Development Psychology - Chapter 1 (Santrock)

Chapter 2
THEORIES AND
RESEARCH ON LIFESPAN
DEVELOPMENT
Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

Lecturer, St. Scholastica’s College
OBJECTIVES
Explain the main theories Discuss how research on

of development lifespan development is
conducted.
2 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

THEORIES OF
DEVELOPMENT

THE NATURE OF DEVELOPMENTAL THEORIES
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
> An approach that can be used to obtain
accurate information.
> It includes the following steps:
- conceptualize the problem
- collect data
- draw conclusions
- revise research conclusions and theory
THEORY
> A set of ideas proposed to described and
explain certain phenomena
- Provides organization of facts and
observations
- Guides collection of new facts and
observations

THEORY
> A good developmental theory should be
- Internally consistent
- Falsifiable: hypotheses which can be
tested
- Supported by data

HYPOTHESES
> specific assumptions and predictions that
can be tested to determine their accuracy

ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT HUMAN NATURE
Thomas Hobbes Jean-Jacques Locke (1632-1704)
(1588-1697) Rousseau (1712- - Tabula Rasa or
Portrayed children 1778) blank slate
as inherently selfish Argued that children
- Children will be
and bad and were innately good,
that they were born good/bad based on
believed that it was experiences
with an intuitive
society’s
understanding of right
responsibility to and wrong, and that
teach them to they would develop in
behave in civilized positive directions as
ways. long as society did not
interfere with their
natural tendencies
OTHER ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT HUMAN NATURE
NATURE/NURTURE CONTINUITY/DISCONTINUITY
- Heredity or Environment - Stages or gradual change
- Quantitative changes: degree
of trait or behavior
ACTIVE OR PASSIVE - Qualitative changes:
DEVELOPMENT transformational changes
- Humans shape their lives
- Humans are products of forces
beyond their control

Psychoanalytic
Theories

Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Ø behavior and problems are the result of
experiences early in life (mainly first 5
years)
Ø adult personality – resolution of conflicts
between sources of pleasure at each stage
and the demands of reality

Ø Instincts, Goals, and Motives
Ø 2 kinds of biological instincts:
Ø Eros (life instinct) – helps the child
to survive
Ø Thanatos (death instinct) – a set of
destructive forces present in all
human beings

Ø Id, Ego, and Superego formed from psychic
energy (libido)
• Id represents human’s instinctual
nature
• Ego is rational and objective
• Superego: Internalized moral standards
Ø Regular conflicts between them

Ø Child moves through five stages
• Conflict between Id and Superego
§ Conflict creates anxiety
ü Ego defends w/ defense mechanisms
Ø Early experiences impact personality
• Oral: Optimistic & gullible v. hostile
• Anal: Fastidious & orderly v. messy
• Phallic: Flirty & promiscuous v. chaste

Ø Phallic is the most important stage at ages 3 to
6
• Oedipus and Electra Complex
• Incestuous desire for parent of opposite sex
• Anxiety and fear result
Ø Resolution is identification with same sex
parent

Strengths and Weaknesses of Freud’s Theory
> Strengths
- Awareness of unconscious motivation
- Emphasized importance of early experience,
emotions
- Neo-Freudians have been influential
> Weaknesses
- Ambiguous, inconsistent, not testable (falsifiable)
- Not supported by research

Erik Erikson
Ø Most influential Neo-Freudian, especially for
development
Ø Some differences with Freud
- Less emphasis on sexual urges
- More emphasis on rational ego
- More positive and adaptive view of
human nature
- Believed development continues through
life
- Emphasized psychosocial conflicts
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages
Ø primary motivation for human behavior is
social and reflects a desire to affiliate with
other people
Ø developmental change occurs throughout
the lifespan

> Trust vs Mistrust: responsive caregiver key
- Learn to trust caregiver to meet ends
> Autonomy vs Shame & Doubt
- Learn to assert will and do for themselves
> Initiative vs. Guilt: Preschool
- Devising/carrying out plans without hurting
others
> Industry vs. Inferiority: School-Age children
- Master social academic skills on par with others
> Identity vs. Role Confusion: Adolescence

- Establish social and vocational identities
> Intimacy vs. Isolation: Young Adult
- Establish intimate relations with others
> Generativity vs. Stagnation: Middle Age
- Feel productive and helping next generation
> Integrity vs. Despair: Older Adult
- View their life as meaningful to face death w/o
regret
Strengths and Weaknesses of Erikson
> Strengths
- Emphasis on rational and adaptive nature
- Interaction of biological and social influences
- Focus on identity crisis of adolescence still
relevant
> Weaknesses
- Sometimes vague and difficult to test
- Does not explain how development comes about

