Developing Through The
Life Span
Developmental Psychology
🞐 Study of physical, cognitive, and social
change throughout the life span
🞐 Central Questions
■ Continuity
■ Sources of development
■ Plasticity
■ Individual differences
■ Active/Passive
Research Strategies
🞐 Cross-sectional Studies
▪ Measure individuals of various ages at one
point in time and provide information about
age differences
▪ Advantages and Disadvantages
🞐 Longitudinal Studies
▪ Measure a single individual or group of
individuals over an extended period and give
information about age changes
▪ Advantages and Disadvantages
Prenatal
Development
Conception
Prenatal Development
🞐 Three periods
■ Germinal Period
■ Embryonic Period
■ Fetal Period
🞐 Germinal Period
■ The zygote
Embryonic Period
🞐 Major organs form
Fetal Period
🞐 Organs begin to function
Teratogens
🞐 Any disease, drug, or environmental agent
that can harm a developing embryo or fetus
Physical Development - Infancy
Physical Development - Adolescence
🞐 Begins at puberty
■ Development of sex characteristics
🞐 Primary = reproductive
🞐 Secondary = non-reproductive
🞐 Main landmarks
■ Women: menarche
■ Men: production of sperm
Physical Changes in Adulthood
🞐 Life Span
■ The maximum age possible for members of a
given species
🞐 Cellular-clock theory
🞐 Wear-and-tear theory
🞐 Life Expectancy
■ The number of years that an average member
of a species is expected to live
Cognitive
Development
Piaget and Cognitive Development
🞐 Schema
■ A concept or framework that organizes and
interprets information
■ Assimilation
🞐 The process of interpreting new information in terms
of existing schemas
■ Accommodation
🞐 The process of modifying existing schemas in
response to new information
Changing Schemas of the Earth
5th grade
Preschool
Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory
Concrete operational (6-12 years)
Sensorimotor Stage
🞐 Object permanence
■ Realization that objects continue to exist even
when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched
directly
Example
Preoperational Stage
🞐 Egocentrism
■ Inability to take the perspective of another person
Preoperational Stage
🞐 Theory of mind
■ People’s ideas about their own and others’
mental states
Concrete Operational Stage
🞐 Conservation
Conservation Task
Formal Operational Stage
🞐 Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning
A B C
🞐 Premises
■ All poodles are dogs.
■ All dogs are animals.
🞐 Conclusion
■ Therefore, all poodles are
animals
Development Declines With Age
Aging and Intellectual Functions
🞐 Memory and Forgetting
■ Cognitive abilities do not inevitably decline.
■ But…
Social-Emotional
Development
Parenting Styles
PARENTING High Low
TRAITS Responsiveness Responsiveness
High
Demandingness Authoritative Authoritarian
Low
Demandingness Permissive Neglectful
Attachment
🞐 Strong emotional tie with another person
Styles of Attachment
🞐 Strange Situation
■ A caregiver-infant “separation and reunion” procedure
that is staged in a laboratory to test the security of a
child’s attachment
🞐 Secure Attachment
■ The baby is secure when the parent is present,
distressed by separation, and delighted by reunion
🞐 Insecure Attachment
■ Avoidant
■ Resistant
■ Disorganized/disoriented
Consequences
🞐 Form internal working models
🞐 Secure
■ Believe in romantic love
■ Satisfying relationships
🞐 Happiness, friendliness, mutual trust, enduring
Consequences - Resistant
🞐 Emotional highs and lows
■ Obsessive preoccupation
■ Extreme sexual attraction/jealousy
■ Very willing to commit
🞐 Conflicts
■ Most upset; negative (women)
■ Little support to partners in need
Consequences - Avoidant
🞐 Fear of intimacy
■ Love is doomed to fade
🞐 Conflicts
■ Least warm and supportive (men)
■ Sought support by hinting, sulking
Kohlberg’s Levels of Moral Reasoning
🞐 Preconventional Level
■ Morality judged in terms of reward and punishment
🞐 Conventional Level
■ Morality judged in terms of social order and
approval
🞐 Postconventional Level
■ Morality judged in terms of abstract principles, like
equality and justice
Kohlberg’s Levels of Moral Reasoning
Problems
🞐 Effect of culture
🞐 Behaviour vs. reasoning
Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development
🞐 Trust vs. Mistrust – Infancy
🞐 Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt – Toddlerhood
🞐 Initiative vs. Guilt – Early Childhood
🞐 Industry vs. Inferiority – Middle Childhood
🞐 Identity vs. Role confusion – Adolescence
🞐 Intimacy vs. Isolation – Young adulthood
🞐 Generativity vs. Stagnation – Middle adulthood
🞐 Integrity vs. Despair – Late adulthood
Problems?
🞐 Scientific verification
🞐 Cross-cultural issues
Temperament
🞐 Individual’s innate disposition or behavioural
style and characteristic response
■ Easy
■ Difficult
■ Slow to warm up
■ Unclassifiable
Social and Personal Development
🞐 Peer Influences
■ Conformity
■ Other-gender peers
Identity Crisis?
🞐 An adolescent’s struggle to establish a
personal identity, or self-concept
Adolescence and Mental Health
🞐 The stereotypic images of adolescents
🞐 Three perceived sources of difficulty
🞐 But…
Life Satisfaction
Self-esteem
Dying and Death
🞐 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross proposed five stages
in approaching death
■ Denial
■ Anger
■ Bargaining
■ Depression
■ Acceptance
Controversial!