Some dimensions expand and others shrink
MULTIDIRECTIONAL
Has biological, cognitive, and socioemotional dimensions
MULTIDIMENSIONAL
The cap... [Show More] acity for change
plasticity
Early adulthood is not the endpoint of development; no age period dominates development
lifelong
Various areas of study have an interest in the field of development through the life span
MULTIDISCIPLINARY
All development occurs within a context, or setting (social, cultural, and historic factors)
CONTEXTUAL
Nature
refers to an organism's biological inheritance
EXAMPLE OF NATURE
sunflower grows in an orderly way
Nurture
environmental experiences
EXAMPLE OF NURTURE
sunflower is smashed by unfriendly environment
Continuity
involves gradual, cumulative change
EXAMPLE OF CONTINUITY
seed to tree
Discontinuity
distinct stages
EXAMPLE OF DISCONTINUITY
a child's first word
Stability
We become older renditions of our early experience
EXAMPLE OF STABILITY
many older adults continue to be good at practicing what they have learned earlier in life
EXAPLE OF CHANGE
older adults often show less capacity for learning new things than younger adults do
CHANGE
we develop into someone different from who we were at an earlier point in development
Freud
Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial Theories
psychosexual development: oral (birth to 1.5 years), anal (1.5 to 3 years), phallic (3-6 years), latency (6 to puberty), and genital (puberty onward)
Erikson
Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial Theories
Includes eight stages of human development. Each stage consists of a unique developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be resolved.
Piaget
COGNITIVE THEORIES
Theory stating that children actively construct their understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development.
Vygotsky
COGNITIVE THEORIES
A sociocultural cognitive theory that emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development.
Information processing
COGNITIVE THEORIES
Emphasizes that individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. Central to this theory are the processes of memory and thinking.
Operant conditioning
Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theory
B. F. Skinner: A behavior followed by a rewarding stimulus is more likely to recur, whereas a behavior followed by a punishing stimulus is less likely to recur
Bandura's social cognitive model
Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theory
The view of psychologists who emphasize behavior, environment, and cognition as the key factors in development.
Ecological theory
Bronfenbrenner's environmental systems theory that focuses on five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem
Ethology
Stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to evolution, and is characterized by critical or sensitive periods.
How does Erikson's theory differ from that of Freud?
Erik Erikson believed that Freud misjudged some important dimensions of human development. For one thing, Erikson said we develop in psychosocial stages, rather than in psychosexual stages. According to Freud, the primary motivation for human behavior is sexual in nature; according to Erikson, it is social and reflects a desire to affiliate with other people. According to Freud, our basic personality is shaped during the first five years of life; according to Erikson, developmental change occurs throughout the life span. Thus, in terms of the early-versus-later-experience issue described earlier in the chapter, Freud viewed early experience as being far more important than later experiences, whereas Erikson emphasized the importance of both early and later experiences.
Erikson's theory
Trust versus mistrust
Autonomy versus shame and doubt
Initiative versus guilt
Industry versus inferiority
identity versus identity confusion
Intimacy versus isolation
Generativity versus stagnation
Integrity versus despair
STAGE ONE Erikson's theory
Trust versus mistrust
experienced in the first year of life
STAGE TWO Erikson's theory
Autonomy versus shame and doubt
late infancy and toddlerhood (1 to 3 years)
STAGE THREE Erikson's theory
Initiative versus guilt
occurs during the preschool years
STAGE FOUR Erikson's theory
Industry versus inferiority
during the elementary school years
STAGE FIVE Erikson's theory
identity versus identity confusion
the adolescent years
STAGE SIX Erikson's theory
Intimacy versus isolation
During early adulthood
STAGE SEVEN Erikson's theory
Generativity versus stagnation
middle adulthood
STAGE EIGHT Erikson's theory
Integrity versus despair
in late adulthood
PIAGETS THEORY
sensorimotor stage
preoperational stage
concrete operational stage
formal operational stage
sensorimotor stage
birth to about 2 years of age
infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences (such as seeing and hearing) with physical, motoric actions
preoperational stage
2 to 7 years of age
children begin to go beyond simply connecting sensory information with physical action and represent the world with words, images, and drawings
concrete operational stage
7 to 11 years of age
children can perform operations that involve objects, and they can reason logically when the reasoning can be applied to specific or concrete examples
formal operational stage
between the ages of 11 and 15 and continues through adulthood,
individuals move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think in abstract and more logical terms. As part of thinking more abstractly, adolescents develop images of ideal circumstances. They might think about what an ideal parent would be like and compare their parents to this ideal standard. They begin to entertain possibilities for the future and are fascinated with what they can be. In solving problems, they become more systematic, developing hypotheses about why something is happening the way it is and then testing these hypotheses.
Descriptive
Studies designed to observe and record behavior.
WHEN TO USE DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH
a researcher might observe the extent to which people are altruistic or aggressive toward each other. By itself, descriptive research cannot prove what causes some phenomenon, but it can reveal important information about people's behavior
Correlational
Research that attempts to determine the strength of the relationship between two or more events or characteristics.
WHEN TO USE CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH
For example, to find out whether children of permissive parents have less self-control than other children, you would need to carefully record observations of parents' permissiveness and their children's self-control. You would then analyze these data statistically to yield a numerical measure called a correlation coefficient, which is a number based on a statistical analysis that describes the degree of association between two variables. The correlation coefficient ranges from -1.00 to +1.00. A negative number means an inverse relation. In this example, you might find an inverse correlation between permissive parenting and children's self-control with a coefficient of, say, -.30. By contrast, you might find a positive correlation of +.30 between parental monitoring of children and children's self-control.
Experimental
A carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of the factors believed to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated while all other factors are held constant.
WHEN TO USE EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
Imagine that you decide to conduct an experimental study of the effects of meditation by pregnant women on their newborns' breathing and sleeping patterns. You would randomly assign pregnant women to experimental and control groups. The experimental-group women would engage in meditation over a specified number of sessions and weeks. The control group would not. Then, when the infants are born, you would assess their breathing and sleeping patterns. If the breathing and sleeping patterns of newborns whose mothers were in the experimental group are more positive than those of the control group, you would conclude that meditation caused the positive effects.
Case Study
An in-depth look at a single individual.
WHEN TO USE A CASE STUDY
Case studies are performed mainly by mental health professionals when, for either practical or ethical reasons, the unique aspects of an individual's life cannot be duplicated and tested in other individuals. A case study provides information about one person's experiences; it may focus on nearly any aspect of the subject's life that helps the researcher understand the person's mind, behavior, or other attributes
Cross-sectional
A research strategy in which individuals of different ages are compared at one time.
WHEN TO USE CROSS SECTIONAL RESEARCH
A typical cross-sectional study might include three groups of children: 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and 11-year-olds. Another study might include groups of 15-year-olds, 25-year-olds, and 45-year-olds. The groups can be compared with respect to a variety of dependent variables: IQ, memory, peer relations, attachment to parents, hormonal changes, and so on.
Longitudinal
A research strategy in which the same individuals are studied over a period of time, usually several years or more.
WHEN TO USE LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH
For example, in a longitudinal study of life [Show Less]
