2. Developmental Psychology
Chapter 1: The Study of Human Development
Reference: Experience Human Development by Papalia
Downloaded by Charlotte Rojo (charlotterojo04@gmail.com)
STUDYING THE LIFE SPAN
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT TODAY
● From the moment of conception, human beings begin a process of change
that will continue until the last flicker of life ends.
○ although each child born of this process is a unique individual,
development is nonetheless patterned and orderly and follows a
blueprint laid out by our evolutionary history
● human development focuses on the scientific study of the systematic
processes of change and stability in people
○ developmental scientists look at ways in which people change from
conception through maturity as well as at characteristics that remain
fairly stable
● when the field of developmental psychology emerged as a scientific discipline,
most researchers focused their energies on infant and child development
● as the field matured, it became clear that development included more than
infancy and childhood
○ now researchers consider life-span development to be from “womb to
womb,” 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
● as the field of human development itself developed, its goals came to include
description, explanation, prediction, and intervention
○ to describe when most children say their first word or how large their
vocabulary is at a certain age, developmental scientists observe large
groups of children and establish norms, or averages, for behavior at
various ages
○ the then attempt to explain how children acquire language and why
some children learn to speak later than usual
○ this knowledge may make it possible to predict future behavior, such as
the likelihood that a child will have serious speech problems
○ lastly, an understanding of how language develops may be used to
intervene in development
● the scientific study of human development is ever evolving
● development is messy
○ it is complex and multifaceted and shaped by interacting arcs of
influence
● developmental scientists study three major domains, or aspects, of the self:
physical, cognitive, and 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
● these three domains are intricately interconnected
○ it is important to remember that each aspect of development affects
the others
● development in one area sends ripples through all other areas
○ physical development affects cognitive and psychosocial development
○ cognitive advances and declines are related to physical and
psychosocial development
○ psychosocial development can affect cognitive and physical
functioning
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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: AN EVER-EVOLVING FIELD
3. Developmental Psychology
Chapter 1: The Study of Human Development
Reference: Experience Human Development by Papalia
Downloaded by Charlotte Rojo (charlotterojo04@gmail.com)
HEREDITY, ENVIRONMENT, AND MATURATION
● division of the life span into periods is 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
○ because the concept of childhood is a social construction, the form it
takes varies across cultures
● a similar construction involves adolescence, which is a recent concept that
emerged as society became more industrialized
○ what we call adolescence is part of adulthood
*TABLE 1: Typical Major Developments in Eight Periods of Human Development (refer
to the book)*
● although individual differences exist in the way people deal with the
characteristic events and issues of each period, developmentalists suggest that
certain basic needs must be met and certain tasks mastered for typical
development to occur
● during early childhood, children gain more self-control and become more
interested in other children
● during middle childhood, control over behavior gradually shifts from parent to
child, and the peer group becomes increasingly important
● a central task of adolescence is the search for identity–personal, sexual, and
occupational
● during emerging adulthood, an exploratory period in the early to midtwenties,
people are not yet ready to settle down to the typical tasks of young adulthood
● during middle adulthood, some decline in physical capabilities is likely
○ at the same time, many middle-aged people find excitement and
challenge in life changes–launching new careers and adult children–
while some face the need to care for elderly parents
● in late adulthood, people need to cope with losses in their faculties, the loss of
loved ones, and preparations for death
● although students of development are interested in the universal processes of
development experienced by all normal human beings, they also study
individual differences in characteristics, influences ,and developmental
outcomes
● every person has a unique developmental trajectory, and individual path to
follow
● one challenge in developmental psychology:
○ to identify the universal influences on development, and then apply
those to understanding individual differences in developmental
trajectories
● influences on development can be described in two primary ways
● some influences are internal and driven by heredity and biological processes
○ heredity consists of the inborn traits and characteristics provided by a
child’s biological parents
● other influences stem from the environment outside the body, starting at
conception with the prenatal environment in the womb and continuing
throughout life
● contemporary theorists and researchers are more interested in finding ways to
explain how nature and nurture work together than in arguing about which
factor is more important
● many typical changes of infancy and early childhood, such as the abilities to
walk and talk, are tied to maturation of the body and brain
○ maturation refers to the unfolding of a natural sequence of physical
changes and behavior patterns
● throughout life, maturation continues to influence certain biological processes,
such as brain development
● even in the processes that all people undergo, rates and timing of
development vary
2
PERIODS OF THE LIFE SPAN INFLUENCES ON DEVELOPMENT
4. Developmental Psychology
Chapter 1: The Study of Human Development
Reference: Experience Human Development by Papalia
Downloaded by Charlotte Rojo (charlotterojo04@gmail.com)
CONTEXTS OF DEVELOPMENT
FAMILY
CULTURE AND RACE/ETHNICITY
● to understand development, we need to look at the inherited characteristics
that give each person a start in life but we also need to consider the many
environmental factors that affect development
○ we need to consider how heredity and environment interact
● Human beings are social beings.
