Psyc 3310 - Ch.1

• Development: the pattern of movement/change that begins at conception and continues through the human life span

  • Most development includes growth, but also includes decline (dying).
• Development is Multidimensional - Has biological, cognitive and socioemotional dimensions
• Development is Multidirectional - Throughout life, some dimensions or components of a dimension expand and others shrink
• Plasticity: the capacity for change
• We possess less capacity for change as we grow older True or False?

  True
• Developmental Science is Multidisciplinary - psychologist, sociologist, anthropologists, etc
• Development is Contextual - All development occurs within a context, or setting
• Normative Age Graded Influences - Similar for individuals in a particular age group
• Normative History Graded Influences - Common to people of a particular generation because of historical circumstances
• Non normative Influence - Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on the lives of individual people
• Baltes & Colleagues (2006) - the mastery of life often involves conflicts and competition among three goals of human development: growth, maintenance and regulation of loss
• Development involves Growth, Maintenance and Regulation of Loss
• Culture: the behavior patterns, beliefs and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation

  
  

  • Results from the interaction of people over many years
  • Regardless of size, the group’s culture influences the behavior of its member
• Cross-Cultural Studies: compare aspects of two or more cultures

  • Comparison provides information about the degree to which development is similar (or universal) across cultures, or is instead culture-specific
• Ethnicity: rooted in cultural heritage, nationality, race, religion and language

  • Diversity exists within each ethnic group
  • Special concern > discrimination/prejudice experienced by ethnic minority children
• Socioeconomic Status: a person’s position within society based on occupational, educational and economic characteristic

  
  

  • Implies certain inequalities
  • Differences in ability to control resources/to participate in society’s rewards produce unequal opportunities
• Gender: the characteristics of people as males and females

  • Few aspects of our development are more central to our identity/social relationships than gender
• Social Policy: a government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens

  • Shaped by values, economics, and politics
  • Life-span researchers are increasingly undertaking studies that they hope will lead to effective social policy
  • Children who grow up in poverty represent a special concern
  • Ethnic minority children are more likely to experience persistent poverty over many years/live in isolated poor neighborhoods
• Biological Processes - Produce changes in an individual’s physical nature
• Cognitive Processes - Changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence and language
• Socio-emotional process - Changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotion and changes in personality
• an infant’s smile in response to a parent’s touch. Is an example of which developmental process?

  Socio-emotional
• watching a colorful mobile swinging above the crib involves cognitive processes. Which developmental process is this?

  Cognitive process
• genes inherited from parents, the development of the brain, nutrition etc. Which developmental process is this?

  Biological Process
• Cohort effects are important in studies concerned with age because they can powerfully affect the dependent measures
• Psychoanalytic theory - Development is largely unconscious and coloured by emotion
• Who created the Psychoanalytic theory?

  Sigmund Freud
• Convinced that patient’s problems were the result of early life experiences > stages of psychosexual development - Psychoanalytic Theory

  
  

  Criticism: more emphasis on cultural experience

  
• Psychosocial Theory - Primary motivation for human behaviour is social in nature

  • Developmental changes occur throughout the life span, rather than during the first five years of life
• Who created the Psychosocial Theory?

  Erik Erikson
• Psychosocial Theory

  • Emphasized the importance of both early and later experiences
  • The more successfully an individual resolves each crisis > healthier development will be

  Criticisms - Lack of scientific support, too much emphasis on sexual underpinnings, and an image of people that is too negative

  
• Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory - Children go through four stages of cognitive development as they actively construct their understanding of the world
• What is the order of stage in Piagets theory?

  Sensormotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, Formal Operational
• Stages of Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic theory

  Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital
• Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive Theory - cognitive development involves learning to use the inventions of society (i.e. language, mathematical systems, and memory strategies)
• Information Processing Theory - Emphasizes that individuals manipulate information, monitor it and strategize about it
• Micro genetic method - to obtain detailed information about processing mechanisms as they are occurring from moment to moment
• Skinner’s Operant Conditioning - A behaviour followed by a rewarding stimulus is more likely to recur, whereas a behaviour followed by a punishing stimulus is less likely to recur
• Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory - emphasizes that cognitive processes have important links with the environment/behavior