Human Development Flashcards
What is development?
Systematic continuous changes in an individual throughout the course of their life.
What is the branch of psychology devoted to identifying and explaining changes throughout a person’s life?
Developmental psychology
What are the two factors influencing development?
Maturation and learning
What is maturation?
Biological process I changes that occur because of the aging process
What is learning?
Relatively permanent in behavior or though and is because of experience or practice.
What de some features of development?
It is: continual, cumulative, holistic, historically and culturally influenced,marked by plasticity
What are four (4) debates about development?
Nature vs nurture, discontinuity vs continuity, activity vs passivity, universal vs particularistic
Explain Activity vs Passivity
This debate has to do with whether or not a child plays a vital role in their development or if they do not. It is known however that the environment affects the child but the child’s reactions and mannerisms also affect the environment.
What is reciprocal determinism?
A continuous reciprocal interaction between individual and environment and how that may influence behavior -eg. between child and environment
Explain the basis of Continuity vs Discontinuity
Continuity theorists believe that development is an additive process, occurring in small steps while discontinuity theorists believe that development occurs in abrupt changes, levels or stages.
Quantitative vs qualitative development
Quantitative development refers to changes in degree that are gradual and build on each other while qualitative development ore changes in kind and abrupt
Explain the basis of universal vs. Particularistic
Universal theorists believe that normative developments that all individuals display and particularistic development outcomes vary from person to person.
Nature vs Nurture debate
Nature refers to our biological predispositions and hereditary while nurture refers to being shaped by the environment.
What are behavior genetics?
This is the field that studies the influence of genetic factors on behavior, behavioral geneticists believe that most attributes / qualities of an individual is as a result of ten interplay between hereditary predispositions and environmental influences.
What are epigenetics?
Substances in the environment, such as drugs or toxins or diet that con cause epigenesis.
