What is the study of human development?
The science of human development seeks to understand how and why people—all kinds of people, everywhere—change or remain the same over time.
(1) Science
(2) all kinds of people, young old, rich and poor, of every ethnicity, background, sexual orientation, culture, and nationality.
(3) The third crucial element is change or remain the same over time.
Lifespan Perspective
Understanding change is one of the most important aspects of human development. The lifespan perspective is about understanding that changes occur in every period of development and these changes must be looked at as a product of the culture and of the specific situation surrounding the change.
Scientific Method
To avoid the distortions of unexamined opinions and to control the biases of personal experience, method involves four basic steps and sometimes a fifth.
Robert Sternberg
The triangular theory of love is a theory of love developed by psychologist Robert Sternberg. The theory characterizes love within the context of interpersonal relationships by three different components:
| 1. Intimacy | Which encompasses feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness. | ||
| 2. Passion | Which encompasses drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and sexual consummation. | ||
| 3. Commitment | Which encompasses, in the short term, the decision to remain with another, and in the long term, the shared achievements and plans made with that other. |
The “amount” of love one experiences depends on the absolute strength of these three components; the “type” of love one experiences depends on their strengths relative to each other. Different stages and types of love can be explained as different combinations of these three elements; for example, the relative emphasis of each component changes over time as an adult romantic relationship develops. A relationship based on a single element is less likely to survive than one based on two or three elements.
Lawrence Kohlberg
Much of the developmental research on children’s morality began with Piaget descriptions of the rules used by children as they play.
Stages of Moral reasoning
Preconventional moral reasoning – Kohlberg’s first level of moral reasoning, emphasizing rewards and punishments
Conventional moral reasoning – second level of moral reasoning, emphasizing social rules.
Postconventional moral reasoning – third level of moral reasoning, emphasizing moral principles.
Jean Piaget
was a Swiss psychologist and natural scientist, and is well known for his work studying children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view is together called "genetic epistemology."
He laid great importance to the education of children that made him declare in 1934 in his role as Director of the International Bureau of Education that ‘only education is capable of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual’[1].
According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget is "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing."
Sigmund Freud
was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud is also renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life, as well as his therapeutic techniques, including the use of free association, his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires.
Urie Bronfenbrenner
was an American psychologist, known for developing his Ecological Systems Theory, and as a co-founder of the Head Start program in the United States for disadvantaged pre-school children. Bronfenbrenner's primary contribution was his Ecological Systems Theory, in which he delineated four types of nested systems. He called these the microsystem (such as the family or classroom); the mesosystem (which is two microsystems in interaction); the exosystem (external environments which indirectly influence development, e.g., parental workplace); and the macrosystem (the larger socio-cultural context). He later added a fifth system, called the Chronosystem (the evolution of the external systems over time). Each system contains roles, norms and rules that can powerfully shape development.
Erik Erikson
Described eight developmental stages, each characterized by a challenging developmental crisis, with two polarities at each stage.
Trust vs. Mistrust
Autonomy vs. Shame and doubt
Initiative vs. Guilt
Industry vs. Inferiority
Identity vs. Role confusion
Intimacy vs. Isolation
Generativity vs. Stagnation
Integrity vs. despair
Howard Gardner
Describes eight intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic (movement), interpersonal (social understanding), intrapersonal (self-understanding), and naturalistic (understanding of nature, as in biology, zoology, or farming)
Microsystem
Elements of the person’s immediate surroundings, such as family and peer group
Macrosytem
The larger social setting, including cultural values, economic policies and political processes
Ecosystem
Such local institutions as school and church
Mesosystem
Which involves the connections between systems or between parts of a single system.
Butterfly Effect
The idea that a small effect or thing can have a large impact if it happens to tip the balance, causing other changes that create a major event.
