1

Janet Belsky’s

Experiencing the Lifespan, 2e

Chapter 1:

The People and The Field

Who W

e Are and W

hat We Study

�Lifespan development is the scientific study of:

�Infant and Child Development

�Adult Development

�Gerontology

�Exploration of predictable m

ilestones in development

�Individual Differences

�Nature versus Nurture

�Temperament, Talent, Traits

�Life Transitions and Practices

�Norm

ative

and Non-Norm

ative

Transitions

�Lifespan development is m

ultidisciplinary

Four Contexts of Development

�Cohort: birth group

�baby boom

cohort

�Socioeconomic Status

(SES)

�education and income level

�Developedworld;

Developingworld

�Culture

�Collectivist and Individualist

�Gender

Changing Perceptions of

Childhood

�Historical Background

�Mortality rates high; poverty

�Childhood not perceived as a

special life stage

�Abusive treatm

ent common

�Children assume adulthood

responsibilities much earlier

�Norm

s: child labor; child

abandonment among poor

�John Locke’s vision of

childhood (tabula rasa)

�Jean Jacques Rousseau’s

vision: lovingly nurture babies

�practices not instituted until early

20thCentury

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Changing Perceptions of

Childhood

�Modern view, late 19thCentury: kinder, gentler view

of children

�Childhood protected, dependent life stage

�Universal education: primary school mandatory

�Adolescence: identified by G. Stanley Hall in early

20thCentury

�Stage of “Storm

and Stress” betw

een childhood and

adulthood

�In 1930s, High school attendance became m

andatory (Great

Depression and President Franklin Roosevelt)

�Emerging Adulthood: newest life stage

�Age 18 to late 20s

�Tim

e for personal exploration

Changing Perceptions of Later

Life: Adulthood and Old Age

�Life Expectancy

�Before 20thcentury m

edical

advances, average life

expectancy w

as low

�Today, tw

entieth-century life

expectancy revolution!

�Infectious diseases wiped

out

�Chronic diseases (heart

disease, cancer, etc.) today

�New Stages

�Young-old (60s, 70s)

�Old-old (80s and beyond)

Cohort Changes in Adult and

Late Life

�Late 20thCentury “Revolution in

Lifestyles”

�Baby boomers come of age (60s-

early 70s)

�Civil Rights; Women’s “lib”; Sexual revolution

�Positive change: more open society w

ith

ability to m

ake new choices at any tim

e of

life

�Negative changes related to economics:

single parenthood; poverty

Theories of Development

�Theory

�Any perspective w

hich attempts to explain individual

behavior

�Allows us to predict behavior

�Presents ideas for interventions to improve behavior

�Nature/Nurture

�Are we shaped by biological/genetic forces or is the

environment more influential?

�We’ll look at each theory from this perspective.

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Behaviorism

: The Original

“Nurture” Theory

�Traditional Behaviorism

: John W

atson and B. F.

Skinner

�Nurture is all im

portant!

�A realscience: study

observable, measurable

responses

�If w

e understand the

scientific laws of learning

we can produce any

behavior we w

ant!

B. F. SKINNER

OPERANT CONDITIO

NING

�Conditioning = Learning

�Operant Conditioning

�The law of learning that determ

ines any voluntary

response.

�Variable reinforcement schedules

�We behave a certain w

ay because w

e are

reinforced(rewarded) for certain behaviors.

�Any behavior that is reinforcedis likely to be repeated.

�Any behavior that is not reinforcedis likely to be

extinguished.

A Different Perspective: Cognitive

Behaviorism

(Social Learning Theory)

�Albert Bandura

�Cognition and M

odeling

�Learn by m

odeling (im

itating) others

�We m

odel people w

ho are nurturant, or

involved w

ith us.

�Model those w

e perceive to be like us

�Gender labels and behaviors

�Our perceptions about reinforcers

(rewards) determ

ine our behavior.

Bandura: Cognitive Behaviorism

�Self-Efficacy

�Our belief in our competence

�Our sense that we can be successful at a

given task

�A sense of efficacy is an important factor in

healthy child development

�How can w

e enhance self-efficacy during

childhood and at any tim

e of life?

