Phsy.241

I. Thinking About Development

A. What Is Human Development?

1. Human development is the multidisciplinary study of how people change and how they remain the same over time.

2. The science of human development (1) reflects the complexity and uniqueness of each person and their experiences, (2) seeks to understand commonalities and patterns across people, (3) is firmly grounded in theory, and (4) seeks to understand human behavior.

B. Recurring Issues in Human Development: Three fundamental issues dominate the study of human development.

1. Nature Versus Nurture is the degree to which genetic influences (nature) or experiential/environmental influences (nurture) determine the kind of person you are. Despite the ongoing debate as to which influence is greater, theorists and researchers recognize that development is always shaped by both—nature and nurture are mutually interactive influences.

2. Continuity Versus Discontinuity focuses on whether a particular developmental phenomenon represents a smooth progression throughout the life span (continuity) or a series of abrupt shifts (discontinuity).

3. Universal Versus Context-Specific Development focuses on whether there is just one path of development or several. In other words, does development follow the same general path in all people, or is it fundamentally different, depending on the sociocultural context?

C. Basic Forces in Human Development: The Biopsychosocial Framework. This framework emphasizes that these four forces are mutually interactive and that development cannot be understood by examining them in isolation. By combining the four developmental forces, we have a view of human development that encompasses the life span, yet appreciates the unique aspects of each phase of life.

1. Biological forces include genetic and health-related factors that affect development. Some biological forces, such as puberty and menopause, are universal and affect people across generations, whereas others, such as diet or disease, affect people in specific generations or occur in a small number of people.

2. Psychological forces include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors that affect development. Psychological forces are the ones used most often to describe the characteristics of a person and have received the most attention.

3. Sociocultural forces include interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that affect development. Culture refers to the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors associated with a group of people. Overall, sociocultural forces provide the context or backdrop for development. Consequently, there is a need for research on different cultural groups. Another practical problem is how to describe racial and ethnic groups.

4. Life-cycle forces reflect differences in how the same event affects people of different ages. The influence of life-cycle forces reflects the influences of biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces at different points in the life span. The same event can have different effects depending on when it happens in a person’s life. Life-cycle factors provide a context for understanding how people perceive their current situation and its effect on them.

D. Neuroscience: A Window into Human Development

1. Neuroscience is the study of the brain and the nervous system, especially in terms of brain–behavior relationships. This helped reveal interactions between biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life-cycle forces.

II. Developmental Theories

A. A theory is an organized set of ideas designed to explain development.

1. Theories organize knowledge in order to provide testable explanations of human behaviors and the ways in which they change over time.

2. There are no truly comprehensive theories of human development to guide research.

B. Psychodynamic theories hold that development is largely determined by how well people resolve the conflicts they face at different ages. This perspective can be traced to Sigmund Freud’s theory that personality emerges from conflicts experienced in childhood. Building on Freud’s idea, Erik Erikson proposed the first comprehensive life-span view of psychosocial development, in which he identified eight universal stages, each characterized by a particular struggle. The sequence of Erikson’s theory is based on the epigenetic principle, which means that each psychosocial strength has its own special period of particular importance. The psychodynamic perspective emphasizes that the trek to adulthood is difficult because the path is strewn with challenges.

C. Learning theory focuses on how learning influences a person’s behavior. This perspective emphasizes the role of experience and that people learn from watching others around them. Two influential theories in this perspective are behaviorism and social learning theory.

1. Behaviorism focuses on the work of John B. Watson, who believed babies were born a “blank slate,” and B. F. Skinner, who focused on operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is based on the notions of reinforcement, punishment, and environmental control of behavior.

2. Social learning theory proposes that people learn by observing others in what is called imitation or observational learning .

3. Albert Bandura based his social cognitive theory on both cognitive and social aspects. He believed that self-efficacy —people’s beliefs about their own abilities and talents—helps determine when people will imitate others.

D. Cognitive-developmental theory focuses on thought processes and the construction of knowledge. From this perspective, the key is how people think and how thinking changes over time. This theory involves three distinct approaches:

1. Piaget’s theory proposes a four-stage universal sequence of cognitive development in which the child constructs knowledge in a new way in each stage.

2. Information-processing theory proposes that human cognition consists of mental hardware and software. Mental hardware refers to cognitive structures, and mental software includes organized sets of cognitive processes.

3. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory focuses on the ways that adults convey to children the beliefs, customs, values, and skills of their culture. Vygotsky was one of the first theorists to emphasize that children’s thinking is influenced by the sociocultural context in which they grow up.

