Transcript Section One - Black Hawk College

Chapter 1
Introduction
Introduction
The Life-Span
Perspective
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The Nature
of Development
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Careers in
Life-Span
Development
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The Life-Span
Perspective
Why Study
Life-Span
Development?
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The Historical
Perspective
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Characteristics
of the Life-Span
Perspective
Some
Contemporary
Concerns
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Why Study Life-Span
Development?
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• You can gain insight to your own life
as a child, adolescent, and young
adult.
• You will learn about life through the
adult years—middle age, and old
age.
• You may be a parent or a teacher
some day.
• Life-span development is linked with
many different areas of psychology.
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Definition of
Development
• The pattern of
movement or change
that begins at
conception and
continues through the
human life span
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The Historical
Perspective
• Original Sin - children were perceived
as being basically bad, born into the
world as evil beings.
• Tabula Rasa - children are like a
“blank tablet,” and acquire their
characteristics through experience.
• Innate Goodness - children are
inherently good.
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Traditional
Approach vs. LifeSpan Approach
• The traditional approach
emphasizes extensive change
from birth to adolescence, little
or no change in adulthood, and
decline in late old age.
• The life-span approach
emphasizes developmental
change during adulthood as
well as childhood.
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Characteristics of the
Life-Span Perspective
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Development is lifelong
Development is multidimensional
Development is multidirectional
Development is plastic
Development is contextual
Development is studied by a
number of disciplines
• Development involves growth,
maintenance, and regulation
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Development is
Lifelong
• No age period dominates
development.
• Researchers increasingly
study the experiences and
psychological orientations
of adults at different points
in their development.
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Development is
Multidimensional
• There are biological
dimensions.
• There are cognitive
dimensions.
• There are socioemotional
dimensions.
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Development is
Multidirectional
• Some dimensions or
components of a dimension
increase in growth.
• Some dimensions or
components of a dimension
decrease in growth.
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Development is Plastic
• Plasticity involves the
degree to which
characteristics change
or remain stable.
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Development is
Contextual
• Normative age-graded
influences
• Normative historygraded influences
• Nonnormative life
events
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Studied by a Number
of Disciplines
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Psychologists
Sociologists
Anthropologists
Neuroscientists
Medical Researchers
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The Three Goals of
Human Development
• Maintenance
• Growth
• Regulation
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Some Contemporary
Concerns
• Health and Well-Being
• Parenting and Education
• Sociocultural Contexts
• Social Policy
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Health and Well-Being
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Drug and alcohol use during pregnancy
Genetic counseling
Breast- versus bottle-feeding
Early intervention
School health programs
At-risk adolescents
Women’s health issues
Exercise
Addiction and recovery
Loneliness
Adaptive physical skills in aging adults
Coping with death
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Parenting and
Education
• Day care
• Working parents and
latchkey children
• Effects of divorce on
children
• The best way to parent
• Child maltreatment
• Support systems for
families
• Marital relationships
• Intergenerational
relationships
• Aging parents
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• Variations in early
childhood education
• Ethnicity, social class,
schools
• Programs to improve
thinking
• School/family
coordination
• Cooperative learning
• How to avoid stifling
creativity
• Bilingual education
• The best schools for
adolescents
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Sociocultural
Contexts
• Context
• Culture
• Ethnicity
• Gender
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Examples of Context
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Homes
Schools
Peer groups
Churches
Cities
Neighborhoods
University laboratories
Countries
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Definition of Culture
• The behavior patterns, beliefs, and all
other products of a particular group of
people that are passed on from
generation to generation.
• Cross-cultural studies involve a
comparison of a culture with other
cultures to provide information about
the degree to which development is
similar across cultures, or is instead,
culture-specific.
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Ethnicity
• Based on cultural
heritage, nationality
characteristics, race,
religion, and language
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Gender
• The sociocultural
dimension of being male
or female
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Social Policy
• A national government’s
course of action designed to
influence the welfare of its
citizens.
• The shape and scope of
social policy is strongly tied
to our political system.
