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PSY203 Introduction to Human Development Complete Course Notes.
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PSY203 Introduction to Human Development Complete Course Notes (weeks 1-13) University of the Sunshine Coast.
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PSY203 INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN DEVELOPMENTWeek 1 Tutorial: The Study of Human Development – Rachel Sharman
- A child is not a young adult. The adult brain is complete and formed.
- Childrens brains are very malleable in contrast to the adult brain.
- Brain development - Babies are born with a number of neurons and then we have an
explosion of the number of neurons in the first couple of years of life. After this point
we start to prune; the pathways that we use a lot stay and the ones we do not use
wither away. If you do not use it you lose it and we in turn end up with less neurons
then what we had as children.
- Our ability to adapt in any environment (wire our brains to any environments in which
we find ourselves having to adapt).
Fundamental issues of development
1. Nature vs nurture
2. Continuity vs change
3. Universal vs context specific
4 Basic forces of human development – interaction between these 4 dynamic forces
1. Biological (genetic/health related)
2. Psychological (perceptions, cognitions, affective and personality traits)
3. Sociocultural (interpersonal, societal, cultural and ethnic)
4. Life-cycle forces (effect of where person is in their own life cycle)
2.1 Developmental Theories
What is a theory?
- An organised set of ideas that are designed to explain development
- Something that is integral to developing predictions about behaviour
- Predictions result in research that helps to support or clarify the theory
- There are truly no comprehensive theories of human development
5 prominent developmental perspectives
1. Psychodynamic (e.g., Erikson and psychosocial development)
2. Learning theory (e.g., Bandura’s social learning theory and self-efficacy)
3. Cognitive-developmental theory (Piaget, information processing and Vygotsky)
4. Ecological and systems approach (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, competency-environmental
press).
5. Life-span perspective (e.g., Baltes and selection optimisation and compensation (i.e.,
how losses are managed) and the life course perspective (i.e., generational
experiences)
Nature/Nurture is not necessarily a debate as they constantly interact.
Types of measurement
- Systematic observation (naturalistic or structured), sampling behaviour using tasks,
self-reports and physiological measures.
- How and what you are measuring: reliability and validity of the measurement and
populations.
Designs in general
,- Correlational studies
- Experimental studies
- Qualitative studies
- When is it most appropriate to use these?
WEEK 1 THE STUDY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
- Human Development is defined as the multidisciplinary study of how people change
and how they remain the same overtime. It composes many questions including: will
you be the same or different later in life? How do you influence other people’s lives?
How do they influence yours? How do the various roles you play throughout your life
shape your development (child, teenager, partner, spouse, parent, worker and
grandparent) ? How do you deal with the thought of your own death and the death of
others?
- Human development as a science is firmly grounded in theory and research as it
seeks to understand human behaviour.
- Jeanne Calment lived to a record 122 years of age. Jeanne’s immediate family also
exceeded the average lifespan.
- Recent and expected developments are likely to result in the human species living for
extended amounts of time. National geographic has estimated humans will live to
120 and Time magazine has predicted humans may live until 142. Whilst science
may allow for this to occur it is integral that we ask ourselves whether we would like
to live for this long. Living for such extended periods of time would raise many ethical
and moral questions, such as how to define a full and purposeful life, especially
regarding how we should handle the end of life. For these answers, it is highly likely
many people would turn to religious leaders for guidance. This would result in a
multitude of varying perspectives… are extended lifespans a measure of avoiding
inevitable death?
- Views regarding extended lifespans result from interpreting both individual and
collective experiences that are influenced by various biological, psychological and
sociological forces.
1.1 Thinking about development
Recurring issues in Human Development
- Factors that may shape us include genetic heritage; family or neighbourhood; the
suddenness of some of the changes in life and the gradualness of others; and
culture(s) in which we grew up in or may live. It is also noticeable that we are very
similar to some people we know or are class too, however extremely different to
others. This leads us to the conclusion that everyone's life is shaped by a complex
set of factors.
- Human development consists of three fundamental characteristics: (1.) nature and
nurture; (2.) continuity and discontinuity (characteristics that stay the same
throughout life and characteristics that change); and universal and context-specific
development.
Nature vs Nurture
- Development is shaped by both nature and nurture and these are mutually interactive
influences.
- A major aim of human development research is to understand how heredity and
environment jointly determine development.
, Continuity and discontinuity
- Are we still as friendly as we were at age 5? If the answer is yes this is an example of
continuity. If not this is an example of discontinuity. From this perspective once we
head down a particular developmental path we tend to stay on that path throughout
life, other things being equal. The other view is that development is not always
continuous. In this view, people can change from one developmental path to another
and perhaps several times in their lives.