Cognitive
Theories

Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
> Children go through four stages of cognitive

development
> Processes underlie this cognitive construction
of the world
- organization
- adaptation

Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
> Four stages of cognitive development

- Sensorimotor (age 0-2)
- Preoperational (age 2-7)
- Concrete operations (age 7-11)
- Formal operations (age 12+)

Cognitive-Developmental Theory: Piaget
> Sensorimotor (age 0-2)
- Use senses/motor behavior to understand
world
- Begin w/ reflexes but learn symbolic use of
language & can plan solutions mentally
> Preoperational (age 2-7)
- Language development, pretend play, solve
problems mentally
- Not yet logical, are egocentric, fooled by
perception
Cognitive-Developmental Theory: Piaget
> Concrete operations (age 7-11)
- Logical operations, mentally classify/act on
concrete symbolized objects
- Solves practical problems via trial and error
> Formal operations (age 12+)
- Think abstractly, hypothetical, trace long-term
effects of behavior
- Form hypotheses and test them empirically

Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognitive theory
> Emphasizes how culture and social

interaction guide cognitive development
> Cognitive development involves learning to
use the inventions of society, such as
language, mathematical systems, and
memory strategies

Information-processing Theory
> Emphasizes that individuals:

- Manipulate information
- Monitor information
- Strategize about information
> Individuals develop a gradually increasing
capacity for processing information, which
allows them to acquire increasingly
complex knowledge and skills

Information-processing Theory
> microgentic method seeks to discover not

just what children know but the cognitive
processes involved in how they acquired
the knowledge

Cognitive-Developmental Theory
> Strengths
- Well accepted by developmentalists
- Well researched, mostly supported
- Influenced education and parenting
> Weaknesses
- Ignores motivation and emotion
- Stages not universal

Behavioral and
Social Theories

Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
> Classical Conditioning: Association Learning

- UCS: Built-in, unlearned stimulus
- UCR: Automatic, unlearned response
- CS: Stimulus which causes learned response
- CR: Learned response

Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
> consequences of a behavior produce changes in

the probability of the behavior’s occurrence
> rewards and punishments shape development

Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
> holds that behavior, environment, and

cognition are the key factors in development
> observational learning (also called imitation or
modeling)
- people cognitively represent the behavior of
others and then sometimes adopt this behavior
themselves

BANDURA’S SOCIAL COGNITIVE MODEL

Behavioral and Social Theories
> Strengths
- Precise and testable theory
- Carefully controlled experiments
- Practical applications across lifespan
> Weaknesses
- Inadequate account of lifespan changes
- Ignore genetic and maturation processes

Ethological
Theory

Ethological Theory
> Konrad Lorenz’s research with Greylag Geese

- Helped bring ethology to prominence
- imprinting – the rapid, innate learning that
involves attachment to the first moving object
seen

Ethological Theory
> John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory

- Attachment to a caregiver over the first year of
life has important consequences throughout
the life span

Ethological Theory
> Strengths
- Focus on the biological and evolutionary basis
of development
- Use of careful observations in naturalistic
settings

Ecological
Theory

Bronfenbrenner’s Systems Approach
> Microsystem: Immediate environment

> Mesosystem: Linkages between microsystems
> Exosystem: Indirectly experienced linkages
> Macrosystem: Culture of systems
> Chronosystem: Patterning of environmental
events and transitions over the life course;
sociohistorical conditions

Bronfenbrenner’s Systems Approach
> Strengths
- Systematic examination of macro and micro
dimensions of environmental systems
- Attention to connections between environmental
systems
- Emphasis on a range of social contexts beyond the
family
> Weaknesses
- Giving inadequate attention to biological factors
- Too little emphasis on cognitive factors

Eclectic
Theoretical
Orientation
Comparison of
Theories and
Issues in Life-Span
Development
RESEARCH ON
LIFESPAN
DEVELOPMENT

METHODS FOR COLLECTING DATA
OBSERVATION
> for observations to be effective, they
must be systematic
> We must know whom we are observing,
when and where we will observe, how the
observations will be made, and how they
will be recorded
55
OBSERVATION
> Laboratory – a controlled setting where
many of the complex factors of the “real
world” are absent
56
OBSERVATION
> Naturalistic observation - observing
behavior in real world settings, making no
effort to manipulate or control the
situation
57
SURVEY AND INTERVIEW

