcher bias, poor method for determining cause and effect 
• Correlational research: A type of research that examines the relationship between two or more variables.
• experimental research:
• longitudinal design: the same individuals are studied over a period of time.
• Cohort effect: group of people who share similar experience as a result of an event or being born in a certain time.
• Normative age-graded influences: Biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group
• Normative history-graded influences: biological and environmental influences that are associated with history. These influences are common to people of a particular generation.
• Normative life influences: unusual occurrences that have a major impact on a person’s life. The occurrence pattern, and sequence of these events are not applicable to many individuals.
• Qualitative change: Fundamental transformation in a holds abilities over time
• Quantitative: increase in the ability a child already has