Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific Science is, in its broadest sense, any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a correct prediction, or reliably-predictable type of outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique, technology, or practice, from which a good deal of randomness in outcome has been removed study of systematic psychological Psychology is an academic and applied discipline which involves the scientific study of human (or animal) mental functions and behaviors. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist, and is classified as a social scientist. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and changes that occur in human Humans commonly refers to the species Homo sapiens , the only extant member of the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. However, in some cases the term is used to refer to any member of the genus Homo beings over the course of the life span. Originally concerned with infants The term infant derives from the Latin word infans, meaning "unable to speak." It is typically applied to children between the ages of 1 month and 12 months . However, definitions vary between birth and 3 years of age and children A child is a human between the stages of birth and puberty. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. "Child" may also describe a relationship with a parent or authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion; it can also, the field has expanded to include adolescence Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development that occurs between childhood and adulthood. This transition involves biological (i.e. pubertal), social, and psychological changes, though the biological or physiological ones are the easiest to measure objectively. Historically, puberty has been heavily associated with, adult development For example, Positive Adult Developmental may be divided into at least six parts: hierarchical complexity, , knowledge, experience, expertise, wisdom, and spirituality, aging Ageing or aging (American and Canadian English) is the accumulation of changes in an organism or object over time. Ageing in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Some dimensions of ageing grow and expand over time, while others decline. Reaction time, for example, may slow with age, while, and the entire life span. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including motor skills Motor skill dysfunction has many causes, e.g. demyelination of motor neurons. While fatigue or weariness may lead to temporary short-term deterioration of fine motor skills , serious nervous disorders may result in a loss of both gross and fine motor skills due to the hampering of muscular control. A defect in muscle is also a symptom of motor and other psycho-physiological processes; cognitive development involving areas such as problem solving Problem solving is a mental process and is part of the larger problem process that includes problem finding and problem shaping. Considered the most complex of all intellectual functions, problem solving has been defined as higher-order cognitive process that requires the modulation and control of more routine or fundamental skills. Problem, moral understanding In its "descriptive" sense, morality refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or social mores that distinguish between right and wrong in the human society. Describing morality in this way is not making a claim about what is objectively right or wrong, but only referring to what is considered right or wrong by people. For, and conceptual understanding; language acquisition Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with speech or manual as in sign. Language acquisition; social, personality, and emotional development; and self-concept and identity formation Identity formation is the process of the development of the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity in a particular stage of life in which individual characteristics are possessed by which a person is recognised or known (such as the establishment of a reputation). This process defines individuals to others and.

Developmental psychology includes issues such as the extent to which development occurs through the gradual accumulation of knowledge Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject; (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information; or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation versus stage-like development, or the extent to which children are born with innate mental structures versus learning through experience Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment. Many researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual's behavior, and environmental factors including social context The social environment , also known as the milieu, is the identical or similar social positions and social roles as a whole that influence the individuals of a group. The social environment of an individual is the culture that he or she was educated and/or lives in, and the people and institutions with whom the person interacts. A given social, and their impact on development; others take a more narrowly focused approach.

Developmental psychology informs several applied fields, including: educational psychology Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing on subgroups such as gifted children and those, child psychopathology Child psychopathology is the manifestation of psychological disorders in children and adolescents. Oppositional defiant disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder are examples of child psychopathology. Counselors, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists who work with mentally ill children are, and forensic developmental psychology Forensic Developmental Psychology is a field that has emerged over the past two decades. The term was developed by Bruck and Poole[who?] and includes autobiographical memory, memory distortion, eyewitness identification, narrative construction, personality, and attachment as topics covered by this field of research. Developmental psychology complements several other basic research fields in psychology Psychology is an academic and applied discipline which involves the scientific study of human (or animal) mental functions and behaviors. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist, and is classified as a social scientist. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and including social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all of the psychological variables that are measurable, cognitive psychology The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism which is interested in how people mentally represent information processing. It had its foundations in the work of Wilhelm Wundt, Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka, and in the work of Jean Piaget, who provided a theory of stages/phases, ecological psychology Ecological psychology is a term claimed by a number of schools of psychology. However, the two main ones are one on the writings of J. J. Gibson, and another on the work of Roger G. Barker, Herb Wright and associates at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Whereas Gibsonian psychology is always termed Ecological Psychology, the work of Barker is, and comparative psychology Comparative psychology usually refers to the study of the behavior and mental life of animals other than human beings. However, psychologists and scientists do not always agree on this definition. Comparative psychology has also been described as branch of psychology in which emphasis is placed on cross-species comparisons–including human-to-.

