(DEV PSYCH) module 1: the study of human development

• Development


  The pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the life span, involving growth, decline, aging, and dying
• Original Sin


  The view that children were basically bad and born into the world as evil beings
• Tabula Rasa


  The idea, proposed by John Locke, that children are like a “blank tablet”
• Innate Goodness


  The idea, presented by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that children are inherently good
• Context


  The setting in which development occurs, influenced by historical, economic, social, and cultural factors
• Culture


  Behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group passed on from generation to generation
• Cross-cultural studies


  Comparisons of one culture with one or more other cultures to understand similarities and differences in development
• Socioeconomic status (SES)


  Grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics
• Gender


  Psychological and sociocultural dimensions of being female or male
• Social Policy


  A national government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens
• Generational Inequity


  A social policy concern where an aging society is being unfair to its younger members
• Human Development


  Scientific study of processes of change and stability throughout the human life span
• Life-Span Development


  Concept of human development as a lifelong process, studied scientifically, including positive and negative aspects
• Domains of Development


  • Physical Development
  • Cognitive Development
  • Psychosocial Development
• Conceptions of Age: Chronological Age is the number of years since birth, Biological Age is the biological health, Psychological Age is adaptive capacities compared to peers, Social Age is related to social roles and expectations
• Periods of Development


  • Prenatal
  • Infancy
  • Early Childhood
  • Middle and Late Childhood
  • Adolescence
  • Early Adulthood
  • Middle Adulthood
• Adolescence


  • Dramatic gains in height and weight, changes in body contour, development of sexual characteristics such as enlargement of the breasts, development of pubic and facial hair, and deepening of the voice
• Early Adulthood


  Personal and economic independence, career development, selecting a mate, starting a family, rearing children
• Middle Adulthood


  Expanding personal and social involvement and responsibility, assisting the next generation in becoming competent, mature individuals, maintaining satisfaction in a career
• Late Adulthood


  Adjustment to decreasing strength and health, life review, retirement, or new social roles
• Stages of Late Adulthood


  • The young old: 65-84
  • The oldest old: 85 and older
• Contexts of Development - Family

  1. Nuclear family: two-generational kinship, economic, and household unit consisting of one or two parents and their biological children, adopted children, or stepchildren

  2. Extended family: multigenerational kinship network of parents, children, and other relatives, sometimes living together in an extended-family household
• Contexts of Development - Socioeconomic Status and Neighborhood

  1. Socioeconomic status (SES): combination of economic and social factors describing an individual or family, including income, education, and occupation

  2. Risk Factors: conditions that increase the likelihood of a negative developmental outcome
• Contexts of Development - Culture and Race/Ethnicity

  1. Culture: a society’s or group’s total way of life, including customs, traditions, beliefs, values, language, and physical products—all learned behaviour, passed on from parents to children

  2. Ethnic group: A group united by ancestry, race, religion, language, or national origins, which contribute to a sense of shared identity

  3. Ethnic gloss: overgeneralization about an ethnic or cultural group that obscures differences within the group
• Normative and Nonnormative Influences

  1. Normative: characteristic of an event that occurs in a similar way for most people in a group

  2. Normative age-graded influences: highly similar for people in a particular age

  3. Normative history-graded influences: significant events that shape the behaviour and attitudes of a historical generation

  4. Historical Generation: a group of people strongly influenced by a major historical event during their formative period

  5. Cohort: a group of people born at the same time

  6. Nonnormative: characteristic of an unusual event that happens to a particular person or a typical event that happens at an unusual time of life
• Timing of Influences: Critical or Sensitive Periods


  1. Imprinting: instinctive form of learning in which, during a critical period in early development, a young animal forms an attachment to the first moving object it sees, usually the mother

  2. Critical Period: specific time when a given event or its absence has a specific impact on development

  3. Plasticity: range of modifiability of performance

  4. Sensitive Periods: times in development when a person is particularly open to certain kinds of experiences
• Paul P. Baltes (1936-2006): 'Development is lifelong<|>Development is multidimensional<|>Development is multidirectional'
• Genetics and the environment influence human development
• The continuity-discontinuity issue concerns whether the same explanations (continuity) or different explanations (discontinuity) must be used to explain changes in people over time
• Continuity


  Emphasizes quantitative change
• Discontinuity


  Emphasizes qualitative change
• Quantitative change


  Changes in number or amount, gradual and incremental, measuring fundamentally the same thing over time
• Qualitative change


  Discontinuous changes in kind, structure, or organization, fundamentally different from previous stages
• Reactive development


  Conceptualizes the developing child as a hungry sponge that soaks up experiences and is shaped by this input over time
• Active development


  People create experiences for themselves and are motivated to learn about the world around them
• Mechanistic model


  Views human development as a series of predictable responses to stimuli
• Organismic model


  Views human development as internally initiated by an active organism and occurring in a sequence of qualitatively different stages
• Psychosexual development is a theoretical perspective that views human development as shaped by unconscious forces that motivate human behaviour
• Psychosocial development, in Erikson’s eight-stage theory, is the socially and culturally influenced process of development of the ego, or self