Continuity Principle
The Continuity Theory of normal aging states that older adults will usually maintain the same activities, behaviors, personalities, and relationships as they did in their earlier years of life [1]. According to this theory, older adults try to maintain this continuity of lifestyle by adapting strategies that are connected to their past experiences [2].
Socioeconomic Status
Socioeconomic status (SES) is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family’s economic and social position relative to others, based on income, education, and occupation. When analyzing a family’s SES, the household income earners' education and occupation are examined, as well as combined income, versus with an individual, when their own attributes are assessed.
Epigenetic Theory
is an emergent theory of development that includes both the genetic origins of behavior and the direct systematic influence that environmental forces have, over time, on the expression of those genes. The theory focuses on the dynamic interaction between these two influences during development.
Cognitive Theory
Emphasizes the structure and development of thought processes. Accrding to this theory, thoughts and expectations profoundly affect attitudes, beliefs, values, assumptions, and actions.
Genotype
When sperm and ovum combine into a zygote, they establish the genotype: all the genes that the developing person has. Some genes on the genotype are ignored and others amplified in the formation of the phenotype, which is the actual appearance and manifest behavior of the person.
Dizygotic Twins
Also called fraternal twins. They began life as two separate zygotes created by the fertilization of two ova by two sperm at toughly the same time
Teratogen
Agents and conditions, including viruses, drugs, and chemicals that can impair prenatal development and result in birth defects or even death.
Pruning
An estimated fivefold increase in dendrites in the cortex occurs in the 24 months after birth, with about 100 trillion synapses being present at age two. This early growth is called transient exuberance, because the expanded growth of dendrites is followed by pruning, in which unused neurons and misconnected dendrites atrophy and die.
Secure Attachment
A relationship in which an infant obtains both comfort and confidence from the presence of his or her caregiver.
Amygdala
A tiny brain structure that registers emotions, particularly fear and anxiety.
Hippocampus
A brain structure that is a central processor of memory, especially the memory of locations
Hypothalamus
A brain area that responds to the amygdala and the hippocampus to produce hormones that activate other parts of the brain and body
Centration
A characteristic of preoperational thought in which a young child focuses (centers) on one idea, excluding all others.
Irreversibility
The idea that nothing can be undone; the inability to recognize that something can sometimes be restored to the way it was before a change occurred.
Permissive Parenting
Make few demands, hiding any impatience they feel. Discipline is lax partly because permissive parents have low expectations for maturity.
Authoritative Parenting
Authoritative parenting encourages children to be independent but still places limits and controls on their actions." [1] "Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and parents are warm and nutriment toward the child.
Authoritarian Parenting
Authoritarian parents expect much of their child but do not explain the reasoning for the rules or boundaries,
Neglectful Parenting
Failure to meet a child’s basic physical, educational, or emotional needs
Abusive Parenting
Deliberate action that is harmful to a child’s physical, emotional, or sexual well-being
Flynn Effect
The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades in many nations.
Metacognition
“Thinking about thinking,” or the ability to evaluate a cognitive task to determine how best to accomplish it, and then to monitor and adjust one’s performace on that task.
Automitization
A process in which repetition of a sequence of thought and actions makes the sequence routine, so that it no longer requires conscious thought.
Parasuicide
Any potentially lethal action against the self that does not result in death.
Ecological Systems Approach
A vision of how human development should be studied, with the person considered in all the contexts and interactions that constitute a life.
Monogamy
is the state of having only one husband, wife, or sexual partner at any one time. The word monogamy comes from the Greek word monos, which means one or alone, and the Greek word gamos, which means marriage or union. In many cases, the word "monogamy" is used to specifically refer to marital monogamy.
Dialectical Thinking
The most advanced cognitive process, characterized by the ability to consider a thesis and its antithesis simultaneously and thus to arrive at a synthesis. Dialectical thought makes possible an ongoing awareness of pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages, possibilities and limitations.
Cross-sex Friendships
A cross-sex friendship is one that is defined by a person having a friend of the opposite sex: a male who has a female friend, or a female who has a male friend.