Contents

Approaches

Many theoretical perspectives attempt to explain development; among the most prominent are; Jean Piaget Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist and philosopher, well known for his pedagogical studies. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "Genetic Epistemology."'s Stage Theory The Theory of Cognitive Development, is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence first developed by Jean Piaget. It is primarily known as a developmental stage theory, but in fact, it deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans come gradually to acquire it, construct it, and use it. Moreover;, Lev Vygotsky Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Soviet psychologist and the founder of cultural-historical psychology's Social Contextualism (and its heirs, the Cultural Theory of Development of Michael Cole, and the Ecological Systems Theory The theory was developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner, generally regarded as one of the world's leading scholars in the field of developmental psychology of Urie Bronfenbrenner Urie Bronfenbrenner was an Russian 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), Albert Bandura Albert Bandura is a psychologist specializing in social cognitive theory and self-efficacy. He is most famous for his social learning theory's Social learning theory Social learning theory or SLT is the theory that people learn new behavior through overt reinforcement or punishment, or via observational learning of the social factors in their environment. If people observe positive, desired outcomes in the observed behavior, then they are more likely to model, imitate, and adopt the behavior themselves, and the information processing Information processing is the change of information in any manner detectable by an observer. As such, it is a process which describes everything which happens (changes) in the universe, from the falling of a rock (a change in position) to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system. In the latter case, an information processor is framework employed by cognitive psychology.

To a lesser extent, historical theories continue to provide a basis for additional research. Among them are Erik Erikson Erik Erikson was a Danish-German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on social development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. His son, Kai T. Erikson, is a noted American sociologist's eight stages of psychosocial development Erikson's stages of psychosocial development as articulated by Erik Erikson explain eight stages through which a healthily developing human should pass from infancy to late adulthood. In each stage the person confronts, and hopefully masters, new challenges. Each stage builds on the successful completion of earlier stages. The challenges of stages and John B. Watson John Broadus Watson was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism, after doing research on animal behavior. He also conducted the controversial "Little Albert" experiment. Later he went on from psychology to become a popular author on child-rearing, and an acclaimed contributor to the advertising's and B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform, and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. He came up with the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism, and's behaviorism Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things which organisms do — including acting, thinking and feeling — can and should be regarded as behaviors. The school of psychology maintains that behaviors as such can be described (for more on behaviorism's role see Behavior analysis of child development Child development in behavior analytic theory has origins in John B. Watson’s behaviorism. Watson wrote extensively on child development and conducted research . Watson was instrumental in the modification of William James’ stream of consciousness approach to construct a stream of behavior theory. Watson also helped bring a natural science).

Many other theories are prominent for their contributions to particular aspects of development. For example, attachment theory Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary, and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet of attachment theory is that a young child needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to occur normally. The theory was formulated by psychiatrist describes kinds of interpersonal relationships and Lawrence Kohlberg Lawrence Kohlberg was an American psychologist born in Bronxville, New York, who served as a professor at the University of Chicago, as well as Harvard University. Having specialized in research on moral education and reasoning, he is best known for his theory of stages of moral development. A close follower of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive describes stages in moral reasoning Kohlberg's stages of moral development constitute an adaptation of a psychological theory originally conceived of by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. Lawrence Kohlberg, while a psychology postgraduate student at the University of Chicago, expanded and developed this theory throughout the course of his life.

