DUCK Flashcards
Each period
of the life span is affected by what happened before and will affect what is to
come. Each period has unique characteristics and value. No period is more or less
important than any other.
Development is lifelong.
It occurs along multiple interacting dimensions—
biological, psychological, and social—each of which may develop at varying rates.
Development is multidimensional.
As people gain in one area, they may lose in
another, sometimes at the same time. Children grow mostly in one direction—up—
both in size and in abilities. Then the balance gradually shifts. Adolescents typically
gain in physical abilities, but their facility in learning a new language typically
declines. Some abilities, such as vocabulary, often continue to increase throughout
most of adulthood; others, such as the ability to solve unfamiliar problems, may
diminish; but some new attributes, such as wisdom, may increase with age.
Development is multidirectional.
The process of
development is influenced by both biology and culture, but the balance between these
influences changes. Biological abilities, such as sensory acuity and muscular strength
and coordination, weaken with age, but cultural supports, such as education, relation-
ships, and technologically age-friendly environments, may help compensate.
Relative influences of biology and culture shift over the life span.
Individuals choose to invest their
resources of time, energy, talent, money, and social support in varying ways.
Resources may be used for growth (for example, learning to play an instrument or
improving one’s skill), for maintenance or recovery (practicing to maintain or regain
proficiency), or for dealing with loss when maintenance and recovery are not
possible. The allocation of resources to these three functions changes throughout life
as the total available pool of resources decreases. In childhood and young adult-
hood, the bulk of resources typically goes to growth; in old age, to regulation of
loss. In midlife, the allocation is more evenly balanced among the three functions.
Development involves changing resource allocations.
Many abilities, such as memory, strength, and endurance,
can be improved significantly with training and practice, even late in life. However,
even in children, plasticity has limits that depend in part on the various influences on
development. One of the tasks of developmental research is to discover to what
extent particular kinds of development can be modified at various ages.
Development shows plasticity.
Each person
develops within multiple contexts—circumstances or conditions defined in part by
maturation and in part by time and place. Human beings not only influence but
also are influenced by their historical-cultural context. As we discuss throughout
this book, developmental scientists have found significant cohort differences, for
example, in intellectual functioning, in women’s midlife emotional development,
and in the flexibility of personality in old age.
Development is influenced by the historical and cultural context.
Model that views human development as a series of predictable responses to stimuli.
Mechanistic model
Model that views human development as internally initiated by an active organism and as occurring in a sequence of
qualitatively different stages.
Organismic model
Changes in number or amount, such as in height, weight, size
of vocabulary or frequency of communication.
Quantitative change
Discontinuous changes in kind, structure, or organization.
Qualitative change
Newborns are governed by the —, which operates under the
pleasure principle- the drive to seek immediate satisfaction
of their needs and desires.
ID
The —-, which represents reason, develops gradually
during the first year or so of life and operates under the
reality principle.
EGO
The —- includes the conscience and incorporates
socially approved “should” and “should nots: into the child’s
value system.
SUPEREGO
View of human development that holds that changes in
behaviour result from experience or from adaptation to the
environment.
Learning perspective
