DEVPSYCH UNIT 1-2

• Developmental psychology  

  - Branch of psychology that studies intraindividual changes and interindividual changes within these intraindividual change.- Age-related changes in behavior.- Study developmental change covering the life span from conception to death.- One area of psychology that explains the course of physical, social, emotional, moral and intellectual development over a person’s life span.- A chronology of different aspects of human development of a lifelong process from conception to death.
• Development

  - A progressive series of changes that occur as a result of maturation and experience.

  - The progressive series of changes of an orderly and coherent type toward the goal of maturity.

  - Qualitative changes.
• Gerontology

  - The science of aging.

  - Geron:old man

  - Ology:study of
• Geriatrics

  - Branch of medicine concerned with the diseases of old age.
• FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT

  1. Maturation – the development or unfolding of traits potentially present in the individual considering his hereditary endowment.
• FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT

  2. Learning – is the result of activities or day-to-day experiences on the person himself.- development that comes from exercise and effort on the individual’s part.
• FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT

  1. Maturation – the development or unfolding of traits potentially present in the individual considering his hereditary endowment.

  - the unfolding of individual’s inherent traits.
• Rate of development

  1. Rapid development – is observed during the prenatal period and continues throughout babyhood up to the first six years.
• Rate of development

  2. Slow development – starts from six years to adolescence.
• Prenatal period - conception to birth
• Infancy - birth to the end of second week
• Babyhood - end of the second week to the end of second year
• Early childhood - two to six years
• Late childhood - six to ten or twelve years
• Puberty or preadolescence - ten or twelve to thirteen or fourteen years
• Adolescence - thirteen or fourteen to eighteen years
• Early adulthood - eighteen to forty years
• Middle adulthood - forty to sixty years
• 10. Late adulthood - sixty years onwards
• Traditional beliefs about people of all ages.
• Late adulthood 

  - Adjusting to decreasing physical strength and health

  - Adjusting to retirement and reduced income

  - Adjusting to death of a spouse

  -Establishing an explicit affiliation with members of one’s age group -Establishing satisfactory physical living arrangements

  - Adapting to social roles in a flexible way
• Middle adulthood- Achieving adult civic and social responsibility- Assisting teenage children to become responsible and happy adults- Developing adult leisure-time activities- Relating oneself to one’s espouse as a person- Accepting and adjusting to the physiological changes of middle age- Reaching and maintaining satisfactory performance in one’s occupational  career- Adjusting to aging parents
•  Early adulthood- Getting started in an occupation- Selecting a mate- Learning to live with a marriage partner- Starting a family- Rearing  children- Managing a home- Taking on civic responsibility- Finding a congenial social grroup
• Adolescence- Achieving new and more mature relations with age-mates of both sexes- Achieving a masculine or feminine social roles- Accepting one’s physique and using one’s body effectively- Desiring, accepting and achieving socially responsible behavior- Achieving emotional independence from parents and other adults- Preparing for an economic career- Preparing for marriage and family life- Acquiring a set of values and an ethical system as a guide to behavior
• Late childhood- Learning physical skills necessary for ordinary games- Building a wholesome attitude toward oneself as a growing organism- Learning to get along with age-mates- Beginning to develop appropriate masculine of feminine social roles- Developing fundamental skills in reading, writing and calculating- Developing concepts necessary for everyday living- Developing a conscience, a sense of morality and a scale of values- Developing attitudes toward social groups and institutions- Achieving personal independence
• Babyhood and early childhood- Learning to take solid foods- Learning to walk- Learning to talk- Learning to control the elimination fo the body wastes- Learning sex differences and sexual modesty - Getting ready to read - Learning to distinguish right and wrong and beginning to develop a conscience
• Havighurst’s developmental task during the life span
• Developmental tasks - a task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of the individual.
• ​Purpose:

  - Guidelines. —Motivates individual. - Shows individuals what lies ahead
• Law of developmental direction
• Cephalocaudal law - development spreads over the body from head to foot.
• Proximodistal law - development spreads outward from the central axis of the body to the extremities.
• Prenatal 

  - Begins at conception and ends at birth- Average of 270 to 280 days or nine months
• 1. Hereditary endowment

  2. Favorable and unfavorable conditions in the mothers’ womb

  3. The sex of the newly created individual is fixed

  4. Proportionally greater growth and development take place

  5. A time of many hazards, physical and psychological

  6. A time when significant people form attitudes
• Genes

  the true carriers of heredity

  3000 genes/chromosome

  • x and y
• Maturation - the process of chromosome reduction through cell division
• Ovulation - the process of escape of one mature ovum during the menstrual cycle
• Fertilization - occurs at the time of conception. Takes place within twelve to thirty six hours. It results from the union of a sperm cell with an egg cell.

   
• Preliminary stages

  Male - maturation and fertilization

  Female - maturation, ovulation and fertilization
• Importance of conception/prenatal period

  1. Hereditary endowment

  2. Sex

  3. Number of offspring

  4. Ordinal position