Theorists and theories

Main article: Developmental stage theories One of the major controversies in developmental psychology centres around whether development is continuous or discontinuous. Stage theories of development rest on the assumption that development is a discontinuous process involving distinct stages which are characterised by qualitative differences in behaviour . Stage theories can be contrasted

Piagetian stages of cognitive development

Main articles: Jean Piaget and Theory of cognitive development

Piaget was a French speaking Swiss theorist who posited that children learn through actively constructing knowledge through hands-on experience.[1] He suggested that the adult's role in helping the child learn was to provide appropriate materials for the child to interact and construct. He would use Socratic questioning to get the children to reflect on what they were doing. He would try to get them to see contradictions in their explanations. He also developed stages of development. His approach can be seen in how the curriculum is sequenced in schools, and in the pedagogy of preschool centers across the United States.

Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory

Main articles: Lev Vygotsky and Cultural-historical psychology

Vygotsky was a theorist from the Soviet era, who posited that children learn through hands-on experience, as Piaget suggested. However, unlike Piaget, he claimed that timely and sensitive intervention by adults when a child is on the edge of learning a new task (called the "zone of proximal development") could help children learn new tasks. This technique is called "scaffolding," because it builds upon knowledge children already have with new knowledge that adults can help the child learn.[2] Vygotsky was strongly focused on the role of culture in determining the child's pattern of development, arguing that development moves from the social level to the individual level.[2]

Ecological Systems Theory

Main article: Ecological Systems Theory

Also called "Development in Context" or "Human Ecology" theory, Ecological Systems Theory, originally formulated by Urie Bronfenbrenner specifies four types of nested environmental systems, with bi-directional influences within and between the systems. The four systems are Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem, and Macrosystem. Each system contains roles, norms and rules that can powerfully shape development. Since its publication in 1979, Bronfenbrenner's major statement of this theory, The Ecology of Human Development[3] has had widespread influence on the way psychologists and others approach the study of human beings and their environments. As a result of this conceptualization of development, these environments — from the family to economic and political structures — have come to be viewed as part of the life course from childhood through adulthood.[4]

Attachment theory

Main article: Attachment theory

Attachment theory, originally developed by John Bowlby, focuses on close, intimate, emotionally meaningful relationships. Attachment is described as a biological system or powerful survival impulse that evolved to ensure the survival of the infant. A child who is threatened or stressed will move toward caregivers who create a sense of physical, emotional and psychological safety for the individual. Attachment feeds off of body contact and familiarity. Later Mary Ainsworth developed the Strange Situation Protocol and the concept of the secure base. See also the critique by developmental psychology pioneer Jerome Kagan.

Unfortunately, there are situations that inhibit a child from forming attachments. Some babies are raised without the stimulation and attention of a regular caregiver, or locked away under conditions of abuse or extreme neglect. The possible short-term effects of this deprivation are anger, despair, detachment, and temporary delay in intellectual development. Long-term effects include increased aggression, clinging behavior, detachment, psychosomatic disorders, and an increased risk of depression as an adult. [5][6]

Nature/nurture

Main article: Nature versus nurture

A significant issue in developmental psychology is the relationship between innateness and environmental influence in regard to any particular aspect of development. This is often referred to as "nature versus nurture" or nativism versus empiricism. A nativist account of development would argue that the processes in question are innate, that is, they are specified by the organism's genes. An empiricist perspective would argue that those processes are acquired in interaction with the environment. Today developmental psychologists rarely take such extreme positions with regard to most aspects of development; rather they investigate, among many other things, the relationship between innate and environmental influences. One of the ways in which this relationship has been explored in recent years is through the emerging field of evolutionary developmental psychology.

