Key Questions about human Development?

Question 1

What are Developmental Sciences?

Answer 1

Describing and explaining changes that occur throughout the lifespan.

Question 2

What is Development?

Answer 2

Development = change that is:
– Orderly/systematic
– Stable (relatively)
– Positive/useful/adaptive

Question 3

What are Developmental Milestones?

Answer 3

a set of goals or markers that a child is expected to achieve during maturation

Question 4

What is a Genotype?

Answer 4

the specific and complete genetic make-up of the individual

Question 5

What is an Environment?

Answer 5

everything that surrounds the developing organism - and interacts with it

Question 6

What is a Social Environment?

Answer 6

the environment developed by humans as contrasted with the natural environment; society as a whole, especially in its relation to the individual.

Question 7

What is Evolutionary Psychology?

Answer 7

a growing discipline that seeks to explain how evolution shaped modern human behaviour

Question 8

evolutionary personality theory

Answer 8

looks for the origin of presumably universal personality traits in the adaptive demands of our species’ evolutionary history