About Human Development

Chapter One

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 Human Development

• Scientific study of processes of

change and stability throughout the
human life span
• On the other hand , LIFE SPAN
DEVELOPMENT is a scientific study
of the concept of lifelong process of
development

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I. Human Development:
Basic Concepts
A. Study of Human Development
1. Developmental Change
a. Quantitative Change
b. Qualitative Change
2. Four goals
a. Description
b. Explanation
c. Prediction
d. Modification

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• Observe and establish norms or
averages for behavior at various ages
• Explain what causes or influences
the observed behavior
• Predict future development
• Modify behavior

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 Developmental Change

• Quantitative change is a change in

number or amount,such as growth in
height,weight,vocabulary,aggressive
behavior or frequency of
communication
• Qualitative change is a change in
kind,structure or organization

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 Example of Qualitative Change

• Change from embryo to baby

• Non-verbal child to one who
understands words
• Qualitative change marked by the
emergence of new phenomena that
cannot be easily be anticipated on the
basis of earlier functioning.

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• Developmental scientist are also
interested in STABILITY of
personality and behavior.
• Example broad dimensions of
personality such as
conscientiousness and openness to
new experience ,seem to stabilize
before or during young adulthood.
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B. Periods of the Life Span
1. Prenatal (conception to birth)
2. Infancy and Toddlerhood (birth to age 3)
3. Early Childhood (3 to 6 years)
4. Middle Childhood (6 to 12 years)
5. Adolescence (12 to 20 years)
6. Young Adulthood (20 to 40 years)
7. Middle Adulthood (40 to 65 years)
8. Late Adulthood (65 years and older)

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C. Aspects of Development
1. Physical Development
2. Cognitive Development
3. Psychosocial Development

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 Physical Development

• Growth of body and brain and change

or stability in sensory capacities,
motor skills and health

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 Cognitive Development

• Change or stability in mental

abilties,such as
learning,attention,memory,language,
thinking,reasoning and creativity

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 Psychosocial Development

• Change and stability in

emotions,personality and social
relationships.

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 Social Construction

• Concept about the nature of reality,

based on societally shared
perceptions or assumptions.

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D. Individual Differences
E. Influences on Development
1. Heredity
2. Environment
3. Normative Influences
4. Normative Life Events
5. Timing of Influences: Critical Periods
6. Influence of family
7. Neighborhood
8. Socio-economic Status
9. Historical Context
10.` Culture
F. The Role of Culture
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• Normative life events : In timing-of-
events model, commonly expected
life experiences that occur at
customary times.
• Normative: Characteristic of an event
that occurs in a similar way for most
people in a group.

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• HEREDITY • ENVIRONMENT
Inborn Totality of
characteristics nonhereditary or
Inherited from experiential,
biological parents influences on
at conception development

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• Maturation
Unfolding of natural sequence of
physical and behavioral
changes, including readiness to master
new abilities

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 Principles of Growth and Development

• Orderly sequence and predictable

• Is unique to each individual
• Involves change
• Early development is critical
• Is a product of maturation and learning.
• There is individual differences
• There is social expectations for every
developmental period – developmental
tasks.
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 Balte’s Principle of Life-Span
Development Approach

1. Development is lifelong
2. Development involves both gain and
loss. It is multidimensional and
multidirectional
3. Relative influences of biology and
culture shift over the life span
4. Development involves a changing
allocation of resources
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5. Development is modifiable
6. Development is influenced by
historical and cultural context

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II. Human Development:
How the Study has Evolved
A. Studying Childhood
B. Studying Adolescence, Adulthood
and Aging
C. Studying the Life Span
1. Multidirectionality
2. Plasticity
3. History and Context
4. Multiple Causation
D. Life-span Issue:
Can Early Personality Traits Predict
Midlife Development?
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III. Human Development:
Research Methods
A. Steps in the Scientific Method
B. Sampling
1. Generalizability
2. Random Selection
C. Forms of Data Collection

