human development ¤ Studying change and constancy throughout the lifespan.
Basic Issues in Lifespan ¤ Continuous or discontinuous? ¤ One course of development or many? ¤ Nature or nurture?
The Lifespan Perspective: A Balanced Point of View ¤ Development as lifelong. ¤ Development as multidimensional and multidirectional. ¤ Development as plastic. ¤ Development as embedded in multiple context: ¤ age-graded influences ¤ history-graded influences ¤ nonnormative influences
Periods of Development Prenatal
Conception to birth
Infancy and toddlerhood
Birth to 2 years
Early childhood
2 to 6 years
Middle childhood
6 to 11 years
Adolescence
11 to 18 years
Early adulthood
18 to 40 years
Middle adulthood
40 to 65 years
Late adulthood
65 years to death
Scientific Beginnings ¤ Scientific study of human development dates back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. ¤ Charles Darwin (1809-1882) ¤ Forefather of scientific child study. ¤ Natural selection and survival of the fittest.
The Term Paper on Development Through the Lifespan
... important factors that are likely to influence development. BENEFITS: Criteria for mental health, ... our full potentials. The essence of lifespan development is in how we build ... (1965), who conducted a biographical study of over 300 major artists and ... regarding the differences between an artist’s early productions and those later in life ... 22, halfway through his first year of graduate school and the ...
¤ The normative period ¤ G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924) à founder of the child study movement and Arnold Gesell (1880-1961).
¤ Both were known because of their normative approach to development.
Scientific Beginnings (cont.) ¤ The mental testing movement ¤ Alfred Binet (1857-1911) à created an intelligence test which sparked interest in individual differences.
Mid-Twentieth Century Theories ¤ In the mid-twentieth century, human development expanded into a legitimate discipline. As it attracted increasing interest, a variety of theories emerged, each of which still has followers today: ¤ The psychoanalytic perspective ¤ People move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations. The way these conflicts are resolved determines the person’s ability to learn, to get along with others, and to cope with anxiety.
Mid-Twentieth Century Theories (cont.) ¤ The psychoanalytic perspective (cont.) ¤ Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) à parts of personality and psychosexual development. ¤ Erik Erikson (1902-1994) à psychosocial development.
¤ Behaviorism ¤ An approach that views directly observable events as the appropriate focus of study. ¤ Traditional behaviorism: John B. Watson (1878-1958) à classical conditioning and B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) à operant conditioning
Freud s Three Parts of the Personality n
Id
n n n
Ego
n n n
Superego
n
largest portion of the mind unconscious, present at birth source of biological needs/desires conscious, rational part of mind emerges in early infancy redirects id impulses acceptably the conscience develops from ages 3 to 6 from interactions with caregivers
Erikson s Psychosocial Stages Basic trust vs. mistrust
Birth to 1 year
Autonomy vs. shame/doubt
1–3 years
Initiative vs. guilt
3–6 years
Industry vs. inferiority
6–11 years
Identity vs. role confusion
Adolescence
Intimacy vs. isolation
Early adulthood
The Essay on Theories of Cognitive Development by Piaget and Vygotsky
Jean Piaget’s and Lev Semionovich Vygotsky’s theories on cognitive development both play a significant role in addressing the intellectual growth of children (Lain, 2006). Psychologists and educators alike, rely on these theories in constructing the standards by which children are being brought up and taught today. Essentially, cognitive development is the process by which our intellectual ability ...
Generativity vs. stagnation
Middle adulthood
Integrity vs. despair
Late adulthood
Behaviorism and Social Learning Classical conditioning
Stimulus–response
Operant conditioning
Reinforcers and punishments
Social learning
Modeling
Mid-Twentieth Century Theories (cont.) ¤ Behaviorism (cont.) ¤ Social learning theory: proposed by Albert Bandura à emphasized on modeling, also known as imitation or observational learning.
¤ Cognitive-developmental theory ¤ Inspired by Jean Piaget à children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world: ¤ Sensorimotor – birth to 2 yrs. ¤ Preoperational – 2 to 7 yrs. ¤ Concrete operational – 7 to 11 yrs. ¤ Formal operational – 11 yrs. onwards
Recent Theoretical Perspectives ¤ Information processing ¤ An approach that views the human mind as a symbolmanipulating system through which information flows.
¤ Ethology and evolutionary developmental psychology ¤ Ethology is concerned with the adaptive or survival, value of behavior and its evolutionary history. ¤ Evolutionary seeks to understand the adaptive value of specieswide cognitive, emotional, and social competencies as those competencies change with age.
Recent Theoretical Perspectives (cont.) ¤ Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory ¤ It focuses on how culture – the values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social group – is transmitted to the next generations. ¤ Social interaction – cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society – is necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that made up a community’s culture.
Recent Theoretical Perspectives (cont.) ¤ Ecological systems theory ¤ Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) views the person as developing within a complex system of relations affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment: ¤ Macrosystem ¤ Exosystem ¤ Mesosystem ¤ Microsystem
Studying Development ¤ Common research methods: ¤ Systematic observation à naturalistic and structured observations ¤ Self reports à clinical and structured interviews ¤ Clinical, or case study method ¤ Methods for studying culture à ethnography
Studying Development (cont.) ¤ General research designs: ¤ Correlational design à correlation coefficient ¤ Experimental design à IV/DV ¤ Modified experimental designs à field experiment/quasi
The Essay on Social Studies 3
Social studies is defined by the Board of Director of the National Council for the social studies as, the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence. Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, ...
¤ Designs for studying development: ¤ Longitudinal design à same group at different times ¤ Cross-sectional design à different groups at same time ¤ Sequential designs à mixed
