P103

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

MODULE 1
INTRODUCTION TO DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

 describe developmental psychology and its three domains;
 trace the history of developmental psychology
 explain key human development issues; and
 analyze the three types of contextual influences on your own
development.

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Developmental psychology is the branch of psychology that focuses on
how people grow and change over the course of a lifetime. A scientific
approach which aims to explain how children and adults change over time.
It focuses on human growth throughout the lifespan. Growth and
development is a process where the person thinks normally, eventually &
takes a responsible place in society.
This field examines change across three MAJOR DOMAINS: physical
development( the growth of the body and the brain, motor and sensory
skills, and physical health), cognitive development (capacity to learn, to
understand, to reason, and to create) and social emotional
development( social interactions with other people, emotions, attitudes).

GOALS OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

1. DESCRIBE development
 NORMATIVE DEVELOPMENT- continual and cumulative process.
 IDIOGRAPHIC DEVELOPMENT- individual variations in patterns of
change
2. EXPLAIN development
 NATURE-refers to the process of biological maturation inheritance and
maturation
  NURTURE -refers to the impact of the environment, which involves the
process of learning through experiences
3. OPTIMIZE development
 our common specifies heredity (DNA) guides all of us through many of
the same developmental changes at about the same points in our
lives.
KEY ISSUES IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
1. CONTINUOUS VS DISCONTINUOUS
CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT -development as a cumulative
process, gradually improving on existing skills . With this type of
development, there is a gradual change. Consider, for example, a
child’s physical growth: adding inches to their height year by year.

DISCONTINUOUS- development takes place in unique stages and

that it occurs at specific times or ages. With this type of development,
the change is more sudden, such as an infant’s ability to
demonstrate awareness of object permanence.

2. ONE COURSE OR MANY COURSES

Is development essentially the same, or universal, for all children (i.e., there is
one course of development) or does development follow a different course
for each child, depending on the child’s specific genetics and environment
(i.e., there are many courses of development)? Do people across the world
share more similarities or more differences in their development? How much
do culture and genetics influence a child’s behavior? Stage theories hold
that the sequence of development is universal. For example, in
cross-cultural studies of language development, children from around the
world reach language milestones in a similar sequence . Infants in all
cultures coo before they babble. They begin babbling at about the same
age and utter their first word around 12 months old.

3. NATURE VS NURTURE
Are we who we are because of nature (biology and genetics), or are we
who we are because of nurture (our environment and culture)? This
longstanding question is known in psychology as the nature versus nurture
debate. It seeks to understand how our personalities and traits are the
product of our genetic makeup and biological factors, and how they are
shaped by our environment, including our parents, peers, and culture. For
instance, why do biological children sometimes act like their parents—is it
because of genetics or because of early childhood environment and what
the child has learned from their parents? What about children who are
adopted—are they more like their biological families or more like their
adoptive families? And how can siblings from the same family be so
different?
We are all born with specific genetic traits inherited from our parents, such
as eye color, height, and certain personality traits. Beyond our basic
genotype, however, there is a deep interaction between our genes and our
environment. Our unique experiences in our environment influence whether
and how particular traits are expressed, and at the same time, our genes
influence how we interact with our environment . There is a reciprocal
interaction between nature and nurture as they both shape who we
become, but the debate continues as to the relative contributions of each.

BALTES’ LIFESPAN PERSPECTIVE

1. Development is lifelong- means that development is not completed in
infancy or childhood or at any specific age; it encompasses the entire
lifespan, from conception to death. The study of development traditionally
focused almost exclusively on the changes occurring from conception to
adolescence and the gradual decline in old age; it was believed that the
five or six decades after adolescence yielded little to no developmental
change at all. The current view reflects the possibility that specific changes
in development can occur later in life, without having been established at
birth. The early events of one’s childhood can be transformed by later
events in one’s life. This belief clearly emphasizes that all stages of the
lifespan contribute to the regulation of the nature of human development.

2. DEVELOPMENT IS MULTIDIMENSIONAL- a complex interplay of factors

influence development across the lifespan, including biological, cognitive,
and socioemotional changes. A dynamic interaction of these factors is
what influences an individual’s development.

3. DEVELOPMENT IS MULTIDIRECTIONAL - the development of a particular

domain does not occur in a strictly linear fashion but that development of
certain traits can be characterized as having the capacity for both an
increase and decrease in efficacy over the course of an individual’s life.
For example, individuals may sacrifice their capacity to be spontaneous or
creative if they are constantly required to make thoughtful decisions and
regulate their emotions. Adolescents may also be forced to sacrifice their
fast reaction times toward processing stimuli in favor of being able to fully
consider the consequences of their actions.
4. DEVELOPMENT IS PLASTIC- the nature of human development is much
more open and pluralistic than originally implied by traditional views; there is
no single pathway that must be taken in an individual’s development across
the lifespan. Plasticity is imperative to current research because the
potential for intervention is derived from the notion of plasticity in
development. Undesired development or behaviors could potentially be
prevented or changed.

5. DEVELOPMENT IS CONTEXTUAL -refers to the idea that three systems of

biological and environmental influences work together to influence
development. Development occurs in context and varies from person to
person, depending on factors such as a person’s biology, family, school,
church, profession, nationality, and ethnicity.