One area where this innateness debate has been prominently portrayed is in research on language acquisition. A major question in this area is whether or not certain properties of human language are specified genetically or can be acquired through learning. The empiricist position on the issue of language acquisition suggests that the language input provides the necessary information required for learning the structure of language and that infants acquire language through a process of statistical learning. From this perspective, language can be acquired via general learning methods that also apply to other aspects of development, such as perceptual learning. The nativist position argues that the input from language is too impoverished for infants and children to acquire the structure of language. Linguist Noam Chomsky asserts that, evidenced by the lack of sufficient information in the language input, there is a universal grammar that applies to all human languages and is pre-specified. This has led to the idea that there is a special cognitive module suited for learning language, often called the language acquisition device. Chomsky's critique of the behaviorist model of language acquisition is regarded by many as a key turning point in the decline in the prominence of the theory of behaviorism generally.[7] But Skinner's conception of "Verbal Behavior" has not died, perhaps in part because it has generated successful practical applications.[7]

Mechanisms of development

Developmental psychology is concerned not only with describing the characteristics of psychological change over time, but also seeks to explain the principles and internal workings underlying these changes. Psychologists have attempted to better understand these factors by using models. Developmental models are sometimes computational, but they do not need to be. A model must simply account for the means by which a process takes place. This is sometimes done in reference to changes in the brain that may correspond to changes in behavior over the course of the development. Computational accounts of development often use either symbolic, connectionist (neural network), or dynamical systems models to explain the mechanisms of development.

Research areas

Cognitive development

Main articles: Cognitive development, Theory of cognitive development, and Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development

Cognitive development is primarily concerned with the ways in which infants and children acquire, develop, and use internal mental capabilities such as problem solving, memory, and language. Major topics in cognitive development are the study of language acquisition and the development of perceptual and motor skills. Piaget was one of the influential early psychologists to study the development of cognitive abilities. His theory suggests that development proceeds through a set of stages from infancy to adulthood and that there is an end point or goal. Other accounts, such as that of Lev Vygotsky, have suggested that development does not progress through stages, but rather that the developmental process that begins at birth and continues until death is too complex for such structure and finality. Rather, from this viewpoint, developmental processes proceed more continuously, thus development should be analyzed, instead of treated as a product to be obtained.

Modern cognitive development has integrated the considerations of cognitive psychology and the psychology of individual differences into the interpretation and modeling of development. [8] Specifically, the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development showed that the successive levels or stages of cognitive development are associated with increasing processing efficiency and working memory capacity. These increases explain progression to higher stages, and individual differences in such increases by same-age persons explain differences in cognitive performance. Other theories have moved away from Piagetian stage theories, and are influenced by accounts of domain-specific information processing, which posit that development is guided by innate evolutionarily specified and content-specific information processing mechanisms.

Social and emotional development

Main article: Social psychology (psychology)

Developmental psychologists who are interested in social development examine how individuals develop social and emotional competencies. For example, they study how children form friendships, how they understand and deal with emotions, and how identity develops. Research in this area may involve study of the relationship between cognition or cognitive development and social behavior.

Research methods

Developmental psychology employs many of the research methods used in other areas of psychology. However, infants and children cannot always be tested in the same ways as adults, so different methods are often used to study their development.

Methods and techniques

Techniques for studying infants

Psychologists often use the habituation methodology to assess infant ability. Typically, infants prefer stimuli that are novel relative to those they have encountered previously. Demonstrating a preference for one stimulus over another demonstrates that the infant can discriminate between them. Several methods are used to measure infants' preference. In the high-amplitude sucking procedure infants suck on a pacifier more or less depending on their level of interest. In other methods, infants kick their legs to indicate preference, or their level of interest is measured by the amount of time spent looking in a particular direction.

Habituation has been used to discover the resolution of perceptual systems by habituating an infant to a particular stimulus. If an infant is able to discriminate between an initial "habituated" stimulus and a novel stimulus, they will show a preference for the novel stimulus after habituation. More and more similar stimuli are presented to determine the smallest degree of difference detectable by the infant.

Children

Adolescents

When studying older children, especially adolescents, adult measurements of behavior can often be used, but they may need to be simplified to allow children to perform certain tasks.

Adults

(refers specifically to this section above)

Research design

Developmental psychologists have a number of methods to study changes in individuals over time.

In a longitudinal study, a researcher observes many individuals born at or around the same time (a cohort) and carries out new observations as members of the cohort age. This method can be used to draw conclusions about which types of development are universal (or normative) and occur in most members of a cohort. Researchers may also observe ways in which development varies between individuals and hypothesize about the causes of variation observed in their data. Longitudinal studies often require large amounts of time and funding, making them unfeasible in some situations. Also, because members of a cohort all experience historical events unique to their generation, apparently normative developmental trends may in fact be universal only to their cohort.

