Human development
The multidisciplinary study of how people change and how they remain the same over time.
Nature-nurture issue
The degree to which genetic or hereditary influences (nature) and experiential or enviroment influences (nurture) determines the kind of person you are.
Continuity-discontinuity issue
Whether a particular developmental phenomenon represents a smooth progression throughout the life span (continuity) or a series of abrupt shifts (discontinuity)
Universal versus contex-specific development issue
Whether there is just one path of development or several paths.
Biopsychosocial framework
A useful way to organize the biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces on human development.
Biological forces
Iinclude all genetic and health related factors that affect development
Psychological forces
Include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors that affect development.
Sociocultural forces
Include interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that affect development.
Life-cycle forces
Reflect differences in how the same event affects people of different ages.
Theory
An organized set of ideas that is designed to explain development.
Psychodynamic theories
Theories proposing that development is largely determined by how well people resolve conflicts they face at different ages.
Psychosocial theory
Erikson's proposal that personality development is determined by the interaction of an internal maturational plan and external societal demands.
The Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development in Erikson's Theory
1) Basic trust vs. mistrust
2) Autonomy vs. shame and Doubt
3) Initiative vs. guilt
4) Industry vs. inferiority
5) Identity vs. identity confusion
6) Intimacy vs. isolation
7) Generativity vs. stagnation
8) Integrity vs. despair
Basic trust vs. mistrust
Age:
Birth to 1 year
Challenge:
To develop a sense that the world is safe, a "good place"
To realize that one is an independent person who can make decisions.
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
Age:
1 to 3 years
Challenge:
To realize that one is an independent person who can make decisions.
Initiative vs. guilt
Age:
3 to 6 years
Challenge:
To develop the ability to try new things and to handle failure.
Industry vs. inferiority
Age:
6 years to adolescence
Challenge:
To learn basic skills and to work with Others.
Identity vs. identity confusion
Age:
Adolescence
Challenge:
To develop a lasting, integrated sense of self.
Intimacy vs. isolation
Age:
Young adulthood
Challenge:
To commit to another loving relationship
Generativity vs. stagnation
Age:
Middle adulthood
Challenge:
To contribute to younger people through child rearing, child care, or other productive work.
Integrity vs. despair
Age:
Late life
Challenge:
To view one's life as satisfactory and worth living.
Epigenetic principle
In Erikson's theory, the idea that each psychosocial strength has its own special period of particular importance.
Learning theory
Concentrates on how learning influences a person's behavior.
Operant conditioning
Learning paradigm in which the consequences of a behavior determine whether a behavior is repeated in the future.
Reinforcement
A consequence that increases the future likelihood of the behavior that it follows.
Punishment
A consequence that decreases the future likelihood of the behavior that it follows.
Imitation or observational learning
Learning that occurs by simply watching how others behave.
Self-efficacy
People's beliefs about their own abilities and talents.
Cognitive-developmental theory
The key is how people think and how thinking changes over time, that thinking develops in a universal sequence of stages. The other approach proposes that people process information much like computers, becoming more efficent over much of the life span.
Piaget's theory
States that children actively construct their understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development.
Piaget's Four Stages of Cognitive Development
1) Sensorimotor stage
2) Preoperational
3) Concrete Operational
4) Formal Operational
Sensorimotor Stage
Approximate age:
Birth to 2 years
Characteristics:
Infant knowledge of the world is base on senses and motor skills; by the end of the period, uses mental representation.
Preoperational thought stage
Approximate age:
2 to 6 years
Characteristics:
Child learns how to use symbols such as words and numbers to represent aspects of the world but relates to the world only through his or her perspective.
Concrete operational thought stage
Approximate age:
7 years to early adolescence
Characteristics:
Child understands and applies logical operations to experiences provided they are focused on the here and now.
Formal operational thought stage
Approximate age:
Adolescence and beyon
Characteristics:
Adolescent or adult thinks abstractly, deals with hypothetical situations, and speculates about what may be possible.
Information-processing theory
Theory proposing that human cognition consists of mental hardware and mental software.
Vygotsky's theory
Focoused on the ways that adults convey to children the beliefs, customs and skills of their culture. Believed that because a fundamental aim of all societies is to children to acquired essential cultural values and skills, every aspect of a child develop
Ecological theory
Theory based on idea that human development is inseparable from the environmental contexts in which a person develops.
Bronfenbrenner's theory
Bronfenbrenner's environmental systems theory that focuses on five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.
Microsystem
The people and objects in an individual's immediate environment.
Mesosystem
Provides connections across microsystems.
Exosystem
Social setting that a person may not experience firsthand but still influence development.
Macrosystem
The cultures and subcultures in which microsystem, mesosystem, and exosystem are embedded.
Competence-environmental press theory
People adapt most effectively when there is a good match between their competence or abilities and the environmental "press" or the demands put on them by the enviroment.
Life-span perspective
View that human development is multiply determined and cannot be understood within the scope of a single framework?
Selective optimization with compensation (SOC) model.
Model in which three processes (selection, optimization, and compensation) form a system of behavioral action that generates and regulates development and aging.
Life-course perspective
Description of how various generations experience the biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces of development in their respective historical contexts.