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1.Self-Reports:Participants are asked
about some aspect of their lives.
2.Behavioral Measures: Participants are
tested on abilities,skills,knowledge &
competencies or physical responses
3.Observation : observation in laboratory
or normal setting, with no attempt to
manipulate behavior
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D. Basic Research Design
1. Case Studies
2. Correlational Studies
3. Experiments
E. Studying Age Effects:
Quasi-Experimental Methods
1. Longitudinal Studies
2. Cross-Sectional Studies
3. Cross-Sequential Studies

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 Type Main Advantages Disadvantages
Characteristics
Case study Study of single Flexibility;provides May not
individual in depth detailed picture of generalize to
one person’s others;conclusi
behavior and ons not directly
development testable;cannot
establish cause
and effect
Ethnograph In-depth study of Can help Subject to
ic study a culture or overcome observer bias
subculture culturally-based
biases in theory
and research;can
test universality of
developmental
phenomena

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 Type Main Advantages Disadvantages
Characteristics

Correlational Attempt to find Allows prediction of Cannot establish

study positive or one variable on bias cause and effect
negative of another;can
relationship bet suggest hypotheses
variables about casual
relationship

Experiment Controlled Establishes cause Findings esp

procedure in which and effect when derived
an experimenter relationships;highly from laboratory
controls the IV to controlled procedure experiments,may
determine its effect that can be repeated not generalize to
on DV by another situations outside
investigator the laboratory

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F. Ethics of Research
1. Right to Informed Consent
2. Right to Self-Esteem
3. Right to Privacy

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 Three Basic Theoretical Issues on which
Developmental Scientist Differ

• Importance of heredity and

environment
• Active and passive character of
development
• Existence of stages of development

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• Mechanistic model :model that views
development as passive,predictable
response to stimuli (Locke)
• Organismic model: model that views
development as internally initiated by
an active organism and as occurring
in a sequence of qualitatively
different stages (Rousseau)
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 Perspective Important Theories Basic Beliefs
Psychoanalytic •Freud’s psychosexual •Behavior is controlled
theory by powerful unconscious
•Erikson’s psychosocial urges
theory •Personality is
influenced by society
and develops through a
series of crises or critical
alternatives

Learning •Behaviorism or traditional •People are

View of development learning theory (Pavlov, responders;the
that holds that Skinner, Watson) environment controls the
changes in behavior behavior.
result from •Social Learning or social •People learn in social
experience or cognitive context by observing
adaptation to the and imitating
environment models.Person is active
contributor to learning

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 Perspective Important Theories Basic Beliefs
Cognitive •Piaget’s cognitive-stage •Qualitative changes in
View that thought theory thought occur between
processes are infancy and
central to adolescence. Person is
development active initiator of
development
•Information-processing •Human beings are
theory processors of symbols.

Evolutionary/ •Bowlby’s and Ainsworth’s •Human beings have the

Sociobiological attachment theory adaptive mechanisms to
Application of survive; critiical or
Darwinian principles sensitive periods are
of natural selection stressed; biological and
and survival of the evolutionary bases for
fittest to individual behavior and
behavior predisposition toward
learning are important.
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 Perspective Important Theories Basic Beliefs

Contextual •Bronfenbrenner’s •Development occurs

View of development bioecological theory through interaction
that sees the between a developing
individual as person and five
inseparable from the surrounding, interlocking
social context contextual systems of
influences, from
microsystem to
chronosystem
•Vgotsky’s sociocultural •Sociocultural context is
theory central to development

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IV. Human Development:
Theoretical Perspectives
A. Psychoanalytic Perspective
1. Freud: Psychosexual Theory
a. Stages of Development
b. Personality
2. Erikson: Psychosocial Theory
3. Miller: Relational Theory

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B. Learning Perspective
1. Behaviorism
a. Classical Conditioning
b. Operant Conditioning
2. Social-Learning Theory
a. Contrast to Behaviorism
b. Observational Learning

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C. Cognitive Perspective
1. Piaget: Stage Model
a. Four stages
b. Organization
c. Adaptation
d. Equilibration
2. Information Processing

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D. Ethological Perspective
1. Imprinting
2. Attachment
E. Contextual Perspective
1. Sociocultural Theory (Vygotsky)
2. Zone of Proximal Development
3. Scaffolding

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