PSYCO 223 - Lifespan

Developmental Psychology

Chapter 1- introduction
An Orientation to
Lifespan Development
•Developmental psychologists focus on change and growth,
along with stability, consistency, and continuity
•Topical Areas in Lifespan Development
–Physical development
–Cognitive development
–Personality development
Social development
Key Issues and Questions:
Determine the Nature—and Nurture—of Lifespan Development

•Nature
–Encompasses maturation (predetermined unfolding of
genetic information)
•Nurture
•Developmental psychologists reject notion that behavior
is the result of either nature or nurture
•Nature–nurture controversy is like a continuum
Critical and Sensitive Periods: Gauging the Impact
of Environmental Events
•Critical periods are times during development when a particular
event will have its greatest consequences.
•Sensitive periods are times when organisms are particularly
susceptible to certain kinds of stimuli.
•Unlike a critical period, absence of a stimuli during a sensitive
period does not result in irreversible consequences.
Continuous Change Versus Discontinuous
Change
•Continuous change is development that is gradual and
builds.
•Continuous change is quantitative.
•Discontinuous change is development in stages.
•In discontinuous change, each stage is qualitatively
different from the previous stage.
Theoretical Perspectives on Lifespan
Development
There are grand theoretical perspectives in developmental psychology
● Psychodynamic perspective
● Behavioral perspective

● Cognitive perspective

● Humanistic perspective

● Contextual perspective

● Evolutionary perspective
 The Psychodynamic Approach: Freud

Freud’s stages: Freud’s 5 Stages of Psychosexual Development

 The Psychodynamic Approach: Erikson

8 Stages of Development by Erik Erikson

The Behavioral Perspective: Focusing on
Observable Behavior
•Suggests that keys to understanding development are observable
behavior and outside stimuli in the environment
–Behaviorists reject that people pass through stages
–Development occurs because of exposure to specific factors in the
environment
–Behaviorists focus on quantitative, not qualitative, research
 The Behavioral Perspective
•Classical conditioning
–John B. Watson believed you could produce any behavior if you could
control the person’s environment.
•Operant Conditioning
–B. F. Skinner developed the idea of operant conditioning
▪Consequences of behavior include reinforcement or punishment
▪When behavior is not reinforced or punished, it will extinguish
▪Used in behavior modification techniques
Little Albert experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V09FuazW8bc&ab_channel=Sprouts
•Social-cognitive Learning Perspective: Learning Through
Imitation
● Albert Bandura proposed
learning occurs by observing
and imitating behavior of a
model.
● Bobo doll experiment showed
that aggression could be
learned through observation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmBqwWlJg8U&ab_channel=EverywherePsychology
 The Cognitive Perspective:

•Cognitive perspective
•Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive
Development
–Proposed people move through fixed stages
–In each stage, quantity and quality of information
grows
Watch this video explaining Piaget’s stages of development: Piaget's Theory of Cognitive
Development
Information-Processing Approaches

–Seek to identify the ways individuals take in, use, and

store information
–Theory grew out of computer age
▪Assumption that complex behaviors can be broken into steps
▪Cognitive growth is more quantitative than qualitative
The Humanistic Perspective: Concentrating on
Uniquely Human Qualities

•Contends that people have a natural capacity to make decisions about their
lives and control their behavior
–Each individual has the ability and motivation to reach his or her full
potential
–Emphasizes free will (the ability to make choices and make decisions)
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, are famous for their humanistic
theories.
Abraham Maslow
The Contextual Approach

•Considers relationship between individuals and their physical,

cognitive, personality, and social worlds
● Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory

● Vygotsky's sociocultural theory.

Bronfenbrenner's
ecological systems
model adapted for
Black youth
development and
attachment processes
in context (Stern et al.,
2021)
 •Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

–Vygotsky: Russian child developmentalist

–Sociocultural theory: Approach that emphasizes
how cognitive development proceeds as a result of
social interactions between members of a culture
▪Vygotsky argues children’s understanding of the
world is due to interactions with others
▪Proposed culture must be taken in consideration
Watch this video about Vygotsky’s developmental theory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I2hrSRbmHE&ab_channel=Sprouts
Evolutionary Perspectives

•Seeks to identify behavior in today’s humans that

is a result of our genetic inheritance from our
ancestors
–Born out of Darwin’s work
–Argues our genetic inheritance determines physical traits,
personality traits, and social behaviors
Theories and Hypotheses: Posing Developmental Questions

–
Choosing a Research Strategy: Answering Questions

•Correlational research
–Cannot determine causation
•Experimental research
– The experimental method involves manipulating one
variable to determine if this causes changes in another
variable.
Correlational Studies
•Correlational research
–Seeks to measure relationship between two variables
–Finding a correlation between two factors does not imply that one
factor causes the other factor to vary.
Types of Correlational Studies
–Naturalistic observation
–Ethnography and Qualitative Research
–Case studies
–Survey research
–Psychophysiological Methods
 Experiments: Determining Cause and
Effect
Experimental research
–Researchers introduce change and observe effects
–Environment is carefully controlled
–Some questions cannot be answered this way for technical or ethical
reasons

Watch this video where a researcher explain the difference between the two major research design we talked
about: Research Designs | Psychology
 Elements of an Experiment

In this experiment, researchers randomly assigned a group of adolescents to one of two conditions: viewing a film that contained violent imagery or
viewing a film that lacked violent imagery (manipulation of the independent variable). Then participants were observed later to determine how much
aggression they showed (the dependent variable). Analysis of the findings showed that adolescents exposed to aggressive imagery showed more
aggression later.
Measuring Developmental Change

•Longitudinal Studies: Measuring

Individual Change
–Longitudinal research: Used to measure
behavior of one or more individuals as
the subjects age
▪Requires tremendous investment of time
▪Loses participants to attrition
▪Participants may become test-wise
•Cross-sectional Studies
–Cross-sectional research: Studies
people of different ages at the same
point in time
▪Takes less time than longitudinal
research
Sequential Studies

–Sequential studies: Researchers examine a number of

different age groups over several points in time
▪Combines longitudinal and cross-sectional research
▪Can tell about age changes and age differences
Ethics and Research

•Common topics in ethics for researchers

–Freedom from harm
–Informed consent
–Use of deception
–Maintenance of privacy