In a cross-sectional study, a researcher observes differences between individuals of different ages at the same time. This generally requires less resources than the longitudinal method, and because the individuals come from different cohorts, shared historical events are not so much of a confounding factor. By the same token, however, cross-sectional research may not be the most effective way to study differences between participants, as these differences may result not from their different ages but from their exposure to different historical events.

An accelerated longitudinal design or cross-sequential study or cohort-sequential design combines both methodologies. Here, a researcher observes members of different birth cohorts at the same time, and then tracks all participants over time, charting changes in the groups. By comparing differences and similarities in development, one can more easily determine what changes can be attributed to individual or historical environment, and which are truly universal. Clearly such a study can be even more resource-consuming than a longitudinal study.

Additionally, these are all correlational, not experimental, designs, and so one cannot readily infer causation from the data they yield. Nonetheless, correlational research methods are common in the study of development, in part due to ethical concerns. In a study of the effects of poverty on development, for instance, one cannot easily randomly assign certain families to a poverty condition and others to an affluent one, and so observation alone has to suffice.

Stages of development

See also: Child development stages

Pre-natal development

See also: Pre-natal development and Pre- and perinatal psychology

Pre-natal development is of interest to psychologists investigating the context of early psychological development. For example, some primitive reflexes arise before birth and are still present in newborns. One hypothesis is that these reflexes are vestigial and have limited use in early human life. Piaget's Theory of cognitive development suggested that some early reflexes are building blocks for infant sensorimotor development. For example the tonic neck reflex may help development by bringing objects into the infant's field of view[9]. Other reflexes, such as the walking reflex disappear to be replaced by more sophisticated voluntary control later in infancy. This may be because the infant gains too much weight after birth to be strong enough to use the reflex, or because the reflex and subsequent development are functionally different[10]. It has also been suggested that some reflexes (for example the moro and walking reflexes) are predominantly adaptations to life in the womb with little connection to early infant development[9]. Primitive reflexes reappear in adults under certain conditions, such as neurological conditions like dementia or traumatic lesions.

Ultrasound has shown that infants are capable of a range of movements in the womb, many of which appear to be more than simple reflexes[10]. By the time they are born, infants can recognise and have a preference for their mother's voice suggesting some pre-natal development of auditory perception[10]. Pre-natal development and birth complications may also be connected to neurodevelopmental disorders, for example in schizophrenia. With the advent of cognitive neuroscience, embryology and the neuroscience of pre-natal development is of increasing interest to developmental psychology research.

Infancy

Main articles: Infant and child psychology and Infant cognitive development

From birth until the onset of speech, the child is referred to as an infant. Developmental psychologists vary widely in their assessment of infant psychology, and the influence the outside world has upon it, but certain aspects are relatively clear.

The majority of a newborn infant's time is spent in sleep. At first this sleep is evenly spread throughout the day and night, but after a couple of months, infants generally become diurnal.

Infants can be seen to have 6 states, grouped into pairs:

Infants respond to stimuli differently in these different states[10].

Habituation (see above) has been used to discover the resolution of perceptual systems, suggesting that infants basic perceptual abilities develop before acquisition of object permanence.

An early theory of infant development was the Sensorimotor stage of Piaget's Theory of cognitive development. Piaget suggested that an infant's perception and understanding of the world depended on their motor development, which was required for the infant to link visual, tactile and motor representations of objects. According to this view, it is through touching and handling objects that infants develop object permanence, the understanding that objects are solid, permanent, and continue to exist when out of sight[10].

Special methods are used to study infant behavior.

Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage comprised six sub-stages (see sensorimotor stages for more detail). In the early stages, development arises out of movements caused by primitive reflexes[13]. Discovery of new behaviours results from classical and operant conditioning, and the formation of habits[13]. From eight months the infant is able to uncover a hidden object but will persevere when the object is moved. Piaget's evidence for a complete understanding of object permanence before 18 months was the infant's failure to look for an object where it was last seen. Instead infants continue to look for an object where it was first seen, committing the "A-not-B error".

