Ontwikkelingspsychologie
Aantekeningen boek
Hoofdstuk 1
Human Development or Lifespan Development is the scientific study of the ways in which people
change, as well as remain the same, from conception to death. This is known more broadly as
developmental science.
Lifespan perspective:
1. Development is lifelong.
2. Development is multidirectional and multidimensional
3. Development includes both gains and losses.
4. Development is characterized by plasticity.
5. Development is embedded in historical and cultural contexts.
6. Development is multiply determined.
7. Development is multidisciplinary.
Contextualism as paradigm (Baltes);
- Normative age-graded influences: An age-grade is a specific age group.
- Normative history-graded influences: A cohort is a group of people who are born at roughly
the same period in a particular society.
- Non-normative influences
Domains of development: physical, cognitive and psychosocial.
Contextual perspectives: These highlight societal contexts that influence our development.
Socioeconomic status (SES) is a way to identify families and households based on their shared levels
of education, income and occupation. Having a sense of autonomy or control is a key factor in
experiencing job satisfaction, personal happiness, and ultimately health and well-being.
Poverty level is an income amount established by the federal government that is based on a set of
thresholds that vary by family size.
Culture is the totality of our shared language, knowledge, material objects, and behavior.
Ethnocentrism: the belief that our own culture is superior.
Cultural relativity: appreciation for cultural differences and the understanding that cultural practices
are best understood from the standpoint of that particular culture.
Lifespan refers to the maximum age any member of a species can reach under optimal conditions.
Life expectancy is the average number of years a person born in a particular time period can typically
expect to live.
Age:
- Chronological age: the number of years since your birth
- Biological age: how quickly the body is aging
, - Physiological age: our psychologically adaptive capacity compared to others of our
chronological age
- Social age: based on the social norms of our culture and the expectations our culture has for
people of our age group
Age periods of development:
- Prenatal: physical development. Teratogens: environmental factors that can lead to birth
defects
- Infancy and toddlerhood
- Early childhood
- Middle and late childhood
- Adolescence: This is marked by puberty: an overall growth spurt and sexual maturation
- Emerging adulthood
- Early adulthood
- Late adulthood
Meta-theories: assumptions researchers hold about the nature of humans and their development
Key assumptions:
- Assumptions about human nature: blank states/inherently good or inherently bad
- Assumptions about the causes of development: nature/nurture
- Assumptions about the role of the individual in his or her own development: passive/active
- Assumptions about stability vs. change: whether people are malleable and open/early traits
and characteristics have permanent effects
- Assumptions about continuity vs. discontinuity: incremental change or shifts. Stage theories
or discontinuous development assume that developmental change occurs in distinct stages
that are qualitatively different from each other, and that unfold in a set, universal sequence.
Continuous development: more slow and gradual process.
- Assumptions about universality vs. context specificity: universal pathway/specific
experiences and environmental contexts
Meta-theories:
- Maturational meta-theory: humans as seeds
- Mechanistic meta-theory: humans as machines
- Organismic meta-theory: humans as butterflies
- Contextualistic meta-theory: humans as participants in a tennis game, conversation or dance
Historical theories of development
- Performationist view: the belief that a tiny, fully formed human is implanted in the sperm or
egg at conception and then grows in size until birth
- Locke: tabula rasa, children are largely shaped by their social environments, especially their
education
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau: He believed children develop according a natural plan which unfolds
in different stages
- Arnold Gesell: He believed that the child’s development was activated by genes and he called
this process maturation
- Freud: He emphasized the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping our
personality and behavior
,Contemporary theories on Development:
- Erikson and Psychosocial Theory: psychosocial crisis: each period of life has a unique
challenge or crisis that the person who reaches it must face
- Learning theory/Behaviorism: is based on the premise that it is not possible to objectively
study the mind, and therefore psychologists should limit their attention to the study of
behavior itself. Skinner: reinforcements
- Social learning theory by Bandura: learning by watching others. Reciprocal determinism:
there is interplay between our personality and the way we interpret events and how they
influence us.
- Cognitive theory with Jean Piaget: focuses on how our mental processes or cognitions change
over time
- Sociocultural theory by Lev Vygotsky: emphasizes the importance of culture and interaction
in the development of cognitive abilities
- Information processing: studies how individuals perceive, analyze, manipulate, use, and
remember information
- Ecological systems theory by Urie Bronfenbrenner: provides a framework for understanding
and studying the many influences on human development. The individual is impacted by
several systems including: microsystem (includes the individual’s setting and those who have
direct, significant contact with the person, such as parents or siblings), mesosystem (includes
the larger organizational structures, such as school, the family, or religion), exosystem
(includes the larger contexts of community), macrosystem (includes the cultural elements),
chronosystem (the historical context in which these experiences occur)
Hoofdstuk 2
Developmental practices: All the decisions and actions we take in our professional and personal lives
that shape our own and others’ development.
Developmental science contributes to our understanding of best developmental practices. One
important lesson learned from implementation science is that best practices have to be culturally
attuned to the people and places where they are adopted.
The work of science has many strengths:
, 1. It is a public enterprise. It takes place as part of a scientific community that scrutinizes,
questions, and evaluates everyone’s work.
2. Science is informed by deep reservoirs of accumulated knowledge, but it is also inherently
open, challenged daily by new ideas and updated with new evidence. Scientists develop
expertise.
3. Science continually critiques and reinvents itself. This way of learning also leads to major shift
in scientific understanding called scientific revolution or paradigm shifts.
Shortcomings of science:
1. Researchers are often unaware of the perspectives of non-western psychologists, and
dismiss knowledge from non-western researchers.
2. Scientists often assume that science has a monopoly on ways of knowing.
3. Scientists often accept entrenched societal myths about marginalized groups.
4. Current theories and research methods have been critiqued from inside developmental
science based on their underlying assumptions about humans and their development.
Converging operations: good science needs a wide variety of differing methodologies, so that the
strengths of one can compensate for the limitations of others.
Deductive method: a scientist starts with a falsifiable hypothesis and then conducts a series of
observations to test whether the specifics on the ground are consistent with this hypothesis. Process:
1. Formulate a question. 2. Conduct a study, Who? What? Where? How and When? 3. Interpret the
results. 4. Publish
Inductive method: starts with a general question and then constructs a theory of the phenomenon
based on the researcher’s actual observations of many specific experiences on the ground. Process:
1. Find a question 2. Gather information, Who? Where? What? How? Reflect. 3. Make sense of the
information. 4. Report findings. 5. Publish
Community-based participatory action research: researchers and community partners build a
genuine trusting relationship, and this cooperative partnership is the basis on which all decisions
about the project are made. The process is inherently community-based, participatory, action,
research, ongoing collaboration.
Observations: Looking at people and their actions
- Naturalistic observations: takes place when researchers conduct observations in the regular
settings of everyday life. Pro: watch the phenomenon as it unfolds. Con: reactivity.
- Laboratory observations: take place in the lab
- Video or audio observations. Pro: researcher does not have to be present. Reduces reactivity.
Con: Resultant recordings are narrower in scope than what researchers could hear or see if
they were present
- Local expert observers. Pro: More representative of the target’s typical behavior. Con:
information could be distorted, because reporters can be biased or are not trained to
observe or categorize the behaviors they have witnessed.
- Participant observations, often over a long period of time. Pro: Observers can directly
observe variations and changes in actions and interactions. Rich, detailed information. Con:
Information is limited to the specific setting.
Self-reports: Listening to people and their thoughts. Pro: Ideal for learning about people’s inner
thoughts or opinions. Con: Social desirability.
