EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDEChapter 1: The Study of Human Development Human Development Human development is the study of patterns of change and stability in human growth throughout the life. Goals: Description: example- to describe when most children say their first word or how large their vocabulary typically is at a certain age, developmental scientists observe large groups of children and establish norms, or averages, for behavior at various ages. Explanation: example- explain how children acquire language and why some children learn to speak later than usual. Prediction: example- predicts future behavior, such as the likelihood that a child will have a serious speech problem. Intervention: example- an understanding of how language develops may be used to intervene in development, such as giving a child speech therapy. Human development has the following characteristics: Systematic: organized; advanced technology Adaptive: to internal and external conditions Life-span development: concept of human development as lifelong process, which can be studied scientifically. Domains of Development Physical development: growth of body and brain, including patterns of change in sensory capacities, motor skills, and health. Cognitive development: pattern of change in mental abilities, such as learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity. Psychosocial development: pattern of change in emotions, personality, and social relationships. Periods of the Life Span The life span periods are social constructions Social construction: a concept or practice that may appear natural and obvious to those who accept it, but that in reality is an invention of a particular culture or society.• Childhood is considered a time of relative freedom in the U.S. now, but in colonial times, children were considered small adults and expected to do adult-like tasks.• Adolescence is a new concept developed in industrial societies around the 1920s with the introduction of high schools… “Teenagers” could be supported by family for longer amounts of time then before due to economy & industrialization.• Adulthood (young, middle, and late): also a social construction/opinion-based. Is someone an “adult” when they start smoking, able to buy alcohol, fight in wars, vote, get married or when they receive own health insurance? Typical Major Developments in Eight Periods of Human Development Prenatal period (conception to birth) Infancy and toddlerhood (birth to age 3) Early childhood (ages 3 to 6) Middle childhood (ages 6 to 11) Adolescence (ages 11 to 20) Emerging and young adulthood (ages 20 to 40) Middle adulthood (ages 40 to 65) Late adulthood (ages 65 and over) Influences on Development Heredity: inborn traits or characteristics inherited from the biological parents. DNA, chromosomes, genes Environment: totality of nonhereditary, or experiential, influences on development. Parents, siblings, schools, neighborhoods, communities Maturation: unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes. Changes over time Contexts of development Contexts: environments, philosophies, institutions 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. Family Nuclear family: two-generational kinship, economic, and household unit consisting of one or two parents and their biological children, adopted children, or stepchildren. Extended family: multigenerational kinship network of parents, children, and other relatives, sometimes living together in an extended-family household. Socioeconomic status (SES): combination of economic and social factors describing an individual or family, including income, education, and occupation. Historical context: the time in which people live. As early longitudinal studies of childhood extended into the adult years, investigators began to focus on how certain experiences, tied to time and place, affect the course of people’s lives. Gender roles Culture: a society’s or group’s total way of life, including customs, traditions, beliefs, values, language, and physical products—all learned behavior, passed on from parents to children. Ethnic group: a group united by ancestry, race, religion, language, or national origins, which contribute to a sense of shared identity. Language Religion Geographic location Influences on Development Normative influences: characteristic of an event that occurs in a similar way for most people in a group; biological or environmental events that affect 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. Example: people don’t experience puberty at age 35 or menopause at 12. Normative history-graded influences: significant events (such as the Great Depression or World War II) that shape the behavior and attitudes of a historical generation.• Historical generation: a group of people strongly influenced by a major historical event during their formative period. Nonnormative Influences: characteristic of an unusual event that happens to a particular person or a typical event that happens at an unusual time of life. affects the individual, like a unique circumstance disease, disability, trauma typical events that happen at an atypical time of life (such as the death of a parent when a child is young) Atypical events (such as surviving a plane crash). Critical periods Imprinting: 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, usually the mother. Predisposition toward learning: the readiness of an organism’s nervous system to acquire certain information during a brief critical period in life. Example of the well-known study of Konrad Lorenz and the newborn ducklings that followed him around after seeing him when they first hatched (1957). Critical period: a specific time when a given event or its absence has a specific impact on development. If a necessary event does not occur during a critical period of maturation, normal development will not
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