Later researchers have developed a number of other tests which suggest that younger infants understand more about objects than first thought. These experiments usually involve a toy, and a crude barrier which is placed in front of the toy, and then removed, repeatedly. Before the age of eight to nine months, infants inability to understand object permanence extends to people, which explains why infants at this age do not cry when their mothers are gone ("Out of sight, out of mind.").

There are critical periods in infancy and childhood during which development of certain perceptual, sensorimotor, social and language systems depends crucially on environmental stimulation [14]. Feral children such as Genie, deprived of adequate stimulation, fail to acquire important skills which they are then unable to learn in later childhood. The concept of critical periods is also well established in neurophysiology, from the work of Hubel and Wiesel among others. Some feel that classical music, particularly Mozart is good for an infant's mind. While some tentative research has shown it to be helpful to older children, no conclusive evidence is available involving infants. [15]

Babyhood

Intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language use matures, and memory and imagination are developed. Thinking is done in a nonlogical, nonreversible manner. Egocentric thinking predominates.

Socially, toddlers are little people attempting to become independent at this stage, which they are commonly called the " terrible twos". They walk, talk, use the toilet, and get food for themselves. Self-control begins to develop. If taking the initiative to explore, experiment, risk mistakes in trying new things, and test their limits is encouraged by the caretaker(s) the child will become autonomous, self-reliant, and confident. If the caretaker is overprotective or disapproving of independent actions, the toddler may begin to doubt their abilities and feel ashamed for the desire for independence. The child's autonomic development will be inhibited, and be less prepared to successfully deal with the world in the future.

Early childhood

Also called as "Pre-school age", "Pre-gang age", "Exploratory age" and "Toy age".

When children attend preschool, they broaden their social horizons and become more engaged with those around them. Impulses are channeled into fantasies, which leaves the task of the caretaker to balance eagerness for pursuing adventure, creativity and self expression with the development of responsibility. If caretakers are properly encouraging and consistently disciplinary, children are more likely to develop positive self-esteem while becoming more responsible, and will follow through on assigned activities.[citation needed] If not allowed to decide which activities to perform, children may begin to feel guilt upon contemplating taking initiative.[citation needed] This negative association with independence will lead them to let others make decisions in place of them.

Late Childhood

In middle childhood, intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Operational thinking develops, which means actions are reversible, and egocentric thought diminishes.

Children go through the transition from the world at home to that of school and peers. Children learn to make things, use tools, and acquire the skills to be a worker and a potential provider. Children can now receive feedback from outsiders about their accomplishments. If children can discover pleasure in intellectual stimulation, being productive, seeking success, they will develop a sense of competence. If they are not successful or cannot discover pleasure in the process, they may develop a sense of inferiority and feelings of inadequacy that may haunt them throughout life. This is when children think of them selves as industrious or as inferior.

Adolescence

Main article: Adolescent psychology

Adolescence is the period of life between the onset of puberty and the full commitment to an adult social role, such as worker, parent, and/or citizen. It is the period known for the formation of personal and social identity (see Erik Erikson) and the discovery of moral purpose (see William Damon). Intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts and formal reasoning. A return to egocentric thought often occurs early in the period. Only 35% develop the capacity to reason formally during adolescence or adulthood. (Huitt, W. and Hummel, J. January 1998)[16]

It is divided into two parts namely:

1. Early Adolescence: 13 to 17 years and

2. Late Adolescence: 17 to 18 years

The adolescent unconsciously explores questions such as "Who am I? Who do I want to be?" Like toddlers, adolescents must explore, test limits, become autonomous, and commit to an identity, or sense of self. Different roles, behaviors and ideologies must be tried out to select an identity. Role confusion and inability to choose vocation can result from a failure to achieve a sense of identity.

Early adulthood

The person must learn how to form intimate relationships, both in friendship and love. The development of this skill relies on the resolution of other stages. It may be hard to establish intimacy if one has not developed trust or a sense of identity. If this skill is not learned the alternative is alienation, isolation, a fear of commitment, and the inability to depend on others.

