The Life-Span Perspective & The Nature of Development

Question 1

What are developmentalists? What are they interested in?

Answer 1

An expert in or advocate of developmental psychology.

Interested in the diversity of development, how we can track and expect change over time and how humans are alike and unique.

Question 2

How did development expert Paul Baltes (1939–2006) define the ‘Life-span Perspective’?

Answer 2

The perspective that development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual; that it involves growth, maintenance, and regulation; and that it is constructed through biological, sociocultural, and individual factors working together.

Question 3

What is development?

Answer 3

The pattern of movement or change that starts at conception and continues through the lifespan.

Question 4

How did development expert Paul Baltes (1939–2006) view development?

Answer 4

Lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual, and as a process that involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss (Baltes, 1987, 2003; Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006).

Question 5

How is development Multidirectional?

Answer 5

Throughout life, some dimensions or components of a dimension expand and others shrink (Gazes & others, 2020).

During adolescence, as individuals establish romantic relationships, their relationships with friends might decrease.

During late adulthood, older adults might become wiser by being able to call on experience to guide their intellectual decision making (Kunzmann, 2019), but they perform more poorly on tasks that require speed in processing information (Salthouse, 2020).

Question 6

How is development plastic?

Answer 6

Plasticity means the capacity for change.

Question 7

What are normative age-graded influences?

Answer 7

Biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group.

e.g. puberty, menopause, stating school, retiring

Question 8

What are normative history-graded influences?

Answer 8

Biological and environmental influences that are associated with history. These influences are common to people of a particular generation.

e.g. political upheavals, great depression, war, integration of computers

Question 9

What is culture?

Answer 9

The behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group that are passed on from generation to generation.

Question 10

What are cross-cultural studies?

Answer 10

Comparisons of one culture with one or more other cultures. These provide information about the degree to which children’s development is similar, or universal, across cultures, and the degree to which it is culture-specific.

Question 11

Where does the word ethnic come from?

Answer 11

The word ethnic comes from the Greek word for “nation”

Question 12

What is ethnicity?

Answer 12

A range of characteristics rooted in cultural heritage, including nationality, race, religion, and language.

Question 13

What is a socioeconomic status (SES) ?

Answer 13

Refers to the conceptual grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.

Socioeconomic status implies certain inequalities (Cambron & others, 2020; Mortimer, 2020). Differences in the ability to control resources and to participate in society’s rewards produce unequal opportunities (Roos, Wall-Wieler, & Lee, 2020).

Question 14

What is Social Policy?

Answer 14

A national government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens.

Question 15

Poor/middle-income children are more likely to experience what 6 stressors?

Answer 15

Family turmoil, separation from a parent, violence, crowding, excessive noise, and poor housing (Evans & English, 2002)

Question 16

What factors may influence resilience?

Answer 16

Good intellectual functions, a close relationship to a parent figure, bonds to caring adults outside of the family.

(Masten, 2006, 2014, 2019; Masten, Motti-Stefanidi, & Rahl-Brigman, 2020)

Question 17

What is resilience?

Answer 17

The ability to adapt effectively in the face of threats to development.

(Berk, 2018, p.10).

Question 18

What is cognition?

Answer 18

A term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension.

It includes learning, problem solving, memory, creativity and language.

Question 19

What is a socioemotional processes?

Answer 19

Processes involved in emotional and social development, personality development, identity and sense of self and development in relationships.

e.g. An infant’s smile in response to a parent’s touch, an adolescent’s joy at the senior prom

Question 20

What are the 3 processes that define the nature of development?

Answer 20

Biological, cognitive and socioemotional

Question 21

What is the eight-period sequence of developmental periods?

Answer 21

1. Prenatal
2. Infancy (18 - 24m)
3. Early childhood (24m - 5-6y)
4. Middle-late childhood (6 - 11y)
5. Adolescence (10-12 - 18-22y)
6. Early adulthood (20s - 30s)
7. Middle adulthood (40s - 60s)
8. Late adulthood (60s - death)

Note: Emerging adulthood (18-25y) is being explored

Question 22

What are the four types of age?

Answer 22

Chronological, biological, psychological and social

Question 23

What are the three developmental patterns of aging?

Answer 23

1. Normal - Peaks in middle age and shows a modest decline till death
2. Pathological - Shows greater cognitive and biological decline in adult years (e.g. Alzheimers)
3. Successful - Positive physical, cognitive and socioemotional development is maintained into old age

Question 24

What is the ‘stability and change’ developmental issue?

Answer 24

The debate about the degree to which early traits and characteristics persist through life or change.

e.g. Will the shy child grow into a wallflower or a sociable individual?

Question 25

What is the ‘continuity and discontinuity’ developmental issue?

Answer 25

The debate about the extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).

Continuity: Gradual growth
Discontinuity: Sequential stages

Question 26

What is a naturalistic observational study?

Answer 26

Observation that occurs in a real-world setting without any attempt to manipulate the situation.

Question 27

What is a cross-sectional research approach?

Answer 27

A research strategy in which individuals of different ages are compared at one time.

Question 28

What is a longitudinal approach?

Answer 28

A research strategy in which the same individuals are studied over a period of time, usually several years or more.

Question 29

What is a cohort? What is a cohort effect?

Answer 29

A cohort is a group of people who are born at a similar point in history and share similar experiences as a result, e.g. war.

Cohort effects are due to a subject’s time of birth or generation but not age.

Question 30

What is an epigenetic view?

Answer 30

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