module : history and methods Flashcards
what is development?
development: systematic continuities and changes in an individual over the course of a lifetime
systematic -> orderly pattern of behaviour
for example in infancy there’s an order of events we will see them lift their head before they roll over which will be followed by standing holding on to something and then walking so there’s a sequence of events that occur in a relatively stable order
development itself is dependent on two processes:
MATURATION AND LEARNING
- maturation refers to the biological process that occur so natural changes that occur with aging. maturation has an impact on physical change and on psychological changed there’s an expected age range for certain set of skills that’s associated with maturation for example between 4 and 5 months infants begin to grasp projects with both hands and at about seven months they begin to crawl now learning refers to changes that are due to experience so changes that are a response to our environment an example might be this idea that you know you might be capable of skating at age 3 some children do but you actually need exposure to that experience in order to learn to skate
- most developmental changes the result of both maturation and learning and we’re going to explore more of that in this course one of the things that will discuss is how we have the capacity to learn language but we learn the language that were exposed to so again maturation learning
When we’re looking at developmental psychology and developmental science there are three major goals
1) Describe: We want to be able to look at atypical patterns of infant growth but also be able to describe variations from one person to the next
2) Explain: again we want to be able to explain so when we try to explain things that the change are things like the changes that we observe behavior we try to explain why people are typical and then we try to also explain why are some people different or infants different
3) Optimize or Change behavioural patterns: so we’re trying to determine change within individuals again once again but also between individuals and then of course like I mentioned we want to optimize development so we try to encourage development that has positive outcomes so for example we take what we know about element to create awareness campaigns about the impact of prenatal drinking on development so that we can discourage prenatal drinking
what is normative development vs ideographic development?
normative development: when we describe passive development and look at typical patterns
ideographic development: we look at individual variations
why study development?
- child rearing: to inform child rearing practices. we want to help parents we want to help teachers meet the challenges of rearing children so researchers have come up with different ways that parents and caregivers can help their children manage things like their anger and emotions
- inform social policy: we also want to inform social policies that affect infants and children whether or not for example a child is able to testify in legal proceedings comes out of developmental psychology we now know that alcohol consumption during pregnancy is problematic for development right so we inform social policy and social programs to dissuade individuals from drinking alcohol during pregnancy
- understand human nature: and then finally we want to understand human nature so we want some insight into what is innate or kind of naturally occuring what we’re born with and what is learned from experience so we know that children who come from backgrounds of infancy where they have severe deprivation in their lives thus led to the conclusion that human nature is sufficiently flexible to overcome some extreme adversity in early life so depending on the timing of when it occurs and when change occurs
the nature of development
1) continual, lifelong process
2) holistic
3) plasticity; capacity for change
4) historical/cultural context
the nature of development
nature of development is a _________ process
- continual, lifelong process: When we think about the nature of development we know that it’s a continual, lifelong process early development is really important for later adolescence and adulthood we see continuous change throughout the lifespan
the nature of development
in the past we often looked at development being either what?
three domains
When we think about just development we know that it’s HOLISTIC in the past we often looked as development being either physical cognitive or psychosocial and we’d break it up into those kind of three domains
*physical development meaning the bodies physical makeup and that includes things like the brain, nervous system, muscles and senses and the need for food drink and sleep as being determinants of behavior
*cognitive development we’re referring here to the growth and change and things like processes like learning memory problem solving an intelligence those all influence persons behavior
*and then when we’re talking about psychosocial development we’re talking about things like personality development and social development so things like the ways that we have these injuring characteristics that differentiate one individual from the next anD from social development were talking to the social aspect of it we’re talking about interactions with others and and how our social relationships grow and change and how they remain stable to across the lifespan
so historically we broke the add broke development up into these three major domains and we will look at these three domains independently but we know that it’s more holistic in nature ‘s too so we’ll look at it as integrated as well
the nature of development
plasticity
another important factor for development that will consider throughout the course is the idea of plasticity.
plasticity is our capacity to change in response to our environment not change can be either positive or negative our brains learn, they change they remember all of which gives us the ability to adapt dynamically to changing behavioral needs and then
the nature of development
historical/cultural context
another important observation that development mentalists have made about is that each culture and subculture and social class they all have different values customs beliefs and skills that influence development so although there might be some universal trends development as we will see IS influenced by culture and societal change
early perspectives on childhood (17th / 18th century)
they had different perspectives on
1) child’s inherent nature
2) child’s role in development
Thomas Hobbes
child’s inherent nature: original sin
child’s role in development: passive
so Thomas Hobbes has proposed the idea of original sin.
*this is the idea that children are inherently negative creatures and they need to learn how to change those selfish tendencies that they’re born with to more socially acceptable ways
*in this sense Hobbs proposed that children were passive participants in their development so they are shaped by their parents and how their parents their parents child rearing practices how they parent them
Jean Jacques Rousseau
child’s inherent nature: innate purity
child’s role in development: active
now John Jacques Rousseau he proposed something a little bit different he claimed that children have that innate capacity to understand right from wrong but this knowledge can be misdirected because of the demands that society makes this is referred to as innate purity
- from this perspective children are given the freedom to pursue their positive behavioral trends an are active in their own development so they’re active explorers of their worlds
John Locke
child’s inherent nature: tabula rasa
child’s role in development: passive
then finally someone else I would like you to be familiar with is John Locke. John Locke proposed that infants were born as a blank slate or tabula rasa and you should be familiar with this term by the time that we end the course that this idea that they don’t have any innate tendencies. They are just born as a blank slate.
*They are not born as either good or bad. They are just passive participants in their own development. They are product of their experiences
historical methods
baby biographies
detailed account of an infant’s growth and development
