Introducing Developmental

Psychology
Module 1 Objectives:

✓Define various developmental terminologies and theories that

support the concept of developmental psychology
✓Recognize the concept of biopsychosocial framework that
defines and molds the life of an individual.
✓Describe different research methods used in developmental
psychology
 Kail, & Cavanaugh. (2019).
Human Development: A Life-
Reference: Span View. Cengage
Learning Asia Pte. Ltd.
 What is
human development?
 Growth Prenatal
Newborn
Lifespan Infancy
Childhood
Adolescence
Developmental Early Adulthood
Stages Middle Age
Late Adulthood
From womb to
tomb Changes
Human Development
• Multidisciplinary study of how people change and how
they remain the same over time
• Complexity and uniqueness of each person and each
person’s experiences
• Commonalities and patterns among people
• Based on theory and research
Issues in Human Development
• Nature-Nurture
• Continuity-Discontinuity
• Universal and Context-specific
 Nature-Nurture Issue
• Genetic or hereditary influences (nature) and experiential
or environmental influences (nurture)

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Nature-Nurture
Issue
 Continuity-Discontinuity Issue
• Smooth progression throughout the lifespan or series of
abrupt shifts

Source Image:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fround-lake.dustinice.workers.dev%3A443%2Fhttps%2Fslideplayer.com%2Fslide%2F5911357%2F&psig=AOvVaw3Xwt3ZHjIWrSxrridqRQVz&ust=1630120059055000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAgQjRxqFwoTCKjf
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Continuity-
Discontinuity Issue
Universal and Context-specific Issue
• One path of development or several paths

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Universal and
Context-
specific Issue
Basic Forces in Human Development
• Biological forces – genetic and health-related factors
• Psychological forces – internal perceptual, cognitive,
emotional, and personality factors
• Sociocultural forces – interpersonal, societal, cultural, and
ethnic factors
• Life-cycle forces – differences in how the same event
affects people of different ages
Biopsychosocial Framework
• Basis in understanding the biological, psychological, and
sociocultural forces on human development

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Biopsychosocial Framework

Neuroscience
(Study of the brain and nervous system)
Biopsychosocial Framework
Life Cycle Forces
Same event can have different
effects depending on when it
happens in a person’s life.
Life Cycle Forces
Life Cycle Forces

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Biopsychosocial Framework
• Basis in understanding the biological, psychological, and
sociocultural forces on human development

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 Lourdes Ladrido-Ignacio MD
Biopsychosocial-spiritual Mental Health Research Summit
June 21, 2021
Model of mental health

Biological Psychological
Mental
Health

Social Spiritual
Developmental
Theories
Theory
• An organized set of ideas designed to explain
development.

Developmental Theories
• Psychodynamic perspective
• Learning theory
• Cognitive theory
• Ecological and systems theory
• Life-span perspective, selective optimization with
compensation and life-course perspective
 Psychodynamic theories

• Development is largely
determined by how well
people resolve conflicts
they face at different ages.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
• Personality development is determined by the interaction
of an internal maturational plan and external societal
demands.
• Epigenetic principle – each psychosocial strength has its
own special period of particular importance.
Learning
Theories
• How learning influences
a person’s behavior
• Role of experience
• People learning from
watching others around
them
Behaviorism
• Infants’ minds as blank slates (John Watson)
• Operant conditioning (B.F. Skinner)
• Consequences of a behavior determine whether a behavior is
repeated
• Reinforcement (increases the likelihood of the behavior that it
follows)
• Punishment (decreases likelihood of the behavior that it follows
• Observational learning
• Social learning theory (Albert Bandura)
• Self-efficacy (belief about one’s own abilities and talents)
Cognitive
Developmental
Theories

• Thought processes and

construction of
knowledge
 Thinking develops in a
universal sequences of
stages

Cognitive
People process information
Developmental as computers do
Theories

Contributions of culture on
cognitive growth
Information • States that human
cognition consists of
Processing mental hardware
(cognitive structures)
Theory and mental software
(organized sets of
cognitive processes)
 • Children’s thinking is
influenced by the
socio-cultural
Vygotsky’s context in which
children grow up.
Theory • Development as an
apprenticeship
Ecological and
Systems Approach
• Human development is
inseparable from the
environment contexts
in which a person
develops
• All aspects of
development are
interconnected
 Bronfenbrenner’s
Theory

Developing person is
embedded in a series of
complex and interactive system
Microsystem
(people and objects in an individual’s
immediate environment)

Mesosystem
(connections across microsystems)

Exosystem
(social settings
Developing personthat
is a person may not
experience
embedded in firsthand
a series of but still influence
development)
complex and interactive
system

Macrosystem
(cultures and subcultures)
 • Proposed that people adapt most
Competence- effectively when their competence
Environmental (abilities) match the environmental
Press Theory press (demands put on them by the
environment).
Life-Span Perspective,
Selective Optimization with
Compensation,
Life-Course Perspective
Life-Span Perspective

No single
framework in Aging is a lifelong
human process
development
 Multi-directionality (growth and decline)

Plasticity (skills can be learned or improved)

Life-Span
Perspective Historical context (historical time in which we
are born and the culture in which we grow up)

Multiple causation (interplay of biological,

psychological, sociocultural and life-cycle
forces.)
 • Selection, optimization, and compensation form a
system of behavioral action that generates and
regulates development and aging.
• Elective selection (when one chooses to reduce
Selective one’s involvement to fewer domains as a result of
Optimization new demands) vs Loss-based selection (result of
anticipated losses in personal or environmental
with resources)
Compensation • Compensation (when a person’s skills have
decreased so that they no longer function well in
a particular domain)
• Optimization (minimizing losses and maximizing
gains)
 • Describes the ways in which various
generations experience the forces
of development in their respective
historical contexts.
Life-Course • Dimensions: (1) individual timing of
Perspective life events in relation to external
historical events, (2) synchronization
of individual transitions with
collective familial ones; and (3)
impact earlier life events as shaped
by historical events on subsequent
ones.
Doing Developmental Research

1 2 3 4
Observing Using tasks to Asking people Taking
systematically sample for self- physiological
behavior reports measures
Systematic
observation
• Observing people and
carefully recording what they
do or say
• Naturalistic observation
(observing people in real-life
situation)
• Structured observation
(researcher creates a setting)
Using tasks to
sample behavior
Self-report

People’s answers to
questions about the Questionnaire
topic of interest

Interview Response bias

Measuring physiological
responses
Reliability (consistency)

Validity (measures what is supposed to

measure)

Population and sample

General Research Designs
General Research Design Description
Correlational Study Relations between variables as they exist naturally
in the world
Experimental Study Manipulate independent variable and determine
effect on dependent variable
Qualitative Study In-depth understanding of human behavior and
what governs it
Developmental Research Designs
Design Description
Longitudinal Study Same individuals are observed/tested repeatedly at
different points in their lives
Cross sectional Study Testing people at different ages
Cohort effects (differences between age groups may
results from environmental events rather than from
developmental processes
Sequential Study Combination of longitudinal studies and cross-
sectional studies
 1 2 3
Integrating findings Conducting research Communicating and
from different ethically applying research
studies results
• Meta analysis
 “Life doesn’t make any sense without
interdependence. We need each other,
and the sooner we learn that, the
better for us all.” –Erik Erikson