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Attachment Theory (mid 20th

Century): Nature, Nurture, and Love

�Form

ulated by John Bowlby

�Shared Freud’s psychoanalytic view: early life

experiences with caregivers shape our

personality

�Determ

ines whether we become w

ell-adjusted or

emotionally impaired adults.

�Bowlby’s M

ain Focus: “attachment response”

�Attachment response genetically programmed into

our species to promote survival

�Early attachments affect development

�Bowlby an early evolutionary

psychologist

Evolutionary Psychology:

Nature

�Evolutionary

psychologists focus on

biological predispositions

�Inborn, species-specific behaviors

influence

human development

�Speculate about the geneticroots of

human behaviors

�Survival of the fittest!

Behavioral Genetics: Nature

�Field devoted to scientifically

determ

ining the role that

hereditary

forcesplay in individual

differencesin behavior

�Twin Studies (identical and

fraternal)

�Adoption Studies

�Twin/Adoption Studies

�Heritability-1 (totally genetic)

to 0 (no genetic contribution)

�Statistic to summarize the extent

to w

hich a given behavior is

shaped by genetics

Nature and Nurture Combined

�Consider both nature and nurture

when studying human

development!

�Evocative Forces

�Inborn talents and temperamental

tendencies naturally evoke certain

responses from others.

�Bidirectionalforces in relationships

�Active Forces

�We actively select our environments

based on our genetic tendencies.

�Person-Environment Fitcrucial to

flourishing in life!

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Person-Environment Fit

�Basic goalof developmental science is

to foster the correct person-

environment fit

�The real im

pact

of the “nature”

revolution is to allow us to intervene to

change the environmentin order to

enhance one’s quality of life.

Age-Linked Theories: Piaget

�Cognitive-Developmental

Theory

�Qualitatively

different stages exist

in the w

ay thinking develops

(different age groups conceptualize

the world in completely different

ways).

�Schemas (cognitive structures)

�Assim

ilation, Accommodation

�Studies focused on children

Cognitive Development: Piaget

�Tried to understand the unique qualitiesof

childhood cognition by entering children’s

mental framework, setting up tests, watching

children’s actions, and listening to them speak.

�Believed that we grow m

entally through

assim

ilation,fitting inform

ation from the outside

world into our “schemas” (or current mental

capacities), and accommodation,enlarging our

capacities to fit in this “data” from the w

orld.

A Preview of Piaget’s Stages

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Psychosocial Development:

Erikson

Considered “the father of lifespan

development”

�Believed w

e continue to develop

throughoutlife

�Exception to Freud’s idea that

development ends in adolescence

�Identified core developmental

tasks, or psychosocialtasks, for

each of eight stages from infancy

to old age

�Believed that we need to m

aster

the task of each previous stage in

order to progress to the next.

A Preview of Erikson’s Stages

The Developmental Systems

Perspective

�Urie Bronfenbrenner

�Among the first theorists to highlight

multidirectionalforces in human development

�The total ecology, or life situation of the child,

influences his/her development

�Developmental Systems Approach

:

�stress the need to use m

any different approaches

in understanding human behavior

�believe w

e m

ust look at the interaction of

processes (genes, environment, family, society,

culture)

Research M

ethods

�Two standard research strategies:

�Correlations

�Relate two or more variables as they naturally

occur

�Correlation does not mean causation!

�Experiments

�Randomly assign individuals to groups

�Give each group a different treatm

ent

�Determ

ine if intervention produced a predicted

effect

�Experiments can determ

ine cause!

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Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies:

How do w

e change w

ith age?

�Cross-Sectional

�Testing and comparing different age groups

�Gives differences betw

een age groups

�Does not tell us the changes that occur with

age

�Longitudinal

�Test at intervals –

one group over many years

Note: It’s “all statistics.” These m

ethods are

valuable, not because they apply to everyone—

but because they allow us to m

ake educated

guesses about human life!

Quantitative and Qualitative

Research

�Quantitative

�The typical research m

ode in developmental

science using groups and statisticalanalyses to

make general predictions about behavior

�Qualitative

�Scientist notinterested in numerical comparisons

�Studying through observation and interviews the

life of a single person, or observing a single

individual in depth