DEVPSYCH

• Human development


  The scientific study of the systematic processes of change and stability in people from conception through maturity
• Developmental scientists (or developmentalists)


  • Individuals engaged in the professional study of human development
• Understanding of adult development can help people understand and deal with life transitions
• Life-span development


  The concept of human development as a lifelong process, which can be studied scientifically
• Life-span development is from "womb to tomb", comprising the entire human life span from conception to death
• Events such as the timing of parenthood, maternal employment, and marital satisfaction are now also studied as part of developmental psychology
• Goals of the field of human development

  • Description
  • Explanation
  • Prediction
  • Intervention
• Domains of development studied by developmental scientists

  • Physical
  • Cognitive
  • Psychosocial
• Physical development


  Growth of the body and brain, sensory capacities, motor skills, and health
• Cognitive development


  Learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity
• Psychosocial development


  Emotions, personality, and social relationships
• Periods of the life span

  A social construction - a concept or practice that is an invention of a particular culture or society
• There is no objectively definable moment when a child becomes an adult or a young person becomes old
• By the 1920s, the teenage years became a distinct period of development with the establishment of comprehensive high schools
• Individual differences


  Differences in characteristics, influences, or developmental outcomes
• Developmental trajectory


  An individual path to follow
• Influences on development


  • Heredity
  • Environment
  • Maturation
• Heredity


  Inborn traits or characteristics inherited from the biological parents
• Environment


  Totality of nonhereditary, or experiential, influences on development
• Maturation


  Unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes
• Contexts of development


  The social and historical context in which human beings develop
• Family contexts


  • Nuclear family
  • Extended family
• Nuclear family


  Two-generational kinship, economic, and household unit consisting of one or two parents and their biological children, adopted children, or stepchildren
• Extended family


  Multigenerational kinship network of parents, children, and other relatives, sometimes living together in an extended-family household
• Socioeconomic status (SES)


  Combination of economic and social factors describing an individual or family, including income, education, and occupation
• Risk factors


  Conditions that increase the likelihood of a negative developmental outcome
• Culture


  A society's or group's total way of life, including customs, traditions, beliefs, values, language, and physical products— all learned behavior, passed on from parents to children
• Ethnic group


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


  Overgeneralization about an ethnic or cultural group that obscures differences within the group
• The historical context is an important part of the study of development
• Normative influences


  • Normative age-graded influences
  • Normative history-graded influences
• Normative age-graded influences


  Highly similar for people in a particular age group
• Normative history-graded influences


  Significant events (such as the Great Depression or World War II) that shape the behavior and attitudes of a historical generation
• Historical generation


  A group of people strongly influenced by a major historical event during their formative period
• Cohort


  A group of people born at about the same time
• Nonnormative influences


  Characteristic of an unusual event that happens to a particular person or a typical event that happens at an unusual time of life
• 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
• Critical period


  Specific time when a given event or its absence has a specific impact on development
• Plasticity


  Range of modifiability of performance
• Sensitive periods


  Times in development when a person is particularly open to certain kinds of experiences