1. Basic concepts and principles in developmental psychology
Chapter 2:
Basic concepts and principles
in developmental psychology

2. DEBATES and CONTROVERSIES
Stability versus Change
The Life-Span Perspective
Nature versus Nurture
Continuity versus Discontinuity
Ontogeny and Phylogeny
Critical Periods
Non-normative and Normative
Influences

3. 1. STABILITY versus CHANGE
Lifetime stability versus lifetime change
2. LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE
Development is lifelong
Development is multidimensional
Development is multidirectional
Development is plastic
Development is embedded in history
Development is multidisciplinary
Development is contextual

4. 3. NATURE versus NURTURE Nativism or genetic determinism 
Our characteristics are chiefly determined
by heredity
Environmental determinism 
Environmental factors exert the greatest
influence on human development

5. 4. CONTINUITY vs DISCONTINUITY
Quantitative changes: changes in degree
or amount
(seen in the slow, cumulative development
of a tiny acorn into a huge oak tree)
Qualitative changes: changes in kind, structure
or organisation
(seen in the clearly differentiated stages as a larva
transforms into a moth)

6. 5. ONTOGENY and PHYLOGENY 
Understanding of
individual development
of a specific
child or person
Understanding of a
wider group of people,
or ‘species’
development

7. 6. CRITICAL PERIODS Critical period:
a specific time during development when a given event has its greatest impact.
Readiness:
the point at which an individual
can be said to have matured sufficiently
to benefit from
a particular learning experience.

8. 7. NORMATIVE & NON-NORMATIVE INFLUENCES
Normative age-graded events
(most children enter formal schooling at a
similar age)
Normative history-graded events
(children in England during shared
the similar experience of World War II)
Non-normative life events
(the death of a parent when a child is young)

9. Does theory follow development does development follow theory?
Theory Development

10. CONTEXTS FOR DEVELOPMENT
Biological
Social
Cultural
Historical
Economic
Intellectual