who we are and what we study changing perceptions of childhood · janet belsky’s experiencing the...
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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