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What is meant by the

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Development: the pattern of movement/change that begins at conception and continues through

concept of development? Why

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the human life span. Most development includes growth, but also includes decline (dying). The more you learn about children, the better you can deal with them

is the study of lifespan development important?

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The study of life-span development is intriguing/filled with information about who we are, how we came to be this way, and where our future will take us.

What are the main characteristics of the life-span perspective? What are three sources of contextual influences?

The life-span approach emphasizes developmental change throughout adulthood as well as childhood Characteristics: - Development is Lifelong - Development is Multidimensional -

 Has biological, cognitive and socioemotional dimensions

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 E.g. attention, memory, abstract thinking etc.  few of the components of the cognitive dimension Development is Multidirectional

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 Throughout life, some dimensions or components of a dimension expand and others shrink Development is Plastic  Plasticity: the capacity for change

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 Possibly we possess less capacity for change as we grow older Developmental Science is Multidisciplinary Development is Contextual  All development occurs within a context, or setting

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 Individuals are changing beings in a changing world  as a result, contexts exert three types of influences (Baltes, 2003) 1. Normative Age-Graded Influences  Similar for individuals in a particular age group  Biological processes such as puberty/menopause  Sociocultural factors/environmental processes such as beginning formal education (about age 6)/retiring from the workplace (fifties-sixties) 2. Normative History-Graded Influences  Common to people of a particular generation because of historical circumstances 

E.g. economic, political and social upheavals such as the Great Depression (1930s), World War II (1940s) Civil Rights/Women’s Rights Movements (1960s)

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Also includes long-term changes in the genetic/cultural makeup of a population

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3. Nonnormative or Highly Individualised Life Events  Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on the lives of individual people  Do not happen to everyone, and can influence people in different ways  E.g. the death of a parent when a child is young, pregnancy in early adolescence Development involves Growth, Maintenance and Regulation of Loss

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 Baltes & Colleagues (2006)  the mastery of life often involves conflicts and competition among three goals of human development: growth, maintenance and regulation of loss Development is a Co-Construction of Biology, Culture and the Individual  E.g. the brain shapes culture, but is also shaped by culture

PSY20007 What are some contemporary concerns in life-span development?

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Health and Wellbeing

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 Health professionals today recognise the influences of lifestyles/psychological states on health and well-being Parenting and Education

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 E.g. Can two gay men raise a healthy family? Are children harmed if both parents work outside the home? Sociocultural Contexts and Diversity  Health, parenting and education are all shaped by their sociocultural context  Useful concepts: - Culture: the behaviour patterns, beliefs and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation  Results from the interaction of people over many years Regardless of size, the group’s culture influences the behaviour of its members Cross-Cultural Studies: compare aspects of two or more cultures  Comparison provides information about the degree to which development is similar (or universal) across cultures, or is instead culture-specific Ethnicity: rooted in cultural heritage, nationality, race, religion and language  E.g. African American, Latino, Asian Americans, Aboriginal  Diversity exists within each ethnic group  Special concern  discrimination/prejudice experienced by ethnic minority children Socioeconomic Status (SES): a person’s position within society based on occupational, educational and economic characteristics  Implies certain inequalities  differences in ability to control resources/to participate in society’s rewards produce unequal opportunities 

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Gender: the characteristics of people as males and females  Few aspects of our development are more central to our identity/social relationships than gender

 Special concern  the educational/psychological conditions of women around the world - E.g. inadequate educational opportunities, violence, mental health issues Social Policy: a government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens  Shaped by values, economics, and politics  Life-span researchers are increasingly undertaking studies that they hope will lead to effective social policy  Children who grow up in poverty represent a special concern  ethnic minority children are more likely to experience persistent poverty over many years/live in isolated poor neighbourhoods  Characteristics of Resilient Children and their Contexts:

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What are three key developmental processes?

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 The well-being of older adults also creates policy issues - E.g. escalating health care costs, access of older adults to adequate health care Biological Processes  Produce changes in an individual’s physical nature

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 E.g. genes inherited from parents, the development of the brain, nutrition etc Cognitive Processes

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 E.g. watching a colourful mobile swinging above the crib involves cognitive processes Socioemotional Processes

 Changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence and language

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 Changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotion and changes in personality  E.g. an infant’s smile in response to a parent’s touch Connecting the three: - E.g. a baby smiling in response to a parent’s touch depends on biological processes (the physical nature of touch and responsiveness to it), cognitive processes (the ability to understand intentional acts) and socioemotional processes (the fact that smiling often reflects a positive emotional feeling and helps to connect us in positive ways with other human beings) - Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

What are eight main developmental periods?

