1. Janet Belsky’s Experiencing the Lifespan, 3e
Chapter 1:
The People and The Field
Meredyth Fellows, West Chester University of PA

2. Who We Are and What We Study
Lifespan development: the scientific study of human development throughout life
Conception, Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence, Emerging Adulthood, and Adulthood
Gerontology
Study of lifespan development is multidisciplinary
Developmentalists explore
Predictable milestones in development
Individual differences
Nature versus Nurture
Temperament, Talent, Traits
Normative and non-normative transitions

3. Four Contexts of Development
Cohort: birth group
e.g., baby boom cohort
Socioeconomic Status (SES)
education and income level
Developed world; Developing world
Culture
Collectivist and Individualist
Gender

4. Changing Conceptions of Childhood
Historical Background
Poverty; high mortality rates
Child abuse common
Norms:
Child labor; child abandonment among poor
17th & 18th centuries: philosophers’ visions
John Locke
Humans born a “tabula rasa”
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Infants are innocent
We should lovingly nurture babies
These practices not instituted until early 20th century

5. Changing Conceptions of Childhood
Late 19th Century: kinder, gentler view of children
Childhood protected, dependent life stage
Universal education: primary school mandatory
20th Century: Adolescence: identified by G. Stanley Hall
Stage of “Storm and Stress” between childhood and adulthood
In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered high school attendance as mandatory.
Emerging Adulthood: newest life stage
Age 18 to late 20s
Time for personal exploration

6. Changing Conceptions of Later Life: Adulthood and Old Age
Life Expectancy
Low before 20th century medical advances
Today, 20th century life expectancy revolution!
Infectious diseases wiped out
Present-day chronic diseases (heart disease, cancer, diabetes)
New Stages
Young-old (60s, 70s)
Old-old (80s and beyond)

7. Cohort Changes in Adult and Late Life
Late 20th-Century “Revolution in Lifestyles”
Baby boomers come of age (60s-early 70s)
Civil Rights; Women’s Movement; Sexual Revolution
Positive change: more open society with ability to make new choices at any time of life
Negative changes related to economics: single parenthood; poverty

8. The Great Recession of 2008

9. Theories of Development
Theory
Any perspective that attempts to explain individual behavior
Allows us to predict behavior
Presents ideas for interventions to improve behavior
Nature/Nurture
Are we shaped by biological/genetic forces or is the environment more influential?
We’ll look at each theory from this perspective.

10. Behaviorism: The Original “Nurture” Theory
Traditional Behaviorism: John Watson and B. F. Skinner
Nurture is all important!
A real science: study observable, measurable responses
If we understand the scientific laws of learning, we can produce any behavior we want!

11. B. F. Skinner: Operant Conditioning
Conditioning = Learning
Operant Conditioning
The law of learning that determines any voluntary response
Variable reinforcement schedules
We behave a certain way because we are reinforced (rewarded) for certain behaviors.
Any behavior that is reinforced is likely to be repeated.
Any behavior that is not reinforced is likely to be extinguished.

12. Cognition and Modeling
A Different Perspective: Cognitive Behaviorism (Social Learning Theory)
Albert Bandura
Cognition and Modeling
Learn by modeling (imitating) others
We model people who are nurturant, or involved with us.
We model those whom we perceive as being like us.
e.g., At about age 2, gender identification and gender- specific behaviors develop.
Our perceptions about reinforcers (rewards) determine our behavior.

13. Bandura: Cognitive Behaviorism
Self-Efficacy
Our belief in our competence
Our sense that through our own efforts, we can be successful at a given task
A strong sense of self-efficacy is an important factor in healthy child development.
How can we enhance self-efficacy during childhood and at any time of life?

14. Attachment Theory (mid-20th Century): Nature, Nurture, and Love
Formulated by John Bowlby
Shared Freud’s psychoanalytic view: Early life experiences with caregivers shape our personality.
Determines whether we become well-adjusted or emotionally impaired adults
Bowlby’s Main Focus: “attachment response”
Bowlby was an early evolutionary psychologist.
Attachment response is genetically programmed into our species to promote survival.
Early attachments affect development.

