Deck 3 Flashcards
Multidirectional
Some dimensions expand and others shrink
Multidimensional
Has biological, cognitive, and socioemotional dimensions
Plastic
The capacity for change
Lifelong
Early adulthood is not the endpoint of development; no age period dominates development
Multidisciplinary
Various areas of study have an interest in the field of development through the life span
Contextual
All development occurs within a context, or setting (social, cultural, and historic factors)
Nature
Nature refers to an organism’s biological inheritance.
Nature Example
We walk before we talk, speak one word before two words, grow rapidly in infancy and less so in early childhood, experience a rush of sex hormones in puberty, reach the peak of our physical strength in late adolescence and early adulthood, and then physically decline.
Nurture
Nurture refers to an organism’s environmental experiences
Nurture Example
Experiences run the gamut from the individual’s biological environment (nutrition, medical care, drugs, and physical accidents) to the social environment (family, peers, schools, community, media, and culture)
Continuity
focuses on the degree to which the development involves a gradual, cumulative change
continuity example
An oak grows from a seedling to a giant oak, it becomes more of an oak - its development is continuous
discontinuity
focuses on the degree to which development involves distinct stages
Discontinuity example
as an insect grows from a caterpillar to a chrysalis to a butterfly, it passes through a sequence of stages in which change is qualitative rather than quantitatively different. Similarly, at some point a child moves from not being able to think abstractlyl about the world to being able to do so.
Stability
Debate about whether we become older renditions of our early experience
Stability Example
Many argue that if an individual is shy throughout life, this stability is due to heredity and possibly early experiences in which the infant or young child encountered considerable stress when interacting with people
Change
We develop into someone different from who we were at an earlier point in development
Change example
Developmentalists who emphasize change take the more optimistic view that later experiences can produce change. Recall that in the life-span perspective, plasticity, the potential for change, exists throughout the life span.
Freud’s Theories
Freud believed that people’s problems were the result of experiences early in life. He thought that as children grow up, their focus on pleasure and sexual impulses shifts from the mouth to the anus and eventually to the genitals. As a result, we go through five stages of psychosexual development: Oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.
Erikson’s Theory
Focuses on Psychosocial. Eight Stages of human development. Each stage consists of unique developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be resolved.
Trust versus mistrust
Erikson’s first psychosocial stage, which is experienced in the first year of life. The development of trust during infancy sets the stage for a lifelong expectation that the world will be a good and pleasant place to live.
Autonomy versus Shame and doubt
Erikson’s second stage. This stage occurs in late infancy and toddlerhodd ( 1-3 years) after gaining trust in their caregivers, infants begin to discover that their behavior is their own. They start to assert their sense of independence or autonomy. They realize their will. If Infants and toddlers are restrained too much or punished too harshly, they are likely to develop a sense of shame and doubt.
Initiative versus guilt
Erikson’s Third stage of development occurs during the preschool years. As preschool children encounter a widening social world, they face new challenges that require active purposeful, responsible behavior. Feelings of guilt may arise, though, if the child is irresponsible and is made to feel anxious.
Industry versus inferiority
Erikson’s fourth developmental stages, occurring approximately during the elementary school years. Children now need to direct their energy toward mastering knowledge and intellectual skills. The negative outcome is that the child may develop a sense of inferiority – feeling incompetent and unproductive.
Operant Conditioning Theory
the theory that people learn to perform behaviors that lead to desired consequences and learn not to perform behaviors that lead to undesired consequences. 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.