Dev Psych

• Human Development


  The scientific study of the systematic processes of change and stability in people
• Life-Span Development

  The concept of human development as a lifelong process, which can be studied scientifically
• Life-Span Perspective


  • Views development as lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual, and as a process that involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss
• Domains of Development


  • Physical Development
  • Cognitive Development
  • Psychosocial Development
• Social Construction


  A concept or practice that is an invention of a particular culture or society
• Stability-Change Issue


  The degree to which early traits and characteristics persist through life or change
• Continuity-Discontinuity


  The degree to which development involves either gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity)
• Maturation

  The unfolding of natural sequence of physical change and behavior patterns
• Behavioral Genetics


  The scientific study of the extent to which genetic and environmental differences among people and animals are responsible for differences in their traits
• Heritability


  The proportion of all the variability in the trait within a large sample of people that can be linked to genetic differences among those individuals
• Gregor Mendel studied the heredity in plants
• Selective Breeding


  Involves attempting to breed animals for a particular trait to determine whether the trait is heritable
• Genes contribute to such attributes as activity level, emotionality, aggressiveness, and sex drive in rats, mice, and chickens
• Methods to study genetic influence

  • Twin Studies
  • Adoption Studies
  • Family Studies
• Concordance Rate


  The percentage of pairs of people studied in which if one member of a pair displays the trait, the other does too
• Genes turn on and off in patterned ways throughout the lifespan (Epigenetics)
• Gene-Environment Interaction


  The effects of genes depend on what kind of environment we experience, and how we respond to the environment depends on what genes we have
• Intelligence is strongly influenced by heredity, but it is also affected by parental stimulation, education, peer influence, and others
• Factors that contribute to individual differences in emotionality

  • Genes
  • Shared Environmental Influences
  • Nonshared Environmental Influences
• Types of Gene-Environment Correlations

  • Passive Gene-Environment
  • Evocative Gene-Environment
  • Active Gene-Environment
• Heredity


  Inborn traits and characteristics provided by the child's parents (Nature)
• Environment


  Influences stems from the outside body, starting from conception throughout life (Nurture)
• Individual Differences


  People differ in gender, height, weight, and body build; in health and energy level, etc.
• Context of Development


  • Family
  • Socioeconomic Status
  • Culture
  • Race
  • Gender
  • History
• Ethnic Gloss


  Overgeneralization that obscures or blurs variations
• Normative Influences


  • Normative Age-Graded Influences
  • Normative History-Graded Influences
• Historical Generation


  Group of people who experience the event at a formative time in their lives
• Age Cohort

  Group of people born at about the same time
• Nonnormative


  Unusual events that have major impact on individual lives because they disturb the expected sequence of the life cycle
• Imprinting


  Instinctively follow the first moving object they see
• Critical Period


  Specific time when a given event, or its absence, has a specific impact on development
• Sensitive Periods


  When developing person is especially responsive to certain kind of experience
• Plasticity


  Modifiability of performance
• Theory


  Set of logically related concepts or statements that seek to describe and explain development and to predict the kinds of behavior that might occur under certain conditions
• Hypothesis

  Explanations or predications that can be tested by further research
• John Locke


  Tabula Rasa
• Jean Jacques Rousseau


  Children are born "noble savages" who develop according to their own positive natural tendencies if not corrupted by society
• Mechanistic Model


  People are like machines that react to environmental input
• Organismic Model


  People as active, growing organisms that set their own development in motion; initiate events, and do not just react
• Continuous


  Gradual and incremental