Your Required Technology Materials
Sigelman/Rider,
Life-Span Human Development, 5th Ed.
with InfoTrac® College Edition
Professor: Talley
Course: Psych 110
Your Required Technology Materials
Sigelman/Rider,
Life-Span Human Development, 5th Ed.
with WebTutor™ on WebCT
Professor:
Professor:
Talley
Course:
Course/Section:
Psych 110
Technology Resources to help you succeed in this course
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Chapter 1
Understanding Life-Span
Human Development
What is Development?
• Systematic changes and
continuities
– In the individual
– Between conception and death
• “Womb to Tomb”
• Three broad domains
– Physical, Cognitive, Psychosocial
Other Developmental
Definitions
• Growth: Physical changes that occur from
birth to maturity
• Aging: Positive and negative changes in the
mature organism
• Maturation: The biological unfolding of the
individual genetic plan
• Learning: Relatively permanent changes due
to environmental experiences
Age Grades, Age Norms, and
the Social Clock
• Age Grade: Socially defined age groups
– Statuses, roles, privileges, responsibilities
– Adults can vote, children can’t
• Age Norms: Behavioral expectations by age
– Children attend school
• Social Clock: When things should be done
– Early adulthood – time for 1st marriages
• “Off time” experiences are more difficult
Life-Span Phases in
Historical Context
• Only two phases: Childhood & Adulthood
• 1600: Children viewed as miniature adults
• Modern view: innocence, need protection
• Average life expectancy in 1900: 49 yrs.
• 1998
– Females} White:80 yrs, Black:75 yrs
– Males} White:75 yrs, Black 68 yrs
– Increasing population of age 65+
Framing the
Nature/Nurture Issue
• Nature: heredity
– Maturational processes guided by genes
– Biologically based predispositions
– Biological unfolding of genes
• Nurture: environment
– Learning: experiences cause changes is
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
• Interactionist view: nature & nurture interact
Figure 1.1
Goals of Studying LifeSpan Development
• Description
– Normal development, individual differences
• Explanation
– Typical and individually different
development
• Optimization
– Positive development, enhancing human
capacities
– Prevention and overcoming difficulties
Methods of Studying LifeSpan Development
• Historical
– Baby Biographies: Charles Darwin
– Questionnaires: G. Stanley Hall
• Key Assumptions of Modern Life-Span Perspectives
– Lifelong, multidirectional process
– Gain and loss and lifelong plasticity
– Historical/cultural contexts, multiple influences
– Multi-disciplinary studies
Conducting
Developmental Research
• Self-reports: interview, questionnaires,
tests
• Behavioral Observations
– Naturalistic
• Advantage: natural setting
• Disadvantage: conditions not controlled
– Structured (Lab)
• Disadvantage: cannot generalize to
natural settings
• Advantage: conditions controlled
Figure 1.2
The Experimental Method
• Three Critical Features
– 1. Manipulation of independent variable
– 2. Random assignment of individuals to
treatment conditions
– 3. Experimental control
• Quasi-Experiment: No random
assignment
The Correlational Method
• Determine if 2 or more variables are related
• Correlation: A measure of the relationship
– Can range from +1.0 to –1.0
– Positive: variables move in same direction
– Negative: variables move in opposite dir.
• No relationship if correlation is 0
• Cannot establish a causal relationship
Figure 1.3
Developmental Research
Designs
• Cross-Sectional Designs
– +1 cohorts or age-groups studied
– 1 time of testing
– Studying age differences at any one time
• Longitudinal Designs
– 1 cohort
– +1 time of testing
– Study changes across time in one cohort
Figure 1.4
Age, Cohort, and Time of
Measurement Effects
• Age effects: Changes which occur due
to age
• Cohort Effects: Born in one historical
context
– Changes due to differences in society
– Disadvantage of cross-sectional design
• Time of measurement effects: Historical
– Take place at time of data collection
– Disadvantage of longitudinal design
Sequential Designs
• A combination of cross-sectional
and longitudinal designs
• Advantages of both designs
• Gives information about
– Which age-related trends are age effects?
– Which age-related trends are truly cohort
effects?
– Which age-related trends are a result of
historical events?
Figure 1.6
Protecting the Rights of
Participants
• Risk to benefit balance of the
research
• Researcher responsibilities
– Informed consent
– Debriefing
– Protection from harm
– Confidentiality
The Ecology of Human
Development
• Bronfenbrenner: Bioecological Model
– How nature and nurture interact to
produce development
• The biological, psychological, person
• Four environmental systems
– Microsystem: family
– Mesosystem: school
– Exosystem: society
– Macrosystem: culture