- The continuity–discontinuity issue concerns whether a particular developmental
phenomenon represents a smooth progression throughout the life span (continuity)
or a series of abrupt shifts (discontinuity). Of course, on a day-to-day basis,
behaviours often look nearly identical, or continuous. But when viewed over the
course of many months or years, the same behaviours may have changed
dramatically, reflecting discontinuous change. For example, your face may look
nearly identical in “selfies” taken on successive days (continuity) but change
dramatically in photos taken years apart (discontinuity).
Universal and Context-Specific Development
- In many native and indigenous cultures, mathematical concepts are mastered by
young children not through formal education about numbers but through everyday
tasks such as picking berries and selling goods in street markets In contrast, children
in the United States are formally taught at home or school to identify numbers and to
perform the abstract arithmetic operations needed to handle these tasks. Can one
theory explain development in both groups of children? The universal and context-
specific development issue concerns whether there is one path of development or
several.
- Some theorists argue that despite what look like differences in development, there is
only one fundamental developmental process for everyone. According to this view,
differences in development are simply variations on the same fundamental process.
- The alternative view is that differences among people are not simply variations on a
theme. Advocates of this view argue that human development is inextricably
intertwined with the context within which it occurs. A person’s development is a
product of complex interaction with their environment, and that interaction is not
fundamentally the same in all environments. Rather, each environment has its own
set of unique procedures that shape development.
- As is the case for the nature–nurture and continuity–discontinuity issues, the result is
a blend; individual development reflects both universal and context-specific
influences. For example, the order of development of physical skills in infancy is
essentially the same in all cultures. But how those skills are focused or encouraged
in daily life differs.
- Putting all three issues together and using personality to illustrate, we can ask how
the development of personality is shaped by interactions between heredity and
environment, is continuous or discontinuous, and develops in much the same way
around the world. To answer these kinds of questions, we need to look at the forces
that combine to shape human development.
Basic Forces in Human Development: The Biopsychosocial Framework
When trying to explain why people develop as they do, scientists usually consider four
interactive forces:
Biological forces: that include all genetic and health-related factors that affect development.
, Psychological forces: that include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and
personality factors that affect development.
Sociocultural forces: that include interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that
affect development.
Life-cycle forces: that reflect differences in how the same event affects people of different
ages.
- Each person is a unique combination of these forces.
Biopsychosocial Model
- One useful way to organize the biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces on
human development is with the biopsychosocial framework. The biopsychosocial
framework emphasizes that each of the forces interacts with the others to make up
development.
- Biological Forces: Genetics and Health Prenatal development, brain maturation,
puberty, and physical aging may occur to you as outcomes of biological forces.
Indeed, major aspects of each process are determined by our genetic code. For
example, many children resemble their parents, which shows biological influences on
development. But biological forces are not only genetic; they also include the effects
of such things as diet and exercise. Collectively, biological forces can be viewed as
providing the raw material necessary and as setting the boundary conditions (in the
case of genetics) for development.
- Psychological Forces: Known by Our Behaviour Psychological forces seem familiar
because they are the ones used most often to describe the characteristics of a
person. For example, think about how you describe yourself to others. Most of us say
that we have a nice personality and are intelligent, honest, self-confident, or
something similar. Concepts such as these reflect psychological forces. In general,
psychological forces are all the internal cognitive, emotional, personality, perceptual,
and related factors that help define us as individuals and that influence behaviour.
Psychological forces have received the most attention of the three main
developmental forces, and their impact is evident throughout this text. For example,
we will see how the development of intelligence enables individuals to experience
and think about their world in different ways. We’ll also see how the emergence of
self-esteem is related to the beliefs people have about their abilities, which in turn
influence what they do.
- Sociocultural Forces: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture People develop in the world, not in
a vacuum. To understand human development, we need to know how people and
their environments interact and mutually influence each other. That is, we need to
view an individual’s development as part of a much larger system in which any
individual part influences all other aspects of the system. This larger system includes
one’s parents, children, siblings, extended family, as well as important individuals
outside the family, such as friends, teachers, and co-workers. The system also
includes institutions that influence development, such as schools, media, and the
workplace. At a broader level, the society in which a person grows up plays a key
role. All these people and institutions fit together to form a person’s culture: the
knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour associated with a group of people. Culture can
be linked to a particular country or people (e.g., French culture); to a specific point in
time (e.g., popular culture of the 2010s); or to groups of individuals who maintain
specific, identifiable cultural traditions (e.g., Native American tribes, Muslims).
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