Human Development: An Ever-Evolving FieldField of human development focuses on the scientific study of the systematic processes of change and stability in peopleStudying the life spanLife-span development – human development is a lifelong processThe Study of Human Development: Basic ConceptsDomains of Development3 major domains of the self: physical, cognitive and psychosocialPhysical development – growth of the body and brain, sensory capacities, motor skills and healthCognitive development – learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning and creativityPsychosocial development – emotions, personality and social relationshipsPeriods of the life spanSocial construction – a concept or practice that may appear natural and obvious to those who accept it, but in reality is an eventThe Chippewa Indians have two periods of childhood: from birth until walking and from walking to pubertyCentral task for adolescence – search for identity – personal, sexual and occupationalInfluences on DevelopmentHeredity, Environment and MaturationHeredity – inborn traits or characteristics inherited from the biological parentsEnvironment – the world outside the self, beginning in the womb and the learning that comes from experienceMaturation – the unfolding of a natural sequence of physical changes and behavior patternsContexts of developmentNuclear family – household unit consisting of one or two parents and their kids, whether biological, adopted or stepchildrenExtended family – multigenerational network of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and more distant relativesSocioeconomic Status and NeighborhoodSocioeconomic status – based on family income and the educational and occupational levels of the adults in the householdExpanding global economy is one of the major factors contributing to the overall decrease in povertyAll progress made with respect to child poverty since 1974 was wiped out in U.S. by current recessionRisk factors – conditions that increase the likelihood of a negative outcomeCulture and Race/EthnicityCulture – a society’s or group’s total way of life, including customs, traditions, laws, knowledge, beliefs, values, language and physical productsEthnic group – consists of people united by a distinctive culture, ancestry, religion, language or national originBy 2040, the minority population is projected to rise to 50%Children of immigrants in the U.S. are nearly twice as likely as native-born children to live with extended families and are less likely to have mothers who work outside the homeEthnic gloss – an overgeneralization that obscures or blurs such variationsNormative and Nonnormative InfluencesNormative – characteristic of an event that occurs in a similar way for most people in a groupHistorical generation – a group of people who experience the event at a formative time in their livesAge cohort – a group of people born at about the same timeNonnormative – unusual events that have a major impact on individual lives because they disturb the expected sequence of the life cyclesTiming of Influences: Critical or sensitive periodsImprinting – instinctive form of learning in which during a critical period in early development, a young animal forms an attachment to the first moving object it sees (mother)Critical period – a specific time when a given event or its absence has a specific impact on developmentPlasticity – range of modifiability of performanceSensitivity periods – times in development when a person in particularly open to certain kinds of experiencesPaul B. Baltes’s Life-Span Developmental ApproachInclude the propositions that 1) development is lifelong, 2) development is multidimensional, 3) development is multidirectional, 4) the relative influences of biology and culture shift over the life span, 5) development involves changing resource allocations, 6) development shows plasticity, 7) development is influenced by the historical and cultural contextBasic Theoretical IssuesIssue 1: Is Development Active or Reactive?Mechanistic Model – Model that views human development as a series of predictable responses to stimuliBehavior results from the operation of biological parts in response to external/internal stimuliOrganismic model - views human development as internally initiated by an active organism and as occurring in a sequence of qualitatively different stagesSees people as active, growing organisms that set their own development in motionThey initiate events; not just reactIssue 2: Is development continuous or discontinuous?Continuous!- gradual and incrementalQuantitative change – changes in number or amount – height, weight, size of vocab or frequency of communicationQualitative change – changes in kind, structure, or organizationDevelopment occurs in stagesTheoretical PerspectivesPerspective 1: PsychoanalyticViews development as shaped by unconscious forces that motivate human behaviorPsychoanalysis – seeks to give patients insight into unconscious emotional conflicts by asking questions designed to summon up long-buried memoriesSigmund Freud: Psychosexual DevelopmentPsychosexual development – in Freudian theory, an unvarying sequence of stages of childhood personality development in which gratification shifts from the mouth to the anus and then to the genitalsErik Erikson: Psychosocial developmentPsychosocial development – covers eight stages across the life spanEach stage requires the balancing of a positive tendency and a corresponding negative onePerspective 2: LearningLearning Perspective – maintains that development results from learning, a long lasting change in behavior based on experience or adaptation to the environmentTwo important learning theories are behaviorism and social learning theoryBehaviorism – a mechanistic theory that describes observed behavior as a predictable response to experienceFocuses on associative learning in which a mental link is formed between two eventsClassical conditioning – learning based on associating a stimulus that does not ordinarily elicit a response with another stimulus that does elicit the response (little Albert)Classical conditioning occurs throughout life such as food likes and dislikes, fear of dogsOperant conditioning – learning based on association of behavior with its consequencesCalled operant conditioning because the person learns from the consequences of “operating” on the environmentReinforcement – process by
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