Lifespan Flashcards
Developmental change
A relatively permanent or lasting change
Lifespan psychology
Refers to age related changes that occur from birth, throughout a person’s life, into and during old age
Stages of lifespan
- Infancy (0-2) create a bond with caregiver
- Childhood (2-10) gain more self control
- Adolescence (10/12-20/24) onset of puberty
- early adulthood (20-40) establish independence
- middle age (40-65) more responsibility
- older age (mid 60’s-end of life) new social roles undertaken
Heredity
Involves the transmission of characteristics from biological parents to their offspring via genes at the time of conception
Developmental change
Must be a relatively permanent or lasting change
Areas of lifespan development
- emotional development
- cognitive development
- social development
- physical development
Environment
Refers to all the experiences, objects and events to which we are exposed to throughout our entire lifetime
Emotional development
Attachment theory
- Bowlby and Ainsworth
- human infants need a secure relationship with a caregiver in order for healthy emotional development to occur
- Harlow
- infant monkeys separated from their mothers had a preference for cloth mother over mesh mother
- contact comfort is crucial for human infant-parent attachment
Cognitive development
Four stage theory
- Piaget
Adaptation
The continuous process of using the environment to learn, and learning to adjust to the changes that occur in the environment
Assimilation
The process of taking in new information and fitting it into and making it part of an existing mental idea about objects or the world
Eg. A young child may see a truck and call it a car
Accommodation
Refers to changing an existing mental idea in order to fit new information
Eg. Developing a new category for truck after realising it doesn’t belong to the category of cars
Schema
A mental idea, or organised representation of what something is and how to deal with it
Piaget’s four stage theory, stages
- sensori-motor: birth-2 years: object permanence, goal-directed behaviour
- pre-operational: 2-7 years: egocentrism, animism, transformation, centration, reversibility
- concrete operational: 7-12 years: conservation, classification
- formal operational: 12+ years: abstract thinking, logical thinking
Sensori-motor stage
Object permanence: an understanding that objects continuer to exist even when they are out of sight. Eg. Peek-a-boo
Goal-directed behaviour: the child begins to solve problems and carry out behaviour with a certain purpose in mind. Eg. Pull themselves up a table to get a toy
Pre-operational stage
Egocentric: develop a thinking style that is characterised by self-centredness and an inability to consider the viewpoints of others
Transformation: understanding something can change from one stage to an other. Eg. Ice to water
Animism: believe if they can feel, so can every other object. Everything has some kind of awareness
Reversibility of thought: ability to follow a line of reasoning back to its original starting point
Centration: can only take into account one aspect or characteristic of an object
Concrete operational stage
Conservation: mass, weight and volume remain unchanged when the shape of an object changes
Classification: able to place things that share similar features into categories
Formal operations stage
Abstract principles: thinking that doesn’t rely on being able to see or visualise things in order to understand them
Logical thinking: develop strategies to solve problems, identify explanations and test solutions
Hypothetical possibilities: develop possibilities based on guess, prediction or speculation
Psychological changes in the very old
Very old is those over 85
- cognitive changes
- psychosocial changes
- successful ageing
Cognitive changes in very old
- difficulty separating relevant information from irrelevant information
- difficulty paying attention to more than one thing at a time
- slower at mentally processing information
- memory declines
- difficulty retaining information in conscious awareness when thinking about it
Psychosocial changes in the very old
- if they view their past as meaningful and useful they will experience integrity and be more content in old age
- if they view their past with regret and bitterness they will experience despair, disappointment and are therefore less content
- tend to feel lonely as their social world shrinks when their friends and family pass away
Successful ageing
Occurs when a very old person maximises and attains positive outcomes while minimising and avoiding negative outcomes
- selection
- optimisation
- compensation
Selection (successful ageing)
Reduce numbers of goals they try and achieve, then prioritise goals
Optimisation (successful ageing)
Involves making the most of abilities, resources and opportunities available to achieve the best outcome
Compensation (successful ageing)
Developing new strategies to substitute for each of the losses
