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Exam 1 Study Guide 1.Introduction (20 Questions on Exam) I. An Orientation to Lifespan Development A. LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT is the field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire life span. 1. Developmental psychologists test their assumptions about the nature and course of human development by applying scientific methods. 2. Lifespan development focuses on human development. a) Universal principles of development b) Cultural, racial, ethnic differences c) Individual traits and characteristics 3. Lifespan developmentalists view development as a lifelong, continuing process. 4. Lifespan developmentalists focus on change and growth in addition to stability, consistency, and continuity in people’s lives. 5. Lifespan developmentalists are interested in people’s lives from the moment of conception until death. B. Characterizing Lifespan Development: The Scope of the Field 1. Topical Areas in Lifespan Development a) PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT involves the body’s physical makeup, including the brain, nervous system, muscles, and

senses, and the need for food, drink, and sleep as a determinant of behavior. b) COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT involves the ways that growth and change in learning, memory, problem solving, and intelligence influence a person’s behavior. c) PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT involves the ways that the enduring characteristics that differentiate one person from another change over the life span. d) SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT is the way in which individual’s interactions with others and their social relationships grow, change, and remain stable over the course of life. 2. Age Ranges and Individual Differences a) The life span is usually divided into broad age ranges. (1) Prenatal period (conception to birth) (2) Infancy and toddlerhood (birth to age 3) (3) Preschool period (ages 3 to 6) (4) Middle childhood (ages 6 to 12) (5) Adolescence (ages 12 to 20) (6) Young adulthood (ages 20 to 40) (7) Middle adulthood (ages 40 to 60)

(8) Late adulthood (age 60 to death) b) It is important to remember that people mature at different rates and reach developmental milestones at different points. (1) These broad periods of development are social constructions, a shared notion of reality, one that is widely accepted but is a function of society and culture at a given time. (2) Some developmentalists have proposed an additional stage, emerging adulthood, between the late teens and mid-20s because most people in this age range are no

longer adolescents but they are not yet independent adults. c) Substantial individual differences exist in the timing of events in people’s lives. 3. The Links Between Topics and Ages a) Developmental experts may focus on specific age groups or particular areas of development. C. Cohort and Other Influences on Development: Developing With Others in a Social World 1. One’s COHORT is the group of people born around the same time and same place. a) Cohort effects are history-graded influences, the biological and environmental influences associated with a particular historical moment. b) Age-graded influences are biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group, regardless of when or where they are raised. c) Sociocultural-graded influences include the impact of social and cultural factors present at a particular time for a particular individual, depending on such variables as ethnicity, social class, and subcultural membership. d) Non-normative life events are specific, atypical events that occur in a particular person’s life at a time when such events do not happen to most people. D. Cultural Dimensions: How Culture, Ethnicity, and Race Influence Development 1. Developmentalists must take into consideration broad cultural factors and ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, and gender differences if they are to achieve an understanding of how people change and grow throughout the life span. 2. Progress concerning issues of human diversity has been slow in the field of lifespan development. 3. Members of the research community have sometimes used terms such as race and ethnic group in inappropriate ways....