A related framework for studying this part of the life span is that of Emerging adulthood, introduced in 2000 by Jeffrey Arnett. Scholars of emerging adulthood are interested not only in relationship development (focusing on the role of dating in helping individuals settle on a long-term spouse/partner), but also the development of sociopolitical views and occupational choice.

Middle age

Middle adulthood generally refers to the period between ages 40 to 60. During this period, the middle-aged experience a conflict between generativity and stagnation. They may either feel a sense of contributing to the next generation and their community or a sense of purposelessness.

Physically, the middle-aged experience a decline in muscular strength, reaction time, sensory keenness, and cardiac output. Also, women experience menopause and a sharp drop in the hormone estrogen. Men do have an equivalent to menopause, it is called "Andropause," which is a hormone fluctuation with physical and psychological effects similar to menopause. Lowered testosterone levels result in mood swings and a decline in sperm count and speed of ejaculation and erection. Most men and women remain capable of sexual satisfaction after middle age.

Old age

This stage generally refers to those over 60-80 years. During old age, people experience a conflict between integrity vs. despair. When reflecting on their life, they either feel a sense of accomplishment or failure.

Physically, older people experience a decline in muscular strength, reaction time, stamina, hearing, distance perception, and the sense of smell. They also are more susceptible to severe diseases such as cancer and pneumonia due to a weakened immune system. Mental disintegration may also occur, leading to Dementia or Alzheimer's Disease. However, partially due to a lifetime's accumulation of antibodies, the elderly are less likely to suffer from common diseases such as the cold.

Whether or not intellectual powers increase or decrease with age remains controversial. Longitudinal studies have suggested that intellect declines, while cross-sectional studies suggest that intellect is stable. It is generally believed that crystallized intelligence increases up to old age, while fluid intelligence decreases with age.

Other findings

Parenting

See also: Parenting

In Western developed societies, mothers (and women generally) were emphasized to the exclusion of other caregivers, particularly as the traditional role of the father was more the breadwinner, and less the direct caregiver of an infant, he has been traditionally viewed as impacting an infant indirectly through interactions with the mother of the child.

The emphasis of study has shifted to the primary caregiver (regardless of gender or biological relation), as well as all persons directly or indirectly influencing the child (the family system). The roles of the mother and father are more significant than first thought as we moved into the concept of primary caregiver.

Affirming a role for fathers, studies have shown that children as young as 15 months benefit significantly from substantial engagement with their father.[17][18] In particular, a study in the U.S.A. and New Zealand found the presence of the natural father was the most significant factor in reducing rates of early sexual activity and rates of teenage pregnancy in girls.[19] Covariate factors used included early conduct problems, maternal age at first childbirth, race, maternal education, father's occupational status, family living standards, family life stress, early mother-child interaction, measures of psychosocial adjustment and educational achievement, school qualifications, mood disorder, anxiety disorder, suicide attempts, violent offending, and conduct disorder. Further research has found fathers have an impact on child academic performance, including involved nonresident fathers.[17] However, father absence is associated with a range of negative outcomes for children, including child and later criminal behavior.[20]

Historical antecedents

The modern form of developmental psychology has its roots in the rich psychological tradition represented by Aristotle, Tabari,[21] Rhazes,[22] and Descartes. William Shakespeare had his melancholy character Jacques (in As You Like It) articulate the seven ages of man: these included three stages of childhood and four of adulthood. In the mid-eighteenth century Jean Jacques Rousseau described three stages of childhood: infans (infancy), puer (childhood) and adolescence in Emile: Or, On Education. Rousseau's ideas were taken up strongly by educators at the time.

In the late nineteenth century, psychologists familiar with the evolutionary theory of Darwin began seeking an evolutionary description of psychological development; prominent here was G. Stanley Hall, who attempted to correlate ages of childhood with previous ages of mankind.

