UNDERSTANDING THE PERSON; DEVELOPMENT AND LIFE TRANSITIONS Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
Study of how people grow and change across entire lifespan
Interacting areas: Behaviour, physical characteristics, emotions, thoughts
Major focus until recently was childhood, but now looking towards older ages; increasingly important to look into development of elderly
3 domains of development
- Physical development: changes in body size, proportions, appearance, body systems functioning, motor skills, physical health
- Cognitive development: Changes in intellectual abilities (E.g. problem solving, memory, academic knowledge, language, attention)
- Emotional and social development: Changes in emotional communication, self understanding, knowledge about other people, interpersonal skills, friendships, behaviour, moral reasoning
- In terms of development, need to look across all of the domains in order to make good assessment don’t just look at one. E.g. Just because someone is old doesn’t mean their cognitive health is poor
Developmental Milestones:
Set of functional skills or age specific tasks that most children can do at a certain age range.
Actual age of normally developing child reaching milestone can vary; each child is unique
3 months
- Starts to develop social smile
- Raise head when lying on stomach
7 months
- Enjoy social play
- Respond to own name
1 year
- Bangs two objects together
- Responds to simple verbal requests
2 years
- Walks alone
- Begins make believe play
Characteristics of development:
- Change (plasticity) transitions, adaptations
- “Carry forward” development from one stage to another. E.g. learn to stand before learn to walk
- Growth physical development. Can be measured. Movement towards a fixed point of maturity. Once reach adulthood; not much variation within that.
- Development is characterised by maturity; crosses 3 domains (physical, emotional, intellectual)
- Development is multidimensional; have effect on each other. E.g. when baby can crawl increases ability to learn as can engage with bigger environment and move towards elements of environment that interests them
- Development is multidirectional some may grow or change over time. E.g. babies can suck their toes but most adults can’t now, but our motor skills are far more developed now
Controversies of developmental theories;
Is development a process of gradually adding more capability or a series of life stages where new understandings, skills and capacities emerge at specific times?
Does personality and personal characteristics change over time?
Nature/nurture debate are genetic or environmental factors more important
Nature: Traits, capacities, limitations that each person inherits from parents. E.g. Eye colour, diseases
Nurture: All environmental influences after contraception. E.g. Mothers health during pregnancy, culture, family and community
The general factors that affect development:
- Premature
- Intellectual impairment
- Genetics
- Gender
- Personality of child
- Lulls and spurts
- Environment
- Psychosocial factors
Psychology
- Scientific investigation of mental processes (thinking, remembering and feeling) and behaviour
- Understanding a person requires attention to the individual’s biology, psychological experience and cultural context
- Positive psychology focuses on understanding and harnessing positive emotions and actively stimulating conditions that produce valued, subjective experiences that helps people flourish
Major schools of thought in psychology
Psychodynamic perspective
Behaviourist perspective
Cognitive perspective
Humanistic perspective
Psychodynamic Perspective
- Behaviour largely the result of unconscious processes, motivation and early experiences
- Based on the theories of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
- Interested in the development of the ‘psyche’ as an explanation of the force that drives personality, thought and behaviour
- Rests on the assumption that all behaviour and mental processes reflect constant and often unconscious struggles within the person (i.e. the internal environment is an explanation for behaviour)
- Offers one explanation for the cause of mental disorders
Behaviourist Perspective
- Behaviour is learned and selected by the environmental consequences
- Behaviorists are more interested in the impact of the external environment on the person and on direct observation of human behaviour
- Focuses on stimuli and the response of the organism (classical and operant conditioning)
- Factors that shape and reinforce our actions, such as patterns of rewards and punsihments
- Behaviourist theory can be utilised to change human behavior (i.e. increasing wanted behaviours and decreasing unwanted behaviours)
Cognitive Perspective
- Behaviour and experience are shaped by the need to self-actualise, to fulfil one’s inner potential
- Views humans as rational problem solvers whose actions are governed by conscious thought, planning and reason
- Theorists investigate how humans perceive and mentally process info. Thinking is info processing. Primary area of study is memory and decision making
- Many cognitive psychologists use the computer as a metaphor for mental processing
- Focus is on the internal world of thinking, learning and awareness, the formation of expected behaviors and how people make decisions about their behaviour
Humanistic perspective
- Behaviour is the product of information processing, storage, transformation and retrieval of data
- Theorists reject the notion that we are controlled by unconscious conflicts or external rewards and punishment
- See people as motivated by a tendency towards growth and the development of potential. Free will and choice
- Focuses on positive features such as free will, self esteem and the development of self actualisation
- Used extensively in counselling therapies
Seen by some as a philosophy rather than a psychological theory
Nursing assessment
- A broad approach is needed
- Biomedical→ focus on the physical,
- Psychological→ focus on human behaviour
- Sociological→ Focus on social environment
Nursing uses a holistic approach that incorporates all 3 aspects; the biopsychosocial model
Psychology informs the 3 domains of development
- Physical development→ changes in body size, proportions, appearance, functioning body systems, perceptual and motor capacities and physical health
- Cognitive development→ Changes in intellectual abilities, including attention, memory, academic and everyday knowledge, problem solving, imagination, creativity and language
- Emotional and social development→ Changes in emotional communication, self understanding, knowledge about other people, interpersonal skills, friendships, intimate relationships and moral reasoning and behaviour