○ From the beginning they develop within a social and historical context.
○ For an infant, the immediate context normally is the family, but the
family in turn is subject to the wider and ever-changing influences of
neighborhood, community, and society.
● the nuclear family is a household unit consisting of one or two parents and
their children, whether biological, adopted, or stepchildren
● the extended family is a multigenerational network of grandparents, aunts,
uncles, cousins, and more distant relatives–the traditional family form
○ today, the extended-family household is becoming slightly less typical
in many developing countries due in part to industrialization and
migration to urban centers
● multigenerational households have become more common in recent years for
a variety of reasons
○ (1) both men and women are marrying at later ages and thus
remaining at home for longer than was previously typical
○ (2) there has been an influx of immigrant populations since 1970, and
these immigrants are more likely than native-born families to seek out
multigenerational homes for reasons of practicality as well as
preference
○ (3) people are living longer, and elderly parents may sometimes benefit
from inclusion in their children’s households
● poverty is a problem worldwide
○ the majority of the global poor live in rural areas, work in agriculture,
and are poorly educated
● although children from middle- and lower-income families are not as
negatively affected, they nonetheless are at a disadvantage relative to wealthy
peers with respect to employment insecurity and income inequality
● in the United States, race and ethnicity are often associated with
socioeconomic status
○ socioeconomic status (SES): combination of economic and social
factors describing an individual or family, including income, education,
and occupation
● poverty is stressful and can damage children’s and families’ physical, cognitive,
and psychosocial well-being
● the harm poverty does is often indirect through its impact on parents’
emotional state and parenting practices on the home environment
○ threats to well-being multiply if several risk factors are present
○ risk factors: conditions that increase the likelihood of a negative
outcome
● the earlier poverty begins, the longer it lasts, and the higher the concentration
of poverty in the community in which children live, the worse the outcomes for
those children are
● however, negative effects of poverty are not inevitable
○ positive development can still occur despite serious risk factors
● moreover, affluence doesn’t necessarily protect children from risk
○ some research has shown that adolescents, particularly girls, from
affluent families are at higher risk for substance abuse problems and
show levels of substance abuse that are higher than national averages
● culture refers to a society’s or group’s total way of life, including its customs,
traditions, laws, knowledge, beliefs, values, language, and physical products,
from tools to artworks
3
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
5. Developmental Psychology
Chapter 1: The Study of Human Development
Reference: Experience Human Development by Papalia
Downloaded by Charlotte Rojo (charlotterojo04@gmail.com)
NORMATIVE AND NONNORMATIVE INFLUENCES
○ all of the behavior and attitudes that are learned, shared, and
transmitted among members of a social group
● culture is constantly changing, often through contact with other cultures
● ethnic group: consists of people united by a distinctive culture, ancestry,
religion, language, or natural origin, all of which contribute to a sense of shared
identity and shared attitudes, beliefs, and values
● ethnic and cultural patterns affect development by their influence on the
following:
○ composition of a household,
○ its economic and social resources,
○ the way its members act toward one another,
○ foods they eat,
○ games children play, and
○ the way family members think and perceive the world
● it is important to remember that wide diversity exists within broad ethnic
groups
○ given this diversity within groups, a term such as black or Hispanic can
be an ethnic gloss
○ ethnic gloss: an overgeneralization that obscures or blurs such
variations
● the term race, historically and popularly viewed as an identifiable biological
category, is more accurately defined as a social construct
○ there is no scientific consensus on its definition, and it is impossible to
measure reliably
○ race as a social category remains a factor in research because it
makes a difference in “how individuals are treated, where they live,
their employment opportunities, the quality of their health care, and
whether [they] can fully participate” in their society
● categories of culture, race, and ethnicity are fluid
○ it is continuously shaped and defined by social and political forces
● at one time developmentalists paid little attention to the historical context–the
