1. CHAPTER 1 UNDERSTANDING LIFE-SPAN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

2. What is Development? Systematic changes and continuities
In the individual
Between conception and death
“Womb to Tomb”
Three broad domains
Physical, Cognitive, Psychosocial

3. 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

4. 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

5. Phases of the Life Span
Before 1600: Children viewed as miniature adults
Modern View: Children innocent, need protection
Average life expectancy in 1900 was 47 years
In 2000 it was 77.5 years
Females: White=80, Black=76
Males: White=75, Black=69
Increasing population - age 65 and older

6. 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 in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
Interactionist view: nature & nurture interact

7. The Bioecological Model
Microsystem: Immediate environment
Mesosystem: Relationships
Exosystem: Social Systems
Macrosystem: Culture
Chronosystem: Changes occur in a time frame
This is an interactionist model

8. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of development pictures environment as a series of nested structures. The microsystem refers to relations between the developing person and her immediate environment, the mesosystem to connections among microsystems, the exosystem to settings that affect but do not contain the individual, the macrosystem to the broader cultural context of development, and the chronosystem to the patterning over time of historical and life events. Researchers face many challenges in studying the developing person in context.

9. Goals of Studying Life-Span Development
Description
Normal development, individual differences
Explanation
Typical and individually different development
Optimization
Positive development, enhancing human capacities
Prevention and overcoming difficulties

10. Methods of Studying Life-Span 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

11. Unique Challenges in Developmental Research
Infants and young children
Attention, instruction, answering questions may be difficult
Elderly Adults
Possible sensory impairments
Discomfort being studied, tested

12. Conducting Developmental Research
Self-reports: interview, questionnaires, tests
Behavioral Observations (Experiments)
Naturalistic
Advantage: natural setting
Disadvantage: conditions not controlled
Structured (Lab)
Disadvantage: cannot generalize to natural settings
Advantage: conditions controlled

13. The Scientific (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

14. The scientific method in action

15. 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

17. 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

18. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of development from age 30 to age 70.

19. 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

20. Conflicting findings of hypothetical cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of gender-role attitudes. How could the two studies produce different age trends?

21. 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

22. A sequential study. This study begins in 1970 with a group of 30-year-olds studied longitudinally every 10 years thereafter. In 1980, a second longitudinal study is launched, in 1990 a third, and so on. Notice that at a point in time such as 2000 (blue shading) age groups can be compared in a cross sectional study. Notice too that 30-year-olds from different cohorts can be compared (orange shading).

24. Issues in Developmental Studies
Random sampling
Increases likelihood that sample is representative of population
Protecting rights of research participants
Must assess the benefit to risk balance
Researcher responsibilities
Informed consent, debriefing, protection from harm, confidentiality

25. Cultural and Subcultural Sensitivity in Research
Variety of contexts considered
Culturally sensitive methods & measurements
SES particularly important
Ethnocentrism

26. Historical Changes in Periods of Lifespan
Childhood
Pressure to grow up
Early exposure to adult issues
Adolescence: A transition & delayed adulthood
Emerging Adulthood
Identity exploration in preparation for adulthood
Adulthood
By 2030, >20% will be over age 65