Chapter 1 Development Across the Lifespan

1
Chapter 1Development 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 bodys 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--conti
nued)

• Cognitive Development
• Involves the ways that growth and change in
  intellectual capabilities influence a persons
  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--conti
nued)

• 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--conti
nued)

• Social Development
• Involves the way in which an individuals
  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
9
(No Transcript)
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
• Microsystem (everyday immediate
  environment)home, caregiver/parent, friends,
  teachers
• Mesosystem (connects parts of the
  microsystem)parents linked to kids, students to
  teachers, friends to friends, bosses to employees

12
(Bronfenbrenners 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

13
Other influences on development include

• Each persons 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

14
(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

15
(Other influences on development continued)

• Non-normative Life Events
• Specific, atypical events that occur in a
  particular persons life at a time when they do
  not happen to most people
• Cancer as a teen, auto accident

16
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

17
What do most developmental psychologists believe
on this issue????

• Some development is continuous, and some is
  discontinuous!

18
(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

19
(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

20
(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

21
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

22
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
• Freuds (1856-1839) Psychoanalytic Theory
  suggests that unconscious forces act to determine
  personality and behavior

23
(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 persons personality has 3 components
• The ID, the EGO, and the SUPEREGO

24
(Psychoanalytic theory continued)

• ID
• raw, unorganized, inborn part of personality
  present at birth
• represents primitive drives related to hunger,
  sex, aggression, irrational impulses
• 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

25
(Psychoanalytic theory continued)

• Superego
• The aspect of personality that represents a
  persons conscience
• Evaluates right from wrong
• Develops about age 5 or 6
• Learned from parents, teachers, other significant
  figures

26
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)

27
In Eriksons 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

28
Assessing the psychodynamic perspective

• Pros
• Contemporary psychology research supports the
  idea that unconscious memories have an influence
  on our behavior
• Ericksons view that development continues
  throughout the lifespan is highly important and
  supported by research

29
Assessing the psychodynamic perspective, continued

• Cons
• Idea that people pass through stages in childhood
  that determine their adult personality has little
  research support
• Freuds research based on small sample of upper
  middle class Austrians
• Freuds theory male focused/sexist
• Both too vague to test.

30
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

31
The behavioral perspective believes that 2 main
types of learning contribute to development

• Classical Conditioning (Watson)
• (stimulus substitution organism responds to a
  previously neutral stimulus in an atypical way)
• Pavlov (dog/bell), Watson/rabbit

32
(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

33
(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)

34
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
  occursmore optimistic for people and favored
  view now)

35
Cognitive Perspective(Piaget, Vygotsky,
information-processing approaches)

• Focuses on the processes that allow people to
  know, understand, and think about the world
• --Piagets 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

36
Vygotskys Sociocultural Theory

• Emphasizes how development proceeds as a result
  of social interactions between members of a
  culture
• (culture a societys 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.

37
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.

38
EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE

• -seeks to identify behavior in today's humans
  that is the result of our genetic inheritance
  from our ancestors.
• argues that our genetic inheritance
  determines not only such physical traits as skin
  and eye color, but certain personality traits and
  social behaviors

39
Evolutionary Perspective

• 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.

40
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.

41
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.

42
(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.
  

43
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.

44
Types of Correlational Studies

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

45
(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.
• These two different experiences are called
  TREATMENTS.
• The group receiving the treatment is known as the
  TREATMENT GROUP.
• The CONTROL GROUP is the group that receives
  either no treatment or alternative treatment

46
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.

47
Theoretical and Applied Research

• THEORETICAL RESEARCH is research designed
  specifically to test some developmental
  explanation and expand scientific knowledge.
• APPLIED RESEARCH is research meant to provide
  practical solutions to immediate problems.

48
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"

49
(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

50
(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

51
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