DevPsych Intro to the Course

• Human development


  The process of growth and change that takes place between birth and maturity [until death]
• Developmental psychology


  The scientific study of age-related changes throughout the human life span
• Developmental psychology


  • Examines how and why people change over time
  • Examines how and why people are both unique and similar to each other
  • Multidisciplinary science based on theories and researches
• Developmental psychology


  Recognizes humans of all societies and cultures as beings who are "in process," or constantly growing and changing
• Developmental psychology


  Identifies the biological, psychological, and social aspects that interact to influence the growing human life-span process
• Norm


  A standard based upon the average abilities or performances of children of a specified age
• Norms are averages of growth, development, work-rate or various other abilities observed across populations
• The history of developmental psychology

  1. Ancient times to Middle Ages - children were seen as inherently evil and discipline was harsh

  2. Modern viewpoints on children - John Locke (tabula rasa) and Jean-Jaques Rousseau (children are inherently good, society is bad) but children are still seen as "little adults"

  3. 1800's [industrial revolution] - saw different stages of development according to age (i.e. infancy, childhood, adulthood, old age)

  4. Beginning with Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and Jean Piaget (1896–1980), the early focus of developmental psychology was on child development, or the maturation of children

  5. 1950's - Stanley Hall said that there is between a childhood and adulthood, the stage called adolescence

  6. Within the last 25 years, developmentalists expanded their focus to include the study of the physical, motor, cognitive, intellectual, emotional, personality, social, and moral changes that occur throughout all stages of the life span
• Assumptions within developmental psychology

  • Development is lifelong
  • Development is multidimensional
  • Development is multidirectional
  • Development is fluid
  • Development is embedded in history
  • Development is multidisciplinary
  • Development is contextual
• Life-span perspective


  An approach to human development which examines changes at all ages, through adolescence and adulthood, to late adulthood, up until death
• The life-span perspective is one of the basic approaches of current developmental psychology
• Many earlier approaches strongly prioritized the first six years of life as a blueprint that would determine the pattern and course of an individual's life, most contemporary approaches in developmental psychology—including the life-span perspective—examine the entire life-span
• Stability versus change


  Earlier psychological theory supposed that personality was fundamentally shaped during the early childhood years and remained, in relative terms, the same thereafter
• Children are no longer seen as passive recipients of environmental influences, but as active protagonists in influencing and moderating these environmental factors
• Nature versus nurture


  • Heredity - inborn characteristics which we inherit through our genes from our parents
  • Nativism - the viewpoint that our characteristics and abilities are chiefly determined by our inborn characteristics (often also referred to as genetic determinism)
  • Environmental determinism - the view that environmental factors exert the greatest influence on human development
• Continuity versus discontinuity


  • Quantitative changes - changes in degree or amount, e.g. changes in height or weight
  • Qualitative changes - changes in kind, structure or organization, which make a fundamental difference to the individual, e.g. the preverbal infant is qualitatively different to the toddler who can speak
• Ontogeny and phylogeny


  • Phylogeny - application of developmental psychology to the understanding of the development of a wider group of people or 'species'
  • Ontogeny - application of developmental psychology to the understanding of the individual development of the specific child or person
• Critical period


  A specific time during development when a given event has its greatest effect
• Readiness


  The point at which an individual can be said to have matured sufficiently to benefit from a particular learning experience
• Normative influences


  Events that occur in a similar manner for most people in a given group, e.g. physical changes such as puberty or menopause
• Non-normative influences


  Unusual events that have a significant impact on an individual's life
• The biopsychosocial model/framework is the interaction of biological, psychological, and social aspects of developmental psychology
• The reductionistic perspective reduces complex phenomenon or events to a single cause, in contrast to the biopsychosocial perspective
• Contexts for development


  • Biological context: health and physical status
  • Social context: family network, friends, peers and colleagues
  • Cultural context: the dominant culture in which the subject grows up
  • Historical context: the times in which the subject grows up
  • Economic context: the subject's financial and work environment
  • Intellectual context: the subject's ability to deal with new challenges
• The case study of John, a depressed adolescent male, illustrates the biopsychosocial model/framework
• Five basic criticisms of developmental psychology

  • Developmental psychology as a means of social regulation and control
  • The 'normalizing' effects of developmental psychology
  • The 'colonialism' of normalization
  • The 'blameworthy mother'
  • An isolated focus on the individual child
• Psychoanalytic approaches


  • Observe the significance of childhood in the development of personality
  • Childhood is seen as the developmental period when the child is most vulnerable to the influences of social, cultural and family demands
  • It is also the time when the human organism is still in its most formative stage and is developing ways of coping with both external and internal demands
  • Propose that it is during childhood that the relationship between culture and physiology is at its most significant
• Cognitive development


  Cognition is a collective term for the processes involved in acquiring, organizing, manipulating and using knowledge