15. Evolutionary Psychology: Nature
Evolutionary psychologists focus on biological predispositions:
Inborn, species-specific behaviors influence human development.
Speculate about the genetic roots of human behaviors
Survival of the fittest!

16. Behavioral Genetics: Nature
Field devoted to scientifically determining the role that hereditary forces play in individual differences in behavior:
Twin Studies (identical and fraternal)
Adoption Studies
Twin/Adoption Studies
Heritability: ranges from 1 (totally genetic) to 0 (no genetic contribution)
Statistic to summarize the extent to which a given behavior is shaped by genetics
Monozygotic
Dizygotic

17. Nature and Nurture Combined
Nature interacts with Nurture when studying human development!
Evocative Forces
Inborn talents and temperamental tendencies naturally evoke certain responses from others.
Bidirectional forces in relationships
Active Forces
We actively select our environments based on our genetic tendencies.
Person−Environment Fit crucial to flourishing in life!

18. Person−Environment Fit
The extent to which the environment is tailored to our biological tendencies and talents
The basic goal of developmental science is to foster the correct person−environment fit.
The real impact of the “nature” revolution is to allow us to intervene to change the environment in order to enhance one’s quality of life.

19. Age-Linked Theories: Freud
Psychoanalytic Theory
Analyzes our psyche or “inner life”
Deterministic: “mothering” during first five years determines adult personality and mental health
Id, Ego, Superego
Age-Linked Stages
Focus on erogenous zones
Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency
Therapy = Psychoanalysis

20. Psychosocial Development: Erikson
Considered “the father of lifespan development”
Believed we continue to develop throughout life
Exception to Freud’s idea that development ends in adolescence
Identified core developmental tasks, or psychosocial tasks, for each of eight stages from infancy to old age
Believed that we need to master the task of each previous stage in order to progress to the next

21. A Preview of Erikson’s Stages

22. Age-Linked Theories: Piaget
Cognitive-Developmental Theory
Qualitatively different stages exist in the way thinking develops (different age groups conceptualize the world in completely different ways).
Schemas (cognitive structures)
Assimilation, Accommodation
Studies focused on children

23. Cognitive Development: Piaget
Tried to understand the unique qualities of childhood cognition by entering children’s mental framework, setting up tests, watching children’s actions, and listening to them speak
Believed that we grow mentally through assimilation, fitting information from the outside world into our “schemas” (or current mental capacities), and accommodation, enlarging our capacities to fit in this “data” from the world

24. A Preview of Piaget’s Stages

25. Summary of Major Current Theories in Lifespan Development
Insert Table 1.4 here.

26. The Developmental Systems Perspective
Urie Bronfenbrenner:
Highlighted multidirectional forces in human development
The total ecology, or life situation of the child, influences his/her development.
Developmental Systems Approach:
Stresses the need to use many different approaches in understanding human behavior
We must look at the interaction of processes (genes, environment, family, society, culture).

27. Research Methods Two standard research strategies: Correlational Study
Researchers chart the relationships between variables.
Correlation does not mean causation!
Experiments
Randomly assign individuals to groups.
Give each group a different treatment.
Experimental group and Control group
Determine if intervention produced a predicted effect.
Experiments can determine cause!

28. Research Methods: Correlational

29. Research Methods: Experiments

30. Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies: How do we change with age?
Testing and comparing different age groups at the same time
Gives differences between age groups
Does not tell us the changes that occur with age
Longitudinal
Test at intervals – one group over many years
Dunedin Multidisciplinary and Development Study

31. Quantitative and Qualitative Research
The typical research mode in developmental science using groups and statistical analyses to make general predictions about behavior
Qualitative
Scientist not interested in numerical comparisons
Studying the life of a single person through observation and interviews, or observing a single individual in depth