Mandatory Writing Assignment/Research Project
Humane Development
COLLEGE DOWN THE DRAIN?
Joan Brown was 18 years old when she became pregnant for the first time. Beginning with the birth of her first child, she devoted her life to motherhood, putting her personal ambitions on hold. She worked as a waitress, took a job at Kmart, and spent several years at home with her three kids. When her middle child Ericka began preschool, Joan went along with her. She never intended to accompany her daughter to preschool 6 hours a day for the entire year, but if it eased Ericka’s anxiety, Joan was willing to do it.
By the time Ericka was 16, the insecurity of her preschool days had vanished. Ericka was now a strong and independent young woman with the ability to accomplish most anything she wanted. “She was very smart, and I saw potential in her,” Joan says. “And I knew that she was going to be better than I was, and that’s what I always wanted.”
But Joan’s expectations were shattered one summer day at the doctor’s office. Ericka had not been feeling well, though she couldn’t quite articulate what was wrong, so Joan took her in for a checkup. When the doctor emerged from the examination room and said, “Ericka wants me to tell you something,” Joan knew immediately: “What, she’s pregnant?”
The car ride home was very quiet. Other than asking Ericka if she was hungry, Joan didn’t say much of anything, and she remained withdrawn for a couple days. “I was furious because, you know, you have that talk so many times,” Joan recalls. “I figured no college; [it’s] gone down the drain.”
Joan had reason to be concerned, as the statistics were not in Ericka’s favor. According to one study, less than 2% of women having babies at the age of 17 or younger earn a college degree by the time they are 30 (Hoffman, 2006). Half of all teenage moms don’t even graduate from high school by 22. By comparison, 90% of women who don’t have babies in their teenage years earn high school diplomas (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2016a).
Courtesy Ericka Harley.
Girl with Potential
Ericka Harley was 16 years old and starting her junior year of high school when she found out she was pregnant. Her mother, Joan, was disappointed to discover that her daughter, an honor-roll student, would soon be a mom; she had hoped Ericka might attend college and enjoy a successful career. Would Ericka ever make it to college?
Ericka had reached a crossroads, both in her relationship with her mom and in her life. How would she face the challenge of teen pregnancy? What kinds of physical, mental, and social changes would she experience in the months and years ahead? In other words, how would this major life event affect Ericka’s development?
Note: Quotations attributed to Ericka Harley and Joan Brown are personal communications.
Developmental Psychology
LO 1 Define human development.
When psychologists use the word “development,” they are referring to the changes that occur in our bodies, minds, and social functioning from conception to death. The goal of developmental psychology is to examine these changes. Research in developmental psychology helps us understand the struggles and triumphs of everyday people, such as Ericka and Joan, as they journey through the different stages of life. Psychologists often focus their studies on “typical” or “average” individuals, as it helps them uncover common themes and variations across the life span.
Various topics discussed in this chapter, including personality, learning, and emotion, are covered elsewhere in the book. Here, we focus on how humans change over the course of a lifetime, homing in on three major categories of developmental change: physical, cognitive, and socioemotional.
Ericka, in Her Own Words
THREE CATEGORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
Physical development begins the moment a sperm unites with an egg, and it continues until we take our final breath. The physical growth beginning with conception and ending when the body stops growing and developing is referred to as maturation . For the most part, maturation follows a progression that is universal in nature and biologically driven, as these changes are common across all cultures and ethnicities, and generally follow a predictable pattern. After maturation, physical changes continue, but not necessarily in a positive or growth direction. Some people, for example, experience vision loss as they age, and this requires changes to their everyday activities and goals (Schilling et al., 2016). Changes in memory, problem-solving abilities, decision making, language, and intelligence all fall under the umbrella of cognitive development. Like physical development, cognitive development tends to follow a universal course early in life, but there is enormous variation in the way cognitive abilities change, particularly as people get older (Skirbekk, Loichinger, & Weber, 2012; Small, Dixon, & McArdle, 2011; von Stumm & Deary, 2012). Socioemotional development refers to social behaviors, emotions, and the changes people experience with respect to their relationships, feelings, and overall disposition.
CONNECTIONS
In Chapter 5 , we described how various types of learning result in changes to behavior. Here, we are describing maturation, which also results in behavioral changes. Although some activities like sitting up alone appear to be learned, they are the result of maturation, as these changes are biologically driven.
Mel Yates/Getty Images.
We Can Sit!
Most babies begin sitting up on their own around 6 months (CDC, 2016f). Sitting upright is one of the milestones of physical development. Maturation tends to follow a predictable pattern, regardless of ethnicity or culture.
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE
In this chapter, we draw on the biopsychosocial perspective, which recognizes the contributions of biological, psychological, and social forces shaping human development. We consider the intricate interplay of heredity, chemical activity, and hormones (biological factors); learning and personality traits (psychological factors); and family, culture, and media (social factors).
Three Debates
LO 2 Outline the three longstanding discussions in developmental psychology.