How is age related to development?

- Developmental Social Neuroscience - Biological processes can influence cognitive processes etc. - Developmental period: a time frame in a person’s life that is characterised by certain features Eight period sequence: 1. Prenatal  conception to birth 2. Infancy  birth to 18-24 months a. Toddler  1 ½ to 3 years of age i. Transitional Period between infancy and early childhood 3. Early Childhood  3-5 years of age 4. Middle and Late Childhood  6 to 10-11 years of age 5. Adolescence  10-12 to 18-21 years of age 6. Early Adulthood  early twenties to the thirties 7. Middle Adulthood  40 to about 60 years of age 8. Late Adulthood  sixties or seventies until death -

Age and Happiness  Is there a best age to be? Increasing number of studies indicate that in the US adults are happier as they age

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 Researchers have also distinguished between the evaluative and hedonic aspects of life course trajectories - In some studies, the evaluative dimension (life satisfaction) reaches a low point in middle adulthood  Hedonic aspects (happiness/positive affect) take an upward trajectory from early adulthood through late adulthood  positivity effect Conceptions of Age  Biological age: a person’s age in terms of biological health - The younger the person’s biological age, the longer the person is expected to live, regardless of chronological age  Psychological age: individual’s adaptive capacities compared with those of other individuals of the same chronological age

What are three main developmental issues?

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 Social age: refers to connectedness with others/the social roles individuals adopt - Individuals who have better social relationships with others are happier and more likely to live longer than individuals who are lonely Nature and Nurture  The extent to which development is influenced by nature/nurture  Nature: an organism’s biological inheritance

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 Nurture: an organism’s environmental experiences Stability and Change  The degree to which early traits and characteristics persist through life or change  Some researchers argue that warm, nurturant caregiving during infancy and toddlerhood predicts optimal development later in life - Others argue that children are malleable throughout development  later sensitive caregiving is just as important as early, sensitive caregiving

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Continuity and Discontinuity  The degree to which development involves either gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity)

Scientific Method What are the four 1. Conceptualise a process/problem to be studied steps of the scientific a. Draw on theories and develop hypotheses method? How can i. Theory: an interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain phenomena and theory and facilitate predictions hypotheses be ii. Hypothesis: a specific assertion or prediction that can be tested defined? 2. Collect Research Information (Data) 3. Analyse the data 4. Draw Conclusions What are two main psychoanalytical theories? What are some contributions and criticisms of the psychoanalytic theories?

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Psychoanalytic Theories describe development as primarily unconscious (beyond awareness) and heavily coloured by emotion  Sigmund Freud  Psychoanalytic Theory

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Convinced that patient’s problems were the result of early life experiences  stages of psychosexual development Many of today’s psychoanalytic theorists maintain that Freud overemphasised sexual instincts  more emphasis should be placed on cultural experiences as determinants of an individual’s development

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 Erik Erikson  Psychosocial Theory - Recognised Freud’s contributions  believed Freud misjudged some important dimensions of human development - Humans develop in psychosocial stages rather than psychosexual stages - Primary motivation for human behaviour is social in nature  reflects a desire to affiliate with other people - Developmental changes occur throughout the life span, rather than during the first five years of life - Emphasised the importance of both early and later experiences

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The more successfully an individual resolves each crisis  healthier development will be

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Contributions

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 An emphasis on a developmental framework, family relationships and unconscious aspects of the mind Criticisms  Lack of scientific support, too much emphasis on sexual underpinnings, and an image of people that is too negative

What are three main cognitive theories? What are some contributions and criticisms of the cognitive theories?