THREE TYPES OF CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES

1. Normative age-graded influences are those biological and
environmental factors that have a strong correlation with
chronological age, such as puberty or menopause, or age-based
social practices such as beginning school or entering retirement.
2. Normative history-graded influences are associated with a
specific time period that defines the broader environmental and
cultural context in which an individual develops. For example,
development and identity are influenced by historical events of the
people who experience them, such as the Great Depression, WWII,
Vietnam, the Cold War, the War on Terror, or advances in
technology.
3. Nonnormative influences are unpredictable and not tied to a
certain developmental time in a person’s development or to a
historical period. They are the unique experiences of an individual,
whether biological or environmental, that shape the development
process. These could include milestones like earning a master’s
degree or getting a certain job offer or other events like going
through a divorce or coping with the death of a child.

Other Contextual Influences on Development:

 A cohort is a group of people who are born at roughly the
same time period in a particular society. Cohorts share
histories and contexts for living. Members of a cohort have
experienced the same historical events and cultural climates
which have an impact on the values, priorities, and goals
that may guide their lives.
 socioeconomic status, or social class. Socioeconomic
status is a way to identify families and households based on
their shared levels of education, income, and
occupation. While there is certainly individual variation,
members of a social class tend to share similar lifestyles,
 patterns of consumption, parenting styles, stressors, religious
preferences, and other aspects of daily life.
 Culture is often referred to as a blueprint or guideline shared
by a group of people that specifies how to live. It includes
ideas about what is right and wrong, what to strive for, what
to eat, how to speak, what is valued, as well as what kinds of
emotions are called for in certain situations. Culture teaches
us how to live in a society and allows us to advance because
each new generation can benefit from the solutions found
and passed down from previous generations.

6. DEVELOPMENT IS MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Any single discipline’s account of development across the lifespan would
not be able to express all aspects of this theoretical framework. That is why it
is suggested explicitly by lifespan researchers that a combination of
disciplines is necessary to understand development. Psychologists,
sociologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, educators, economists,
historians, medical researchers, and others may all be interested and
involved in research related to the normative age-graded, normative
history-graded, and nonnormative influences that help shape development.
Many disciplines are able to contribute important concepts that integrate
knowledge, which may ultimately result in the formation of a new and
enriched understanding of development across the lifespan.

HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

The scientific study of children began in the late nineteenth century and
blossomed in the early twentieth century as pioneering psychologists sought
to uncover the secrets of human behavior by studying its development.

THREE EARLY SCHOLARS:

1. JOHN LOCKE- the mind of the newborn as a tabula rasa (“blank slate”)
on which knowledge is written through experience and learning.
2. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU- development occurs according to innate
processes progressing through three stages: Infans (infancy), puer
(childhood), and adolescence.
3. CHARLES DARWIN- development proceeds through evolutionary
recapitulation, with many human behaviors having their origins in successful
adaptations in the past.

EARLY SCHOLARS IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

G. Stanley Hall- believed that children developed over their lifetime much in
the same way that a species evolved throughout time. His interests focused
on childhood development, adolescence, and evolutionary theory. His
major contributions to the field are that he taught the first courses in child
development, several of his students becoming leading researchers in the
field, and he established scientific journals for the publication of child
development research. He was also the first president of the American
Psychological Association.

James Mark Baldwin - did quantitative and experimental research on infant

development. He made important contributions to early psychology,
psychiatry, and to the theory of evolution. Baldwin wrote essays such as
“Mental Development in the Child and the Race: Methods and Processes”,
which made a vivid impression on Jean Piaget (who later developed the
most popular theory of cognitive development) and Lawrence Kohlberg
(who developed a theory about moral judgment and development).

John B. Watson- the founder of the field of behaviorism, which emphasized

the role of nurture, or the environment, in human development. He believed,
based on Locke’s environmentalist position, that human behavior can be
understood in terms of experiences and learning. He believed that all
behaviors are learned, or conditioned.

Sigmund Freud- developed a stage model of development in which the

libido, or sexual energy, of the child focuses on different “zones” or areas of
the body as the child grows to adulthood.

Arnold Gesell- carried out the first large-scale detailed study of children’s
behavior, authoring several books on the topic in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. His
research revealed consistent patterns of development, supporting his view
that human development depends on biological “maturation,” with the
environment providing only minor variations in the age at which a skill might
emerge but never affecting the sequence or pattern.

Jean Piaget- His interest lay in children’s knowledge, their thinking, and the
qualitative differences in their thinking as it develops. In his view, children
“construct” their knowledge through processes of “assimilation,” in which
they evaluate and try to understand new information, based on their
existing knowledge of the world, and “accommodation,” in which they
expand and modify their cognitive structures based on new experiences.

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGIST
 is interested in time- and age-related changes in cognitive and
intellectual functioning, personality, and social relationships from birth to
death.
 aims to explain how thinking, feeling, and behaviors change throughout
life.
What Do Developmental Psychologists Do?
 working with a specific population, such as developmentally delayed
children
 specializing in studying a particular age range, such as adolescence
or old age.
 evaluating children to determine if they have a developmental
disability
 investigating how language skills are acquired.
 studying how moral reasoning develops in children.
 exploring ways to help elderly individuals remain independent.

Where Do Developmental Psychologists Work?

 educational settings at colleges and universities, often conducting
research on developmental topics while also teaching courses
 government agencies to help assess, evaluate and treat individuals
suffering from developmental disabilities
 assisted living homes for the elderly, teen rehabilitation clinics, centers
for the homeless, psychiatric clinics and hospitals.

REFERENCE:
 https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-lifespandevelopment/chapter/
the-lifespan-perspective/