E. The ecological and systems approach proposes that human development is inseparable from the environmental contexts in which a person develops. Two examples of the ecological and systems approach are Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model and the competence–environmental press framework.

1. Urie Bronfenbrenner, one of the best-known ecological theorists, proposed that development occurs in the context of a series of complex interconnected systems. Bronfenbrenner identified four levels of the environment: (1) microsystem, (2) mesosystem, (3) exosystem, and (4) macrosystem.

2. Competence–environmental press theory suggests that there is an optimal “best fit” between one’s abilities and the demands placed on a person by the environment. 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 environment.

F. Life span, selective optimization with compensation, and life-course perspectives view development in terms of where a person has been and where he or she is heading.

1. The life-span perspective argues that human development is multiply determined and cannot be understood within the scope of a single framework. Its basic premise is that aging is a lifelong process of growing up and growing old, beginning with conception and ending with death. Paul Baltes and colleagues identified four key features of the life-span perspective:

a) Multidirectionality—development involves both growth and decline.

b) Plasticity—one’s capacity is not predetermined or carved in stone.

c) Historical context—development occurs within a particular set of circumstances determined by the historical time period and the culture in which we grew up.

d) Multiple causation—how we develop results from biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life-cycle forces.

2. The selective optimization with compensation (SOC) model is based on the assumption that three processes (selection, compensation, and optimization) form a system of behavioral action that generates and regulates development and aging. The selection occurs for two main reasons: elective selection and loss-based selection. Compensation occurs when a person’s skills have decreased, and optimization involves minimizing losses and maximizing gains.

3. The life-course perspective describes the ways in which various generations experience the biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces of development in their respective historical contexts. The key feature of the life-course perspective is the dynamic interplay between the individual and society, which involves three major factors: the individual timing of events; the synchronization of individual transitions; and the impact of earlier life events.

III. Doing Developmental Research

A. Measurement in Human Development

1. Systematic observation involves watching people and recording what they do in a natural setting, naturalistic observation, or in a setting created by the researcher for structured observation.

2. Sampling behavior with tasks is used when a behavior cannot be observed directly. A task is created to sample the behavior of interest.

3. Self-reports are people’s answers to questions about the topic of interest.

4. Physiological measures involve measuring people’s physiological responses (i.e., heart rate and cortisol levels) to focus on a particular aspect of a person’s behavior.

5. Reliability and validity refer to the extent to which a measure provides a consistent index of a characteristic (reliability) and whether it really measures what we think it measures (validity).

6. Representative sampling must reflect the characteristics of the population of interest.

B. General Designs for Research

1. Correlational studies allow the researcher to investigate relationships between variables. A correlation coefficient expresses the strength and direction of a relation between two variables. The size or strength of a relation is measured by how much the correlation differs from 0 to +1(positive) or -1(negative).

2. Experimental studies involve systematically manipulating key factor(s) that the investigator thinks causes a particular behavior.

a. Independent variable is the variable being manipulated (cause).

b. Dependent variable is the behavior being observed (effect or outcome).

3. The qualitative research method involves gaining in-depth understanding of behavior and what governs it by attempting to uncover reasons underlying various aspects of it.

C. Designs for Studying Development

1. Longitudinal studies observe or test the same individuals (a single cohort) repeatedly at different points in their lives. This approach studies development over time and is the most direct way to watch development occur. These studies have several limitations, such as participant dropout and repeated testing effects.

2. Cross-sectional designs compare groups of people varying in age at one point in time. These studies only uncover age differences and are subject to the cohort effect.

3. Cohort effects are problems with cross-sectional designs in which differences between age groups (cohorts) may result as easily from environmental events as from developmental processes.

4. Sequential designs are multiple cross-sectional or longitudinal studies.

5. Meta-analysis is a tool that allows researchers to synthesize the results of many studies to estimate relations between variables.

D. Conducting Research Ethically

1. Minimize risks to research participants.

2. Describe the research to potential participants.

3. Avoid deception.

4. Make results anonymous or confidential.

E. Communicating Research Results

1. When a researcher completes a study, a report will be written describing it. This report will be submitted for publication to one of several scientific journals that specialize in human development research.

F. Applying Research Results: Social Policy

1. Research on human development has an influence on social policy.

2. These connections are broad ranging and include areas that many of us may take for granted. For example, some states in the United States are changing the way older drivers are screened when they renew their driving license because research on human development played a role in establishing these laws and regulations.

3. Research on human development provides many insights into what makes people do the things they do and provides ways to improve quality of life.

4. Stem cell research is a very controversial topic that has far-reaching implications.