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The Nature
of
Development
Biological,
Cognitive, and
Socioemotional
Processes
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Periods of
Development
Age and
Happiness
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Conceptions
of Age
Developmental
Issues
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Biological Processes
• Involve changes in the
individual’s physical nature
such as:
– Height and weight gains
– The development of the brain
– Changes in motor skills
– Cardiovascular decline
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Cognitive Processes
• Involve changes in the individual’s
thought, intelligence, and language
such as:
– Watching a mobile swing above a
crib
– Creating a two-word sentence
– Memorizing a poem
– Imagining being a movie star
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Socioemotional
Processes
• Involve changes in the individual’s
relationships with other people, changes
in emotions, and changes in personality
such as:
– An infant smiling from her mother’s
touch
– A young boy hitting a playmate
– A girl’s joy at her senior prom
– The affection of an elderly couple
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Periods of
Development
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The prenatal period
Infancy
Early childhood
Middle and late childhood
Adolescence
Early adulthood
Middle adulthood
Late adulthood
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The Prenatal Period
• The time from conception to
birth
• From a single cell to an
organism complete with a
brain and behavioral
capabilities
• Approximately a 9-month
period
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Infancy
• The developmental period
from birth to 18 or 24
months
• A time of extreme
dependency on adults
• Many psychological
activities are just beginning
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Early Childhood
• The developmental period extending
from the end of infancy to about 5 or 6
years
• Often called the “preschool years”
• Children learn to become more selfsufficient
• Children now develop school
readiness skills
• Children spend many hours playing
with peers
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Middle and Late
Childhood
• The developmental period extending
from about 6 to 11 years of age
• Approximately corresponds to the
elementary school years
• Fundamental skills of reading,
writing, and arithmetic are mastered
• Child is formally exposed to larger
world and its culture
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Adolescence
• The developmental period of
transition from childhood to early
adulthood—entered at 10-12 years,
ending at 18-22 years
• Begins with rapid physical changes.
• Pursuit of independence and identity
are prominent
• Thought is now more logical,
abstract, and idealistic
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Early Adulthood
• The developmental period
beginning in the late teens or early
twenties and lasting through the
thirties
• A time of establishing personal and
economic independence
• Also a time of career development
• Early adults select a mate, start a
family, and rear children
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Middle Adulthood
• The developmental period beginning
around 40 years of age and extending
to about 60
• A time of expanding personal and
social involvement and responsibility
• Also a time of assisting the next
generation in becoming competent
• Middle adults reach and maintain
satisfaction in a career
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Late Adulthood
• The developmental period
beginning in the sixties or
seventies and lasting until death
• A time of adjustment to
decreasing strength and health
• Also a time of life review,
retirement, and new social roles
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Age Groups in Late
Adulthood
• The Young Old, or Old Age
(65-74 years of age)
• The Old Old, or Late Old
Age (75 years and older)
• The Oldest Old (85 years
and older)
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Age and Happiness
• No particular age group
says they are happier or
more satisfied than any
other age group.
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Conceptions of Age
• Chronological Age
• Biological Age
• Psychological Age
• Social Age
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Chronological Age
• The number of years
that have elapsed
since a person’s birth
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Biological Age
• A person’s age in
terms of biological
health
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Psychological Age
• An individual’s
adaptive capacities
compared to those of
other individuals of the
same chronological
age
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Social Age
• Refers to social roles
and expectations
related to a person’s
age
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Developmental Issues
• Nature and Nurture
• Continuity and
Discontinuity
• Stability and Change
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The Nature-Nurture
Issue
• Involves the debate
about whether
development is primarily
influenced by nature or
nurture
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Nature
• An organism’s biological
inheritance
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Nurture
• An organism’s
environmental
experiences
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The ContinuityDiscontinuity Issue
• This issue focuses on
the extent to which
development involves
gradual, cumulative
change or distinct
stages.
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Continuity
• Development results
from a gradual process
occurring over several
weeks, months, and
possibly years.
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Discontinuity
• Development occurs
through a sequence of
stages in which change
is qualitatively rather
than quantitatively
different.
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The Stability-Change
Issue
• This issue involves the degree to which
we become older renditions of our early
experience or whether we develop into
someone different from who we were at
an earlier point in development.
• It considers the extent to which early
experiences (especially in infancy) or
later experiences are the key
determinants of a person’s
development.
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The Early-Later
Experience Issue
• This issue has a long
history of being hotly
debated among
developmental
psychologists.
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The Early-Experience
View
• Some believe that unless
infants experience warm,
nurturant caregiving in
the first year or so of life,
their development will
never be optimal.
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The LaterExperience View
• Others believe that
children are malleable
throughout development
and that later sensitive
caregiving is just as
important as earlier
sensitive caregiving.
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The Early-Later
Experience
• A number of life-span
developmentalists stress that too little
attention has been given to later
experiences in development.
• People in Western cultures tend to
support the idea that early experiences
are more important than later
experiences.
• By contrast, the majority of people in
the world do not share this belief.
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Evaluating the
Developmental Issues
• Most life-span developmentalists
recognize that extreme positions are
unwise.
• The key to development is the
interaction of nature and nurture
rather than either factor alone.
• There still exists strong debate
regarding how strongly
development is influenced by each
of the factors.
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Careers in
Life-Span
Development
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Some Careers in LifeSpan Development
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Audiologist
Child psychologist/psychiatrist
Child welfare worker
College professor
Day-care supervisor
Early childhood educator
Elementary/Secondary school teacher
Geriatric nurse or physician
Geropsychologist
Home health aide
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Some Careers in Life-Span
Development (con’t)
Medical social worker
Pediatrician
Pediatric nurse
Physical therapist
Day-care supervisor
Preschool/Kindergarten teacher
Recreational therapist
Rehab counselor
School psychologist
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