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Cognitive Theories emphasise conscious thoughts  Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory - Children go through four stages of cognitive development as they actively construct their understanding of the world - The child’s cognition is qualitatively different from one stage to another

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To make sense of our world, we organise our experiences  adapt, adjusting to new environmental demands

 Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive Theory - Children actively construct their knowledge - Sociocultural cognitive theory emphasises how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development - Vygotsky maintained that cognitive development involves learning to use the inventions of society (i.e. language, mathematical systems, and memory strategies)

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Children’s social interaction with more-skilled adults/peers is indispensable to their cognitive development  learn to use the tools that will help them adapt and be successful in their culture

 Information Processing Theory - Emphasizes that individuals manipulate information, monitor it and strategize about it - Does not describe development as stage-like  individuals develop a gradually increasing capacity for processing information, which allows them to acquire increasingly complex knowledge and skills (Muller & Kerns, 2015) - Siegler (2006)  the best way to understand how children learn is to observe them while they are learning  Microgenetic method to obtain detailed information about processing mechanisms as they are occurring from moment to moment

What are two main behavioural and social cognitive theories? What are some contributions and criticisms of the behavioural and

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Contributions

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 A positive view of development, an emphasis on the active construction of understanding Criticisms

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 Scepticism about the pureness of Piaget’s stages, too little attention to individual variations Behavioural and Social Cognitive theories emphasise continuity in development  argue that development does not occur in stage-like fashion  Skinner’s Operant Conditioning - Through operant conditioning the consequences of a behaviour produce changes in the probability of the behaviour’s occurrence  A behaviour followed by a rewarding stimulus is more likely to recur, whereas a behaviour followed by a punishing stimulus is less likely to recur

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social cognitive theories?

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E.g. when an adult smiles at a child after the child has done something, the child is more likely to engage in that behaviour again than if the adult gives the child a disapproving look Skinner (1938)  such rewards and punishments shape development  Key aspect of development is behaviour, not thoughts and feelings  E.g. shy people learned to be shy as a result of experiences they had while growing up 

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 Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory - Behaviour, environment and cognition are the key factors in development

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Bandura emphasises that cognitive processes have important links with the environment/behaviour  Early research program focused heavily on observational learning (aka. Imitation or modelling)  learning that occurs through observing what others do  E.g. a young boy might observe his father yelling in anger and treating other people with hostility which his peers, young boy later acts very aggressively

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People cognitively represent the behaviour of others  sometimes adopt this behaviour themselves - Social Cognitive Theorists stress that people acquire a wide range of behaviours, thoughts and feelings through observing others behaviour  play a central role in life-span development Contributions

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 Emphasis on scientific research and environmental determinants of behaviour Criticisms

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 Too little emphasis on cognition in Skinner’s theory and inadequate attention paid to What is the nature of ethological theory? What are some contributions and criticisms of the theory?

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developmental changes Ethology stresses that behaviour is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to evolution, and is characterised by critical/sensitive periods  These are specific time frames during which the presence or absence of certain experiences has a long-lasting influence on individuals Bowlby (1969, 1989)  attachment to a caregiver over the first year of life has important consequences throughout the life span

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 If this attachment is positive/secure  individual will likely develop positively in childhood/adulthood - If this is negative/insecure  life-span development will likely not be optimal Contributions

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 A focus on the biological/evolutionary basis of development, and the use of careful observations in naturalistic settings Criticisms  Too much emphasis on biological foundations and a belief that the critical and sensitive period concepts might be too rigid

PSY20007 What characterises ecological theory? What are some contributions and criticisms of the theory?

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Ecological theory emphasises environmental factors (Ethological theory stresses biological factors) Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory  development reflects the influence of several environmental systems  Five environmental systems: 1. Microsystem  setting in which the individual lives 2. Mesosystem  relations between microsystems/connections between contexts 3. Exosystem  links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role/the individual’s immediate context 4. Macrosystem  culture in which individuals live 5. Chronosystem  the patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life course/sociohistorical circumstances

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Contributions  A systematic examination of macro/micro dimensions of environmental systems, attention to connections between environmental systems  An emphasis on a range of social contexts beyond the family (e.g. neighbourhood, religion, school, workplace) as influential in children’s development

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Criticisms

What is an eclectic theoretical orientation?

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An Eclectic Theoretical Orientation does not follow any one theoretical approach  selects from each theory whatever is considered its best features

What methods do researchers use to collect data on lifespan development?

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 Inadequate attention to biological factors/too little emphasis on cognitive factors

 Allows you to view the study of development as it actually exists

Observation  To be effective  have to be systematic - Need to have an idea of what you are looking for, whom you are observing, when and where you will observe, how the observations will be made and how they will be recorded  Laboratory  controlled setting where many of the complex factors of the ‘real world’ are absent

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Criticisms:  Almost impossible to conduct research without the participants knowing they are being studied  Setting is unnatural  can cause the participants to behave unnaturally  People who are willing to come to a university laboratory may not accuratel...