What do developmental psychologists study Chapter One Developmental Psychology science that seeks to understand how and why people of all ages and circumstances change or remain the same over time Child Development is an area of study devoted to understanding constancy and change from conception through adolescence o Part of a larger interdisciplinary field of developmental psychology What is a theory A theory is NOT a guess o Orderly integrated set of statements that describes explains or predicts behavior For example a good theory of infant caregiver attachment would 1 Describe the behaviors of babies around 6 to 8 months of age as they seek the affection and comfort of a familiar adult 2 Explain how and why infants develop this strong desire to bond 3 Predict the consequences of this emotional bond for future Theories are vital for two reasons o They provide organizing frameworks for our observations of with a caregiver relationships children They guide and give meaning to what we see o Theories that are verified by research often serve as a sound basis for practical action Once a theory helps us understand development we are in a much better position to know how to improve the welfare and treatment of children Continuous a process of gradually adding more of the same types of skills that were there to begin with Discontinuous the process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at specific times Theories that accept the discontinuous perspective regard development as taking place in stages o Stages qualitative changes in thinking feeling and behaving that characterize specific periods of development Much like climbing a staircase with each step corresponding to a more mature reorganized way of functioning Change is fairly sudden rather than gradual and ongoing o Erickson s theory of psychosocial development o Piaget s theory of cognitive development o Kohlberg s theory of moral development Continuous vs Discontinuous Patterns of Developmental Growth Domains of Human Development Biosocial physical Development includes all the growth and change that occur in a personas body and the genetic nutritional and health factors that affect that growth and change o Motor skills everything from grasping a rattle to driving a care are also part of the biosocial domain o Changes in body size proportions appearance functioning of body systems perceptual and motor capacities and physical health Cognitive Development includes all the mental processes that a person uses to obtain knowledge or to think about the environment Cognition encompasses perception imagination judgment memory and language the processes people use to think decide and learn o Education not only the formal curriculum in schools but also informal learning is part of this domain as well o Changes in intellectual abilities including attention memory academic and everyday knowledge problem solving imagination creativity and language Psychosocial emotional and social Development includes development of emotions temperament and social skills Family friends the community the culture and the larger society are particularly central to the psychosocial domain For example cultural differences in appropriate sex roles or in family structures are part of this domain o Changes in emotional communication self understanding knowledge about other people interpersonal skills friendships intimate relationships and moral reasoning and behavior The Nature Nurture Controversy Nature refers to the influence of genes that people inherit o Inborn biological givens the heredity information we receive from our parents at the moment of conception Nurture refers to environmental influences that affect development after an individual is conceived o The complex forces of the physical and social world that influence our biological makeup and psychological experiences before and after birth Controversy also goes by many other names o Heredity versus environment o Maturation versus learning The basis question how much of any characteristic behavior or pattern of development is the result of genes and how much is the result of experience o IT IS BOTH Difference equals deficit error o The mistaken belief that a deviation from some norm is necessary inferior to behavioral or characteristic that meet the standard Multiple types of environments o In the womb o In the home Parents Siblings SES o Social peer groups So when it comes to neuronal growth Stimulating one neural connection stimulates MULTIPLE neural connections o Differences between organisms that grow up in enriched environments and those that grow up in deprived ones Children are very adaptable o As we get older our brain has less and less plasticity Resilience the ability to adapt effectively in the face of threats to development Dynamic Systems The dynamic systems approach is a view of human development as an ongoing every changing interaction between the physical and emotional being and between the person and every aspect of his or her environment including the family and society o This is a relatively new idea According to this view the child s mind body and physical and social worlds form an integrated system that guides mastery of new skills The system is dynamic or constantly in motion A change in any part of it from brain growth to physical and social surroundings disrupts the current organism environment relationship When this happens the child actively reorganizes her behavior so the components of the system work together again but in a more complex effective way As the child develops the branches from physical cognitive and emotional social grow Such as in infancy there is only around three branches but by adulthood there are over ten All the branches intertwine touch with each other Psychoanalytic theory Discontinuous A grand theory of human development that holds that irrational unconscious drives and motives often origination in childhood underlies human behavior According to the psychoanalytic perspective children move through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological and social expectations They psychoanalytic theory originated with Sigmund Freud Freud examined the unconscious motivations of his patients and constructed his psychosexual theory which emphasizes that how parents manage their child s sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy personality development Freud s theory has NO DATA
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