Life span

1. Chapter 1
Development Across the
Lifespan
An Introduction to
Lifespan Development

2. What is lifespan development??
• The field of study that examines the
patterns of growth, change, and stability
in behavior that occur throughout the
entire human life span!
Overall, lifespan developmentalists believe
several things…

3. • That the study of lifespan development should
focus on human development
– Principals that are universal to development
– Cultural, racial, ethnic differences in
development
– The development of individual traits and
characteristics
• That development is a lifelong, continuing process
• That development occurs through change and
growth in addition to stability, consistency, and
continuity

4. Developmentalists often focus on
different topics…
• Physical Development
– The body’s physical makeup, including
the brain, nervous system, muscles,
and senses, and the need for food,
drink, and sleep
• Malnutrition, reaction time
“Does the amount of sleep a college
student gets each night affect
stress?”
“How does dealing with a chronic
illness affect a mothers behavior?”

5. (topical areas studied by developmentalists--continued)
• Cognitive Development
– Involves the ways that growth and
change in intellectual capabilities
influence a person’s behavior
• Learning, memory, problem solving
skills, and intelligence across the
lifespan
“Does excessive television viewing
effect intelligence?”
“Can teenagers remember things that
happened when they were toddlers?”

6. (topical areas studied by developmentalists--continued)
• Personality Development
– Involves the ways that the enduring
characteristics that differentiate one
person from another change over the
life span
• Interactions with others, social
relationships, individual qualities
“When does a sense of gender develop
and does it change across the
lifespan?”

7. (topical areas studied by developmentalists--continued)
• Social Development
– Involves the way in which an
individual’s interactions and social
relationships grow, change, and remain
stable over the course of life
“Do people become more isolated in late
adulthood?”

8. The lifespan is usually
divided into broad (albeit
arbitrary) age ranges…

10. An important thing to remember about
these age ranges is that individual
differences exist!
• People mature at different rates and
reach developmental milestones at
different points
• Environmental factors, including
culture, play a role in determining
when events occur
• Age ranges are only averages, and
some people will be above or below

11. The context of development takes a broad perspective…
• The ecological approach (Bronfenbrenner)
– Suggests that different environmental
levels simultaneously influence
individuals
Four major levels:
1) Microsystem (everyday immediate
environment)—home, caregiver/parent,
friends, teachers
2) Mesosystem (connects parts of the
microsystem)—parents linked to kids,
students to teachers, friends to friends,
bosses to employees

12. (Bronfenbrenner’s ecological approach continued)
3) Exosystem (represents broad
influences)—local government, the
community, schools, places of worship,
local media
4) Macrosystem (represents larger
cultural influences)—society in general,
federal government, religious systems,
political thought

15. Advantages to taking an
ecological approach…
• It emphasizes the interconnectedness of the
influences on development
• It illustrates that influences are
multidimensional
• It stresses the importance of broad cultural
factors that affect development

16. Other influences on development
include…
• Each person’s COHORT
– The group of people born at around the same
time and same place
• Normative History-Graded Influences
– Biological and environmental influences
associated with a particular historical
movement
• The Great Depression, The Oklahoma
bombing

17. (Other influences on development continued…)
• Normative Age-Graded Influences
– Biological and environmental influences that are
similar for individuals in a specific age group,
regardless of when or where they were raised
• Puberty, menopause, entry into formal education
• Normative Sociocultural-Graded Influences
– The impact of social and cultural factors present at a
specific time for a specific individual, depending on
unique variables such as ethnicity, social class,
subcultural membership
• Affluent childhood vs. living in poverty

18. (Other influences on development continued…)
• Non-normative Life Events
– Specific, atypical events that occur in a
particular person’s life at a time when
they do not happen to most people
• Cancer as a teen, auto accident

19. Key Issues in Lifespan Development
• Continuous vs. Discontinuous Change
– Continuous change
• Gradual development in which achievements
at one level build on those of previous levels
–Changes achieved are a matter of degree,
not kind
– Discontinuous change
• Development that occurs in distinct steps or
stages
–Changes achieved are qualitatively
different that behavior at earlier stages

20. What do most developmental
psychologists believe on this
issue????
• Some development is continuous, and
some is discontinuous!

