Development Across the Lifespan discusses key concepts in developmental psychology including: 1. Lifespan developmental psychology examines changes from conception to death physically, cognitively, and psychosocially. 2. The nature vs nurture debate examines the relative influences of genetics and environment on development. Most experts believe both play a role. 3. Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development outlined four stages from infancy to adulthood: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. 4. Erik Erikson described psychosocial crises that influence personality development at each stage of childhood. Attachment research also showed the importance of nurturing relationships.

1. Development Across the
Lifespan

2. Chapter in Perspective
• Lifespan Developmental Psychology
– The branch of psychology concerned with the
changes in psychological functioning that
occur, from conception across the entire life
span.
• From conception until death, we change
– Physically
– Cognitively
– Psychosocially

3. Basic Issues In Developmental
Psychology
• Which is more important to human
development?
• Nature
– Genetics
• Nurture
– Environment in which we are raised.

4. Basic Issues In Developmental
Psychology
• Behavior Genetics
– Relatively new field
– Combines
• Psychology
• Biology
– Researchers work on the nature-or-nurture
question.

5. Nature vs Nurture
• Why does a child misbehave?
– Inherited tendency to be active?
• Nature
– The way the parents raised him?
• Nurture
• Most psychologists believe both nature &
nurture shape our behavior.
– Critical question
• How much does nature or nurture determine
behavior?

6. Psychosocial Development
In Childhood
• 3 temperament types in young
children have been identified:
1. Easy
2. Slow-to-warm-up
3. Difficult

7. Temperament
• Heredity
– Important in
determining
temperament
• Environment
– Mother’s child-rearing
attitudes can influence
adolescent
temperament.
• MOM’S FAULT

8. Psychosocial Development
In Childhood
• Sigmund Freud
– Personality develops as a child deals with conflicts
between
• Biological urges
• Demands of society
• Erik Erikson
– Psychosocial crises, or conflicts between
• Psychological needs
• Societal demands
– Main determinants of personality

9. Psychosocial Development
In Childhood
• Erikson's psychosocial crises for childhood
include:
– Basic trust versus basic mistrust (birth to age
1.5 years),
– Autonomy versus shame and doubt (1.5 to 3
years),
– Initiative versus quilt (3 to 7 years), and
– Industry versus inferiority (7 to 10 years).

10. Harry & Marguerite Harlow
• Attachment
• Intense reciprocal relationship occurring
between two people, usually a child and an
adult.
• Studies of young monkeys conducted by
Harry and Marguerite Harlow
– Attachment was determined by contact
comfort, rather than by the presence of food.

11. Harry & Marguerite Harlow
• Determined raising baby monkeys in
isolation in laboratory
– Detrimental effect on social behavior
• A major conclusion of Harlow's research
– Attachment was important
• Did not ensure normal social development.
– Environmental contact (nurture)
• With members of one’s own species is needed
for this kind of development.

12. Cognitive Development
In Childhood
• Changes that occur in our thought
processes throughout life.
– Piaget
• Cognitive development progresses through a series
of qualitative stages

13. Cognitive Development
In Childhood
• Jean Piaget
– 50 years observing children’s intellectual
functioning.
– Cognitive development progresses through a
series of stages.
– All children progress through these stages in
same sequence.

14. Sensorimotor Stage
• Sensorimotor stage
– Birth to age 2
• Infants learn to coordinate their senses and their
motor behavior.
• Organize world into:
– What can I put in my mouth
– What is graspable
– What makes noise
• What they experience directly

15. Sensorimotor Stage
• Object permanence
– Perception that objects continue to exist
even when out of sight.
– Baby’s favorite game?
• Why?

16. Sensorimotor Stage
• Self-recognition
– Towards end of stage
– Rouge test Lewis & Brooks 1979
– Placed in front of mirror
– Touched nose at 18 – 24 months.

17. Preoperational Stage
• Ages 2 to 7
– Able to use mental representations & language
to describe, remember & reason about the
world, though only an egocentric fashion.
• Mental representations
– See object in head
• Egocentrism
– Can’t see things from another person's
point of view.

18. Preoperational Stage
• Animistic Thinking
– Imagining that inanimate objects have life & mental
processes.
• Child tripped over coffee table, what will they say?
• Fantasy Play
– Believe they are Batman
• Symbolic Gestures
– Stick becomes a gun

19. Cognitive Development
In Childhood
• Piaget demonstrated
that preoperational
children do not grasp
the principle of
conservation, the
understanding that a
change in the size or
shape of a substance
does not change the
amount of that
substance.

20. Concrete Operational
• Ages 7 - 11
• Able to:
– Represent objects mentally
– Begin to use logical reasoning about the world
• Not able to:
– Think abstractly
• What would happen if we had no thumbs?

21. Formal Operational
• Adolescence to adulthood
• Able to think abstractly
– Think in terms of possibilities as opposed
to concrete reality.

22. Adolescence
• In U.S. society, no single event marks the
passage from childhood to adulthood.
• Children experience an extended period of
adolescence, which lasts roughly from age
12 to age 20.
– Not expected to work

23. Adolescence
• Thought & behavior continues to be
somewhat childish &contradictory.
• Personal fable
– One is not subject to the same rules as other
people.
– Unique
– Invulnerable

24. Adolescence
• Imaginary audience
– Assumption that everyone else is concerned
with his or her appearance and behavior.

25. End