Lecture 1
What is developmental psychology?
Narrow concept:
o Sequential, unidirectional, end state, irreversible, qualitative, biological growth and
universal.
Extended concept:
o Not based on stages, not always end states, qualitative and quantitative, can be
universal and interindividual different, affected by biology and culture, can be
intraindividual modifiable and constrained.
Definition: developmental psychology deals with behavioral changes within persons across
lifespan and with differences between and similarities among persons in nature of these
changes.
o Aim: describing intraindividual changes and interindividual differences and
explaining how they come about and find ways to modify them.
“What” in developmental psychology:
Cognitive, biological, social, and emotional changes.
Normative development and individual differences .
“When” in developmental psychology:
Age periods in normative development:
Period of Life Age Range
Prenatal period Conception to birth
Infancy First 2 years of life
Preschool period 2-5
Middle childhood 6 to about 10
Adolescence Approximately 10-18
Emerging adulthood 18-25 or even 29
Early adulthood 25-40
Middle adulthood 40-65
Late adulthood Young old: 60-80. Old old: 80-100
What develops when?
o Biological age is never responsible for and thus does not explain changes.
Changes can be correlated with age.
o Time scale of development:
Variability (short-term changes that are reversible) vs. change (more or less
enduring).
Variability can predict change.
Treat age in a continuous way or compare specific age groups.
Cohort = any group that shares having experienced the same cultural environment and
historical events.
Cohort effect = differences in developmentally relevant variables that arise from (non-age-
related) factors to which each birth cohort is exposed.
o Observed results caused by cohort characteristics.
Cross-sectional designs = studying groups of individuals of different ages at one point in time
– measure interindividual differences.
o Advantages: economic in time, cheap, similarities and differences between groups.
o Disadvantages: age effects confounded with cohort effects, no information on
individual trajectories, limited generalizability to other times of measurement.
, Longitudinal designs = studying one group of individuals over a longer time period – measure
intraindividual change.
o Advantages: true assessment of intraindividual change, assessment of stability and
change of characteristics.
o Disadvantages: age effects confounded with time-of-measurements effects, limited
generalizability to other cohorts, long duration and high costs.
Assessment methods:
o Self-report vs. report by proxy.
o Behavioral observation.
o Standardized test/test batteries.
o Experiments.
Research challenges:
o Focusing on age groups that may differ from younger adults in skills.
o Adjust methods to abilities of individual.
o Experimental infant research:
Habituation/dishabituation
Orienting response.
Habituation = slow, changes, or stopped response to stimuli.
Dishabituation = increasing in responding to new stimulus.
Sucking, head turn and paired visual preference.
“How in developmental psychology:
Principles of lifespan psychology – development is:
o Lifelong.
o Multidimensional and multidisciplinary.
o Multidirectional:
Different capacities show different patterns of change over time,
interindividual differences.
o Gains and losses.
o Plastic and constraints.
o Embedded in history:
Course of age-related development strongly shaped by the prevailing socio-
cultural conditions of a historical period (= cohort effects).
o Contextualized:
Biological and environmental influences.
Normative (age and history) and non-normative influences.
Three assumptions:
o Biological plasticity decreases with age.
o More culture to extend stages to life.
o Efficacy of culture decreases with age.
Lecture 2
Discussions in developmental psychology:
Nature vs. nurture.
Activity vs. passivity.
Continuity vs. discontinuity.
Universality vs. context-specificity.
Nature vs. nurture
Nature – the way you were born, Darwin.
, o Example: facial expression of emotions is present shortly after birth.
o Twin/adoption studies: behavioral genetics
o Heritability = amount of variation seen in a certain trait within a population that can
be attributed to genes.
Heritability coefficients do not remain stable, but change systematically over
the lifespan.
Nurture – the way you were raised, Watson.
o Behavior of children can be conditioned (e.g. Little Albert).
Nature-nurture interactions:
o Critical period = maturational period in which nervous system is especially sensitive
to certain environmental stimuli. If organism does not receive appropriate stimulus
at right time, it is impossible to develop certain associated functions later in life.