time in which people live
● today, the historical context is an important part of the study of development
● to understand similarities and differences in development, we need to look at
two types of normative influences: biological or environmental events many or
most people in a society in similar ways and events that touch only certain
individuals
● normative age-graded influences: highly similar for people in a particular age
group
○ the timing of biological events is fairly predictable within a normal
range
● normal history-graded influences: significant events that shape the behavior
and attitudes of a historical generation
○ historical generation refers to a group of people who experience the
event at a formative time in their lives
○ it is not the same as an age cohort: a group of people born at about the
same time
○ a historical generation may contain more than one cohort, but cohorts
are as part of a historical generation only if they experience major,
shaping historical events at a formative point in their lives
● nonnormative influences: unusual events that have a major impact on
individual lives because they disturb the expected sequence of the life cycle
○ either typical events that happen at an atypical time of life (such as
the death of a parent when a child is young) or atypical events (such
as surviving a plane crash)
○ people sometimes help create their own nonnormative life events
● the three types of influences–normative age-graded, normative
history-graded, and nonnormative–contribute to the complexity of human
development as well as to the challenges people experience in trying to build
their lives
4
THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT
6. Developmental Psychology
Chapter 1: The Study of Human Development
Reference: Experience Human Development by Papalia
Downloaded by Charlotte Rojo (charlotterojo04@gmail.com)
● Konrad Lorenz: an Australian zoologist, showed that newly hatched duckling will
instinctively follow the first moving object they see, whether it is a member of
their species or not
○ this phenomenon is called imprinting, and Lorenz believed that it was
automatic and irreversible
○ imprinting is the result of a predisposition toward learning: the
readiness of an organism's nervous system to acquire certain
information during a brief critical period in early life
● critical period: a specific time when a given event, or its absence, ahs a specific
impact on development
○ if a necessary event does not occur during a critical period of
maturation, normal development will not occur; and the resulting
abnormal patterns may be irreversible
○ however, the length of critical period is not absolutely fixed
● the concept of critical periods in humans is controversial
○ because many aspects of development, even in the physical domain,
have been found to show plasticity or modifiability of performance, it
may be useful to think about sensitive periods
○ sensitive periods: times in development when a person is particularly
open to certain kinds of experiences
● there is a growing evidence that plasticity is not just a general characteristic of
development that applies to all members of a species, but there are individual
differences in plasticity of responses to environmental events as well
2. Development is multidimensional.
➔ it occurs along multiple interacting dimensions–biological, psychological, and
social
3. Development is multidirectional.
➔ as people gain in one area, they may lose in another, sometimes at the same
time
4. Relative influences of biology and culture shift over the lifespan.
➔ the process of development is influenced by both biology and culture, but the
balance between these influence changes
5. Development involves changing resource allocations.
➔ individuals choose to invest their resources of time, energy, talent, money, and
social support in varying ways
➔ resources may be used for growth, for maintenance or recovery, or for dealing
with loss when maintenance and recovery are not possible
6. Development shows plasticity.
➔ many abilities can be improved significantly with training and practice, even
late in life
➔ however, plasticity has limits that depend in part on the various influences on
development
7. Development is influenced by the historical and cultural context.
➔ each person develops within multiple contexts–circumstances or conditions
defined in part by maturation and in part by time and place
Paul B. Baltes and his colleagues have identified seven key principles of a life-
span developmental approach that sum up many of the concepts discussed in this
chapter. Together, these principles serve as a widely accepted and conceptual
framework for the study of life-span development:
1. Development is lifelong.
➔ development is a lifelong process of change
5
TIMING OF EVENTS: CRITICAL OR SENSITIVE PERIODS
THE LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH
