What is development?
systematic changes and continuities in the individual that occur between conception and death
Goals of studying human development
- description
- prediction
- explanation
- optimism
What is a theory?
a set of statements that relate different facts or events, describe and explain development and predict future outcomes
The Puritan view of children
people are inherently sinful
The Romantic view of children
inherently pure
The ‘tabula rasa’ view of children
children are blank slates
The child rights view of children
considering the views of the child
Biological-maturation perspective (theorists and focus)
- Gesell, Freud, Erikson
- Biological forces
Environmental learning (theorists and focus)
- Skinner, Watson, Bandura
- Environment, learning
Constructivist (theorists and focus)
- Piaget
- Children’s active role in development
Contextual/systems (theorists and focus)
- Bronfenbrenner, Gottlieb
- Ongoing transactions between biology and environment
Today’s lifespan perspective
Development is..
- lifelong
- multiply influenced
- multidirectional
- plastic
- embedded in multiple contexts
Cross-sectional design
- compares the performance of people of different age groups at a single time
- advantage: provides info about age differences
- disadvantage: cohort effects
Longitudinal design
- one age group (cohort) is assessed repeatedly over time
- advantages tells us…
1. whether most people change in the same direction
2. whether the characteristics measured remain consistent over time - whether experiences early in life predict traits and behaviours in later life
- disadvantages:
1. time of measurement effects
2. costly and time consuming
3. participants drop out
Sequential design
-groups of people of 2 or more different ages are studied repeatedly over a period of time
Case study
- intensive study of a single individual
- advantage: can provide a rich and detailed picture of development
- disadvantage: conclusions are based on a single individual may not hold true for other people
Experimental Method
- investigator manipulates some aspect of environment to see what effect this has on people’s behaviour
- advantages: can establish cause and effect
- disadvantages: artificiality, cannot address many questions for ethical or practical reasons.
Correlational method
- involves determining whether two or more naturally occurring variables are related in some specific way
- advantages:
1. allows us to predict behaviour
2. can suggest a causal relationship in situations where experiments would be unethical or impossible - has a ‘real world’ quality
- disadvantages: cannot establish cause and effect
chronosystem
the environmental events and transitions that occur throughout a child’s life, including any sociohistorical events.
cohort
a group of people born at the same time
exosystem
an environment in which an individual is not involved, which is external to his or her experience, but nonetheless affects him or her anyway. An example of an exosystem is the child’s parent’s workplace.
macrosystem
the cultural environment in which the child resides
mesosystem
The mesosystem refers to the point in which two social microsystems merge. One example of a mesosystem is the combination of the home and school environments. These intersect and become a mesosystem when events, situations, work and friendships cross back and forth between both environments.
microsystem
the immediate settings in which the person functions (eg family)
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Understanding Human Development25
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Genes and Environment43
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Prenatal Development and Birth34
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Brain Development58
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Cognition, Memory and Information Processing52
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Language and Education36
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Self and Personality51
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MCQ practice35
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Sex, Gender and Sexuality26
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Social Cognition and Moral Development43
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Development in Context: Families, Peers and the Sociocultrual World90
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Developmental Psychology in South Africa Today9
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MCQ practice0