21. (Key Issues in Lifespan Development continued)
• The importance of critical periods
– A critical period is a specific time during development
when an event has its greatest consequences
(interference with critical periods thought to interfere
with development, often permanently)
– Language development, exposure to disease
NOW…
The concept of a sensitive period is favored
--A sensitive period is a point in development when
an individual is especially susceptible to certain
stimuli BUT the absence of those stimuli does not
always produce irreversible consequences

22. (Key Issues in Lifespan Development continued)
*A focus on particular periods vs. lifespan
approaches
Early developmentalists focused on “infancy” &
“adolescence.”
Today the entire lifespan is seen as important for
several reasons:
-growth and change are continuous throughout
life
-each age has reciprocal influences on other
ages

23. (Key Issues in Lifespan Development continued)
• Nature vs. Nurture
– Nature refers to inherited traits, abilities, and
capacities
• Includes maturation
– Nurture refers to the environmental influences
that shape behavior
What do developmentalists believe today?
That behavior is the result of nature and nurture
combined

24. Theoretical Perspectives
• Theories are explanations and predictions
that provide a framework for understanding
relationships
We will consider 5 major theoretical perspectives
used in lifespan development:
psychodynamic behavioral cognitive
humanistic evolutionary

25. Psychodynamic Perspective
(Freud, Erikson)
• Based on the view that behavior is
motivated by unconscious/inner forces,
memories, and conflicts (over which a
person has little control or awareness)
• Most closely associated with Freud
– Freud’s (1856-1839) Psychoanalytic Theory
suggests that unconscious forces act to
determine personality and behavior

26. (Psychodynamic Perspective continued)
• According to Freud
– Unconscious is the part of the personality
about which a person is unaware; it is
responsible for much of our everyday
behavior
– A person’s personality has 3 components:
• The ID, the EGO, and the SUPEREGO

27. (Psychoanalytic theory continued)
1) ID
• raw, unorganized, inborn part of personality present at
birth
• represents primitive drives related to hunger, sex,
aggression, irrational impulses
2) EGO
• rational and reasonable part of the personality
• acts as a buffer between the world and the primitive id
• operates on the reality principal
(instinctual energy is restrained to maintain individual
safety and integration into society

28. (Psychoanalytic theory continued)
• Superego
– The aspect of personality that represents a
person’s conscience
– Evaluates right from wrong
– Develops about age 5 or 6
– Learned from parents, teachers, other
significant figures

29. Freud also explored ways in which personality developed
during childhood…
• Psychosexual development theory
--series of stages that children pass through
--pleasure or gratification is focused particular biological
function or body part on a
5 main stages
1) oral (birth to 12-18 months)
2) anal (12-18 months to 3 years)
3) Phallic (3 to 5-6 years)
4) Latency (5-6 years to adolescence)
5) Genital (adolescence to adulthood)

31. In Erikson’s Psychosocial theory…
• Each stage emerges as a fixed pattern that is
similar for all people
• Each stage presents a crisis or conflict that each
individual must address sufficiently at a particular
stage
• No crisis is ever fully resolved, making life
complicated
• UNLIKE FREUD, Erickson believed that
development continued throughout the lifespan

32. Assessing the psychodynamic perspective
• Pros
– Contemporary psychology research
supports the idea that unconscious
memories have an influence on our
behavior
– Erickson’s view that development
continues throughout the lifespan is
highly important and supported by
research

33. Assessing the psychodynamic perspective,
continued
• Cons
– Idea that people pass through stages in
childhood that determine their adult
personality has little research support
– Freud’s research based on small
sample of upper middle class Austrians
– Freud’s theory male focused/sexist
– Both too vague to test, problems with
operational definitions

34. Behavioral Perspective
(Skinner, Watson, Bandura)
• Based on the idea that the keys to
understanding development are observable
behavior and outside environmental stimuli
• Behaviorists reject the idea that people
universally pass through a series of stages
• They view development as occurring
because of continuous exposure to specific
factors in the environment

35. The behavioral perspective believes that 2
main types of learning contribute to
development
1) Classical Conditioning (Watson)
(stimulus substitution; organism responds
to a previously neutral stimulus in an
atypical way)
Pavlov (dog/bell), Watson/rabbit

36. (2 main types of learning, behavioral perspective
continued)_
2) Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
(instrumental conditioning; a voluntary
response is strengthened or weakened
based on its association with positive or
negative consequences; used in
behavior modification)
birds/pecking; reinforcement,
punishment

37. (Behavioral Perspectives Continued)
• Social-Cognitive Learning Theory
(Bandura)
– Emphasizes learning by observation of another
person (a model)
bobo doll, fearless peer
*Social-cognitive theory DIFERS from classical
and operant conditioning by taking mental
activity into consideration (thoughts,
motivations, expectations)

38. Assessing the behavioral perspective…
• Classical & operant conditioning consider
people and organisms as “black boxes” in
which nothing is understood, cared about
(pessimistic!)
• Social-cognitive theory argues that people
are different from rats and pigeons (mental
activity occurs—more optimistic for people
and favored view now)

39. Cognitive Perspective
(Piaget, Vygotsky, information-processing
approaches)
• Focuses on the processes that allow people to
know, understand, and think about the world
--Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
* people pass in a fixed sequence through a series
of universal stages of cognitive development
*in each stage, the quantity of information
increases; the quality of knowledge and
understanding increases too

41. (Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
continued)
• Human thinking is arranged into schemas
(organized mental patterns representing behavior
and action)
• The growth of children’s understanding of the
world can be explained by two principals:
– Assimilation (new experience incorporated into
current way of thinking)
– Accommodation (existing ways of thinking
change as a result of new stimuli)

42. Assessing Piaget’s Theory…
• Thousands of studies provide support
• Some cognitive skills emerge earlier than
Piaget suggested
• Some cognitive skills emerge according to a
different timetable in non Western countries
• Some adults never reach his highest level of
thought (formal, logical)

43. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
• Emphasizes how development proceeds as a result
of social interactions between members of a culture
– (culture: a society’s beliefs, values, customs and
interests shapes development)
• Vygotsky argued that children's understanding of
the world is acquired through their problem-
solving interactions with adults and other
children.
• He also argued that to understand the course of
development we must consider what is
meaningful to members of a given culture.

44. Information Processing Approach
a. the model that seeks to identify the ways
individuals take in, use, and store information
b. The theory grew out the computer age.
c. They assume that even complex behaviors such
as learning, remembering, categorizing, and
thinking can be broken down into a series of
individual steps.
d. They suggest that as people age, they are better
able to control their mental processing and
change the strategies they choose to process
information.

45. The Humanistic Perspective
--contends that people have a natural capacity to
make decisions about their lives and control
their behavior.
Assessing the Humanistic Perspective
-The humanistic perspective has not had a major
impact on the field of lifespan development.
-It has not identified any sort of broad
developmental change that is the result of age
or experience.
-Some criticize the theory's assumption that people
are basically "good", which is unverifiable.
-Self-actualization is also difficult to measure
objectively.

46. EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
-seeks to identify behavior in today's humans
that is the result of our genetic inheritance
from our ancestors.
* grew out of the work of Charles Darwin
who argued in The Origin of the Species
that a process of natural selection creates
traits in a species that are adaptive to their
environment
* argues that our genetic inheritance
determines not only such physical traits as
skin and eye color, but certain personality
traits and social behaviors

47. The evolutionary perspective draws on the
field of ethnology (Konrad Lorenz 1903 -
1989), which examines the ways in which
our biological makeup influences our
behavior.
The evolutionary perspective encompasses
one of the fastest growing areas within
the field of lifespan development:
behavioral genetics, which studies the
effects of heredity on behavior.
Evolutionary Perspective

48. Criticisms of the evolutionary
perspective…
Some developmentalists criticize the
evolutionary perspective for paying
insufficient attention to the
environment and social factors.
Others argue that there is no good way
to support experimentally theories
derived from evolution.

49. Which Approach is Right?
-Each emphasizes different aspects of development.
-Psychodynamic approach emphasizes emotions,
motivational conflicts, and unconscious
determinants of behavior.
-Behavioral approaches emphasize overt behavior.
-Cognitive and humanist approaches look more at
what people think than what they do.
-The evolutionary perspective focuses on how
inherited biological factors underlie development.

51. Research Methods
* The SCIENTIFIC METHOD is the process
of posing and answering questions
using careful, controlled techniques
that include systematic, orderly
observation and the collection of data.
* The scientific method involves the
formulation of theories, broad
explanations, and predictions about
phenomena.

52. (Research methods, continued)
*Theories allow developmentalists to
summarize and organize prior observations
and allow them to go beyond existing
observations to draw deductions.
* Theories are used to develop HYPOTHESES,
predictions stated in a way that permits
testing.

53. Research Strategies…
1) Correlational Research
-seeks to identify whether an association
or relationship between two factors
exists.
* The strength and direction of a
relationship between two factors is
represented by a mathematical score,
called a correlational coefficient, that
ranges from +1.0 (positive) to - 1.0
(negative).

54. (correlation continued)
• A negative correlation informs us that
as the value of one factor increases, the
value of the other factor declines.
IMPORTANT: Finding that two variables
are correlated with one another does
NOT prove anything (show causality).

55. Suppose a
study found
that
watching
aggression
on TV is
correlated
with
aggressive
behavior…3
possible
correlations…

56. Types of Correlational Studies
• Naturalistic Observation
• Case Studies
• Survey Research
(Make sure you understand what each of these
are!)

57. (Research Strategies continued…)
2) Experimental Research
- research designed to discover causal
relationships between various factors.
An EXPERIMENT is a process in which an
investigator, called an experimenter, devises two
different experiences for subjects or participants.
a. These two different experiences are called
TREATMENTS.
b. The group receiving the treatment is known as the
TREATMENT GROUP.
c. The CONTROL GROUP is the group that receives
either no treatment or alternative treatment

58. -The formation of treatment and control groups
represents the INDEPENDENT VARIABLE,
the variable that researchers manipulate in
an experiment.
-In contrast, the DEPENDENT VARIABLE is
the variable that researchers measure in an
experiment and expect to change as a
result of the experimental manipulation.

59. Experimental Research
Settings…
FIELD STUDY is a research investigation
carried out in a naturally occurring
setting.
LABORATORY STUDY is a research
investigation conducted in a controlled
setting explicitly designed to hold
events constant.

60. Theoretical and Applied Research
a. THEORETICAL RESEARCH is research
designed specifically to test some
developmental explanation and expand
scientific knowledge.
b. APPLIED RESEARCH is research meant to
provide practical solutions to immediate
problems.

61. Measuring developmental change
In LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH, the behavior
of one or more individuals is measured as
the subjects age.
-requires a tremendous investment of time
-there is the possibility of participant
attrition, or loss
-participants may become "test-wise"

62. (Measuring developmental change continued)
In CROSS-SECTIONAL RESEARCH, people of
different ages are compared at the same
point in time.
-differences may be due to cohort effects
-selective dropout, where participants in some
age groups are more likely to quit
participating in the study than others.
-unable to explain changes in individuals or
groups

63. (Measuring developmental change continued)
In CROSS-SEQUENTIAL STUDIES,
researchers examine a number of
different ages groups over several
points in time.
-combines longitudinal and cross-
sectional

64. Research Techniques For Studying Development
-Cross sectional
study: participants
are compared at a
similar point in time
(2003)
-Longitudinal study:
participants are
compared over time
across ages
-Cross-sequential study:
combines above
techniques (studies across
ages and times)

65. Ethics and Research
Society for Research in Child Development and
the American Psychological Association
have developed ethical guidelines for
researchers.
-Freedom from harm
-Informed consent
-Use of deception
-Maintenance of privacy

66. Don’t forget to keep up with your
reading and studying!
• Review & Rethink section of book
• Key terms
• Practice tests in study guide, on disk that
came with book, on companion website!