Human Development - Minnesota State University Moorhead



Human Development

Developmental psychology is the branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social changes throughout the life span

Development - The sequence of age-related changes that occur as a person progresses from conception to death

• Physical processes (Maturation)

• Cognitive processes (thoughts, language, intelligence

• Socioemotional processes (relationships, emotions, personality)

Lifelong development

Development is lifelong and at each age we are faced with different issues and challenges

• What is the ideal age to be?

• What is the worst age to be and why?

• How old do you feel?

• When does old age begin?

“Psychological age”

Psychological age may be just as important as real age when trying to understand people’s behavior and such things as their buying decisions

Sex differences on the question on the age they considered to be “old”

Important Questions

• Is development in stages or it more of a continuous change?

• Are these changes due to genetic or environmental influences? Is it all in our chromosomes?

• How stable are our personalities, and our physical and mental abilities?

Stage vs. Continuous

A stage is a developmental period during which characteristic patterns are exhibited and certain capacities become established

Key Components

• progress through stages in order

• progress through stages related to age

• major discontinuities in development

Examples:

• Erikson theory of personality development

• Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory

Role of Learning and Maturation - All development is due to maturation and/or learning

Learning is the relatively permanent change in thought or behavior that occurs through experience

Maturation is development that reflects the gradual unfolding of one’s genetic blueprint.

Relatively permanent change in an individual that occurs strictly as a result of the biological processes of getting older.

Nature and Nurture debate - Fundamental question in psychology

To what extent is behavior due to maturation or nature and to what extent is behavior due to learning or nurture

• Nature refers to biological, specifically genetic, influence on development

• Nurture refers to the role of learning through experiences with the environment

• Interaction

While today we believe that development is an interaction of nature and nurture

Your height is strongly influenced by genetics but nutrition still has a significant effect.

One may be more important for certain types of development,

Different theories emphasize nature or nurture.

Cognitive Development- Transitions in our patterns of thinking, including reasoning, remembering, and problem solving

Cognitive Development -Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

Piaget believed that the driving force behind cognitive development is our biological development amidst experiences with the environment.

Our cognitive development is shaped by the errors we make.

Schemas - Concepts or frameworks that organize information

Assimilation and Accommodation

The process of assimilation involves incorporating new experiences into our current understanding (schema).

The process of adjusting a schema and modifying it is called accommodation.

Piaget’s stage theory

Sensorimotor Stage

In the sensorimotor stage, babies take in the world by looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping.

Developing the ability to coordinate their sensory input with their motor output

Graduate appearance of object permanence

Object Permanence - When a child recognizes that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible.

Children younger than 6 months of age do not grasp object permanence, i.e., objects that are out of sight are also out of mind.

Sensorimotor Stage: Criticisms

Piaget believed children in the sensorimotor stage could not think —they do not have any abstract concepts or ideas

However, recent research shows that children in the sensorimotor stage can think and count

Preoperational Stage

Piaget suggested that from 2 years old to about 6-7 years old, children are in the preoperational stage—too young to perform mental operations.

Beginning development of symbolic thought

Conservation - Awareness that physical quantities remain constant in spite of changes in their shape or appearance

Egocentrism

Piaget concluded that preschool children are egocentric or they cannot perceive things from another’s point of view.

Preoperational Stage: Criticism

DeLoache (1987) showed that children as young as 3 years of age are able to use metal operations.

When shown a model of a dog’s hiding place behind the couch, a 2½-year-old could not locate the stuffed dog in an actual room, but the 3-year-old did.

Concrete Operational Stage

With concrete materials, 6- to 7-year-olds grasp conservation problems and mentally pour liquids back and forth into glasses of different shapes conserving their quantities.

Children in this stage are also able to transform mathematical functions.

Children in the concrete operational stage are able to focus on more than one feature of a problem simultaneously, a process called decentration.

Formal Operational Stage

Around age 11, our reasoning ability expands to abstract thinking.

We can now use symbols and imagined realities to systematically reason

More systematic in problem solving

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory

• Major contribution in understanding cognitive development

• Piaget’s stage theory has been influential globally, validating a number of ideas regarding growth and development in many cultures and societies

• We still view children as active, constructive thinkers

• Some cognitive abilities emerge earlier than Piaget thought

• Piaget placed too much emphasis on discrete stages and ignored individual differences

• Underestimated the influence of culture and the environment on cognitive development

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