Science is, at its core, a work in progress, full of unresolved questions and areas of disagreement. In developmental psychology, longstanding debates and discussions tend to cluster around three major themes: stages and continuity, nature and nurture, and stability and change. Each of these themes relates to a basic question: (1) Does development occur in separate or discrete stages, or is it a steady, continuous process? (2) What are the relative roles of heredity and environment in development? (3) How stable is one’s personality over a lifetime and across situations?
STAGES OR CONTINUITY
Some aspects of development occur in discrete stages; others in a steady, continuous process. Abrupt changes are often related to environmental circumstances. High school graduation, for example, marks the time when many young people feel free to move out of the family home. This response is not universal, however. Ericka continued to live with her mom until she was 25—not unusual among today’s young adults. As of 2014, 36.4% of women and 42.8% of men between the ages of 18 and 34 live with parents and other family members (Fry, 2015, November 11). Physical changes may also occur in stages, such as learning to walk and talk, or developing the physical characteristics of a sexually mature adult.
One line of evidence supporting developmental stages with definitive beginnings and endings comes to us indirectly through the animal kingdom. Konrad Lorenz (1937) documented the imprinting phenomenon, showing, for example, that when baby geese hatch, they become attached to the first “moving and sound-emitting object” they see, whether it’s their mother or a nearby human (p. 269). Lorenz made sure he was the first moving creature several goslings saw, and he found that they followed him as soon as they could stand up and walk, becoming permanently attached to him because he was that first “object.” But there appeared to be a limited time frame within which this imprinting occurred. Experiences during a critical period for this type of automatic response result in permanent and “irreversible changes” in brain function (Knudsen, 2004). Unlike baby geese, humans do not exhibit dramatic behavioral changes resulting from experiences that occur during critical periods. However, some researchers hypothesize that there are critical periods for the normal development of vision, attachment, and language (Hensch, 2004; Myers, 1987/2014).
Nina Leen/Getty Images.
He Must Be My Mother
A brood of baby geese follows scientist Konrad Lorenz. The goslings treated Lorenz like a mother because he was the first “moving and sound-emitting” object with whom they had contact (Lorenz, 1937, p. 269). As Lorenz discovered, there appears to be a critical period during which imprinting occurs.
Although some developmental changes occur stepwise, others happen gradually, without clear beginnings and endpoints (McAdams & Olson, 2010). Observing a toddler making her transition into early childhood, you probably won’t be able to pinpoint her shift from the “terrible twos” to the more emotionally self-controlled young child.
NATURE AND NURTURE
Psychologists also debate the degree to which heredity (nature) and environment (nurture) influence behavior and development, but few would dispute the important contributions of both (Moore, 2013; Mysterud, 2003). Researchers can study a trait like impulsivity, which is the tendency to act before thinking, to determine the extent to which it results from hereditary factors and from the environment. In this particular case, nature and nurture appear to both play a substantial role (Anokhin, Grant, Mulligan, & Heath, 2015; Bezdjian, Baker, & Tuvblad, 2011). Later in this chapter, we will examine the balance of nature and nurture in relation to brain and language development, a longstanding, sometimes controversial debate in psychology and beyond.
CONNECTIONS
Nature and nurture are discussed starting in Chapter 1 , where we noted the debates of ancient philosophers. In Chapter 7 , we introduced the concept of heritability, or the degree to which heredity (nature) is responsible for a particular characteristic. Here, we examine how nature and nurture influence human development.
STABILITY AND CHANGE
How much does a person change from childhood to old age? Some researchers suggest that personality traits identified early in life can be used to predict behaviors across the life span (Allemand, Steiger, & Hill, 2013; McAdams & Olson, 2010). Others report that personality characteristics change as a result of relationships and other experiences. The way we adapt to aging may also influence personality development (Kandler, Kornadt, Hagemeyer, & Neyer, 2015; Specht, Egloff, & Schmukle, 2011). Psychologists often discuss how experiences in infancy can set the stage for stable cognitive characteristics, particularly when it comes to early enrichment and its long-term impact on intellectual abilities.
Three Methods
LO 3 Identify the types of research psychologists use to study developmental processes.
Developmental psychologists use a variety of methods to study differences across ages and time ( INFOGRAPHIC 8.1 ).
THE CROSS-SECTIONAL METHOD
The cross-sectional method enables researchers to examine people of different ages at a given point in time. In one study, for example, researchers used the cross-sectional method to investigate developmental changes in the efficiency of memory recall (Castel et al., 2011). They divided their 320 participants into groups according to age (children, adolescents, younger adults, middle-aged adults, young-old adults, and old-old adults) and compared the scores of the different groups to see if changes occur across the life span. One advantage of the cross-sectional method is that it can provide a great deal of information quickly; by studying differences across age groups, we don’t have to wait for people to get older.
CONNECTIONS
In Chapter 6 , we described recall as the process of retrieving information held in long-term memory without the help of explicit retrieval cues. Here, we will see how these memory processes change as a function of development.