A more scientific approach was initiated by James Mark Baldwin, who wrote essays on topics that included Imitation: A Chapter in the Natural History of Consciousness and Mental Development in the Child and the Race: Methods and Processes. In 1905, Sigmund Freud articulated five psychosexual stages. Later, Rudolf Steiner articulated stages of psychological development throughout human life.[23] By the early to mid-twentieth century, the work of Vygotsky and Piaget, mentioned above, had established a strong empirical tradition in the field.

See also

Psychology portal

References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (February 2008)
  1. ^ Wood SE, Wood CE and Boyd D (2006). Mastering the world of psychology (2 ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
  2. ^ a b Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1978.
  3. ^ Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (ISBN 0-674-22457-4)
  4. ^ Smith PK, Cowie H and Blades M. Understanding Children's Development. Basic psychology (4 ed.). Oxford, England: Blackwell.
  5. ^ Myers, D (2008). Exploring Psychology. Worth Publishers.
  6. ^ Hill, G (2001). A Level Psychology Through Diagrams. Oxford University Press.
  7. ^ a b Schlinger, H.D. (2008). The long good-bye: why B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior is alive and well on the 50th anniversary of its publication.
  8. ^ Demetriou, A. (1998). Cognitive development. In A. Demetriou, W. Doise, K. F. M. van Lieshout (Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology (pp. 179-269). London: Wiley.
  9. ^ a b c d Butterworth, G; Harris, M (1994). Principles of Developmental Psychology. Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-86377-280-3.
  10. ^ a b c d e Bremner, JG (1994). Infancy (2 ed.). Blackwell. ISBN 063118466X.
  11. ^ Slater, A (2006). Introduction to Infant Development. Oxford: OUP. ISBN 0199283052.
  12. ^ Mathew, PJ; Mathew, JL (2003). "Assessment and management of pain in infants". Postgraduate Medical Journal 79: 438-443. http://pmj.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/79/934/438.
  13. ^ a b Piaget, J. (1977). Gruber, H.E.; Voneche, J.J.. eds. The essential Piaget. New York: Basic Books.
  14. ^ Siegler, Robert (2006). How Children Develop, Exploring Child Development Student Media Tool Kit & Scientific American Reader to Accompany How Children Develop. New York: Worth Publishers. ISBN 0716761130.
  15. ^ Fagen, JW; Hayne, H, eds (2002). Progress in Infancy Research. Progress in Infancy Research Series. 2. Routledge. p. 14. ISBN 1-4106-0210-9, 9781410602107.
  16. ^ Developmental Theory
  17. ^ a b Fathers' Role in Children's Academic Achievement and Early Literacy. ERIC Digest
  18. ^ "Children with active, involved fathers have better social skills, are healthier, and do better in school", according to Duane Wilson, the Proud Fathers, Proud Parents program coordinator for the Michigan Department of Human Services (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2125328669291708941 2:57)
  19. ^ Bruce J. Ellis, Child Development May/June 2003, 74:3, pp. 801-821
  20. ^ Rebekah Levine Coley and Bethany L. Medeiros, Reciprocal Longitudinal Relations Between Nonresident Father Involvement and Adolescent Delinquency, Child Development, 78:1, pp. 132-147, Jan 2007
  21. ^ Amber Haque (2004), "Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists", Journal of Religion and Health 43 (4): 357-377 [361]
  22. ^ David W. Tschanz, MSPH, PhD (August 2003). "Arab Roots of European Medicine", Heart Views 4 (2).
  23. ^ The first three of these stages, which correspond closely with Piaget's later-described stages of childhood, were first presented in Steiner's 1911 essay The Education of the Child.

Further reading

External links

Infants can do more than we think. Research from Uppsala university 2010.

Human Development: Biological • Psychological Childhood Infancy Neonate/Newborn Play age Toddlerhood Primary school Secondary school Preadolescence Adolescence Adult Puberty Preteen Child development stages.svg (click on a period to see article) Child development stages.svg (click on a period to see article) Child development stages.svg (click on a period to see article) Child development stages.svg (click on a period to see article) Child development stages.svg (click on a period to see article) Child development stages.svg (click on a period to see article) Child development stages.svg (click on a period to see article) Preschooler Child development stages.svg (click on a period to see article) Child development stages.svg (click on a period to see article)
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