Imprinting.
o Sensitive period = maturational period in which specific experiences have maximal
positive or negative effects: periods of increased plasticity under influence of specific
condition factors.
o Gene-environment interaction = people with different genes are affected differently
by environmental influences.
o Gene-environment correlations, types change across lifespan – nature affects
nurture.
Passive genotype-environment fit = parents design partly life of children.
Evocative genotype-environment fit = own inborn characteristics evoke
certain responses from environment.
Active genotype-environment fit = individuals actively select a specific
environment based on their genetic tendencies.
o Epigenetics = environment-sensitive genes; gene expression can be changed by
environmental influences across lifespan – nurture affects nature.
What are important theories?
Psychosocial developmental theory (Erikson) = personality develops throughout lifespan and
is influenced by culture, society and history.
o Development of personality can be divided into eight stages and at each stage
individual must cope with conflict in either adaptive or maladaptive manner.
o Solution to conflict results in virtue.
Psychosocial Crisis Basic Virtue Age
Trust vs. mistrust Hope Infancy 0-1,5
Autonomy vs. shame Will Early childhood 1,5-3
Initiative vs. guilt Purpose Play age 3-5
Industry vs. inferiority Competency School age 5-12
Ego identity vs. role confusion Fidelity Adolescence 12-18
Intimacy vs. isolation Love Young adult 18-40
Generativity vs. stagnation Care Adulthood 40-65
Ego integrity vs. despair Wisdom Maturity 65+
Learning theories:
o Classical conditioning (Watson) = development is learning associations.
o Operant conditioning (Skinner) = development is individual’s learning experiences.
o Social-cognitive learning theory (Bandura) = role of cognition: anticipation of
consequences likely to follow behavior.
Humans learn through observational learning = modelling.
Ecological model (Bronfenbrenner) = development reflects influence of systems, five
environmental systems:
, o Microsystem – immediate environment, school.
o Mesosystem – interaction between two microsystems.
o Exosystem – indirect but prominent influences, neighbors.
o Macrosystem – cultural influences.
o Chronosystem – sociohistorical conditions and time since life events.
o Contributions: systematic examinations of micro and macro dimensions, attention to
connections between systems and emphasis on social contexts other than family.
o Critic: influence of biological and cognitive factors underestimated.
Theories specific to different periods of lifespan:
Childhood
Cognitive development (Piaget)
o Discontinuous development in four stages.
o Each phase qualitatively different.
o Child actively contributes to own knowledge formation.
Sensory motor Sensory and motor skills 0-2
Preoperational Language, mental representation and egocentrism 2-7
Concrete operational Logical reasoning, categorising, conservation of 7-
number and mass 12
Formal operational Scientific reasoning and hypothesis testing 12+
o Boosted research on cognitive development
o Criticism: restricted research method, underestimated children’s skills, language as
product and underestimated influence of social environment
Socio-cultural theory (Vygotsky)
o Children actively develop intellectually by interacting with their sociocultural
environment.
o Development is a shared process and people (more knowledgeable other) around us
enable our cognitive growth.
o Zone of proximal development = gap between child’s ability to solve a problem on its
own and potential development that he can make with help of someone else.
o Scaffolding = degree of support adapted to child’s level of ability and degree of
support is reduced gradually.
o Language use by parents stimulates cognitive development.
o Children learn via ‘inner speech’: words migrate inward.
Middle age
Developmental task theory (Havighurst)
o Developmental tasks of middle age:
Achieving adult civic and social responsibility.
Establishing and maintaining an economic standard of living.
Assisting teenage children to become responsible and happy adults.
Developing adult leisure-time activities.
Relating oneself to one’s spouse as a person.
Accepting and adjusting to the physiologic changes of middle age.
Adjusting to aging parents.
o Developmental tasks as social expectations.
Social clock model = shared societal expectation which tasks should be fulfilled in which age
and these expectations create a normative time schedule for life course.
o Persons compare themselves with others and normative time schedule.
o Violations of normative time schedule = social disapproval.
o Fit with normative time schedule = social support.