But a major problem with the cross-sectional method is that it doesn’t tell us whether differences across age groups result from actual developmental changes or from common experiences within groups, a phenomenon known as the cohort effect . Members of each age group, or cohort, have lived through similar historical and cultural eras, and these common experiences may be responsible for some differences across groups. For example, the “old-old adults” in the memory recall study described above were not raised on cell phones, iPads, Google, or Facebook, so they probably have different perspectives than those in the younger adult group. The authors of the study were quick to point out this pitfall: “The present design was cross-sectional, whereas (in some ways) a longitudinal design would allow for stronger conclusions regarding . . . changes with age” (Castel et al., 2011, p. 1562).
CONNECTIONS
In Chapter 1 , we described confounding variables as unaccounted factors that change in sync with the independent variable, making it very hard to discern which one is causing changes in the dependent variable. Here, we consider how a cohort can act as a confounding variable.
THE LONGITUDINAL METHOD
Researchers can avoid the cohort effect by using the longitudinal method , which follows one group of individuals over a period of time. Curious to find out what “lifestyle activities” are associated with age-related cognitive decline, one team of researchers studied 952 individuals over a 12-year period (Small, Dixon, McArdle, & Grimm, 2012). Every three to four years, they administered tests to all participants, assessing, for example, cognitive abilities and health status. The more engaged and socially active the participants were, the better their long-term cognitive performance. Using the longitudinal method, we can compare the same individuals over time, identifying similarities and differences in the way they age. But these studies are difficult to conduct because they require a great deal of money, time, and participant investment. Common challenges include attrition (people dropping out of the study) and practice effects (people performing better on measures as they get more “practice”).
INFOGRAPHIC 8.1
The three types of research methods are each presented in a rectangular section inside the image.
Text under the title “Research Methods in Developmental Psychology” reads “Developmental psychologists use several research methods to study changes that occur with age. Imagine you want to know whether using social media helps protect against feelings of loneliness over time. How would you design a study to measure that? Let’s compare methods.” Directly to the right of the text is the section for longitudinal research methods. Text explains that longitudinal methods measure a single group at different points in time, and provides the following example: “Researchers follow a sample of participants, interviewing them every decade for a total of three measurements. As they age, participants report lower levels of loneliness than expected. But because the study is longitudinal, we can’t eliminate the possibility that this particular group of participants is less lonely because of some historically specific effect.” Below this text is an illustration of a longitudinal sample group, Group 1. The illustration is an arrow with three dates on it. At 2005, Group 1 is 20 years old, at 2015, it is 30 years old, and in 2025 it is 40 years old. Text below the illustration explains that the benefits and problems of this method. The benefit is that it can track age-related changes. The problems are that measured changes could be specific to the particular group of participants, and that it takes a long time, leading some participants to drop out before the study is complete.
The second type of research method is cross-sectional. Text explains that Cross-sectional research methods measure groups of people of different ages (for example, 20 -, 40-, and 60-year-olds) at a single point in time, and provides the following example: “Researchers interview participants in three different age groups: 20-, 40-, and 60- year-olds. The oldest group reports higher levels of loneliness. But because the study is cross-sectional, we can’t be sure if this finding reflects a cohort effect, in which differences may be due to age or to common experiences within the group, as opposed to developmental changes in physical, cognitive, or socioemotional functioning. Under this text is an illustration, showing the three groups (of 20-, 40-, and 60-year-olds), all in 2015. Text below the illustration explains the benefits and problems of this method. The benefits are that it allows comparison between age groups, and that it can be completed relatively quickly. The problem is that it is susceptible to the cohort effect.
The third type of research method is cross-sequential. Text under the title explains that cross-sequential methods measure groups of people of different ages, following them across different points in time, and provides the following example: Researchers interview participants from three age groups every decade for a total of three measurements. This results in data showing how social media use and loneliness change within each group as they age. Under this text is an illustration, showing three groups of people, each a different age, at three different dates. Group 1 is 20 years old in 2005, 30 years old in 2015, and 40 years old in 2025. Group 2 is 40 years old in 2005, 50 years old in 2015, and 60 years old in 2025. Group 3 is 60 years old in 2005, 70 years old in 2015, and 80 years old in 2025. Text below the illustration explains the benefits and problems of this method. The benefits are that it shows changes within individuals and between groups, and that it better addresses the cohort effect. The problems are that it requires substantial resources and many participants, and that it takes a long time, leading some participants to drop out before the study is complete.
THE CROSS-SEQUENTIAL METHOD
The cross-sequential method , also used by developmental psychologists, is a mixture of the longitudinal and cross-sectional methods. You might call it the best of both worlds. Participants are divided into age groups and followed over time, so researchers can examine developmental changes within individuals and across different age groups. One team of researchers used this approach to identify the age at which cognitive decline becomes evident (Singh-Manoux et al., 2012). They recruited 10,308 participants, assigning each to a 5-year age group (45 – 49, 50 – 54, 55 – 59, 60 – 64, and 65 – 70), and then followed them for 10 years. Using this approach, they could observe changes in individuals as they aged and identify differences across age groups.
Human development is very complex. Some processes are universal; others are specific to an individual, and it is this combination that makes the field so fascinating. As you learn about the development of Ericka and her family, you may be struck by the degree of similarity (or differences) in your own family