> quickest way to get information
> a standard set of questions is used to
obtain peoples’ self-reported attitudes or
beliefs about a particular topic
58
STANDARDIZED TEST
> a test uniform procedures for
administration and scoring.
> Many standardized tests allow a person’s
performance to be compared with the
performance of other individuals
59
CASE STUDY
> an in-depth look at a single individual
> can provide a dramatic, in-depth portrayal
of an individual’s life, but must be
cautious when generalizing from
information
60
PHYSIOLOGICAL MEASURES
> Hormone levels are increasingly used in
developmental research
example: cortisol, neuroimaging (fMRI), EEG
61
RESEARCH DESIGNS
DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH
> designed to observe and record

behavior
62
RESEARCH DESIGNS
CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH
> describe the strength of the relationship
between two or more events or
characteristics
- correlation coefficient – a number
based on statistical analysis that is
used to describe the degree of
association between two variables
- ranges from -1.00 to +1.00
63
RESEARCH DESIGNS
EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
> experiment – a carefully regulated
procedure in which one or more of the
factors believed to influence the behavior
studied are manipulated while all other
factors are held constant
- independent and dependent
variables
- experiment and control groups
64
PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
Example:
65
TIME SPAN OF RESEARCH
CROSS-SECTIONAL APPROACH
> a research strategy that simultaneously
compares individuals of different ages
example: three groups of children: 5-year-
olds, 8-year-olds, and 11-year-olds and
compared their attachment to parents
66
LONGITUDINAL APPROACH
> a research strategy in which the same
individuals are studied over a period,
usually several years of more
example: life satisfaction of the same adults
might be assessed periodically at the ages of
20, 35, 45, 65 and 90
67
COHORT EFFECTS
> cohort – a group of people who are born
at a similar point in history and share
similar experiences (e.g., Vietnam War,
Japanese Occupation)
> These shared experiences may produce a
range of differences among cohorts
68
COHORT EFFECTS
> characteristics determined by a person’s
time of birth, era, or generation but not to
actual age
69
GENERATIONS (THEIR HISTORICAL PERIODS, AND
CHARACTERISTICS
70
GENERATIONS (THEIR HISTORICAL PERIODS, AND
CHARACTERISTICS
71
CONDUCTING ETHICAL RESEARCH
> Psychological Association of the

Philippines (PAP) as lifted from American
Psychological Association’s (APA) ethics
guidelines address:
- Informed consent
- Confidentiality
- Debriefing
- Deception
72
INFORMED CONSENT
> All participants must know what their
participation will involve and what risks
might develop
73
CONFIDENTIALITY
> Researchers are responsible for keeping
all the data they gather on individuals
completely confidential and, when
possible, completely anonymous
74
DEBRIEFING
> After the study has been completed,
participants should be informed of its
purpose and the methods that were used
75
DECEPTION
> Researchers must ensure that the
deception will not harm the participants
and that the participants will be debriefed
as soon as possible after the study is
completed
76
MINIMIZING BIAS
GENDER BIAS
> a preconceived notion about the abilities
of women and men that prevented
individuals from pursuing their own
interests and achieving their potential
77
MINIMIZING BIAS
CULTURAL AND ETHIC BIAS
> there is a growing realization that
research on life-span development needs
to include more people from diverse
ethnic groups
> If minority individuals were included in
samples and their scores didn’t fit the
norm, they were viewed as confounds or
“noise” in data and discounted
78
MINIMIZING BIAS
CULTURAL AND ETHIC BIAS

> Researchers tended to overgeneralize
about ethnic groups
79
Activity:
ESSAY
Topic: Filipino Lifespan Development
2 pages excluding references
Due Date: September 25
80
COMMUNICATION PLATFORMS

Lecturer, School of Arts and Sciences
E-mail NeoLMS
schayag@ssc.edu.ph

Development Psychology - Chapter 1 (Santrock)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

You might also like

Development Psychology - Chapter 1 (Santrock)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Development Psychology - Chapter 1 (Santrock)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Chapter 2

Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

Explain the main theories Discuss how research on

2 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

5 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

6 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

7 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

9 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

10 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

11 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

12 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

13 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

14 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

15 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

17 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

19 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> Identity vs. Role Confusion: Adolescence

22 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

25 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> Children go through four stages of cognitive

26 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> Four stages of cognitive development

27 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

29 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> Emphasizes how culture and social

31 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> Emphasizes that individuals:

32 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> microgentic method seeks to discover not

33 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

34 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

35 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> Classical Conditioning: Association Learning

36 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> consequences of a behavior produce changes in

38 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> holds that behavior, environment, and

40 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

41 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

42 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

43 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> Konrad Lorenz’s research with Greylag Geese

44 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory

45 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

46 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

47 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

> Microsystem: Immediate environment

48 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

50 Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

SURVEY AND INTERVIEW

> designed to observe and record

> Psychological Association of the

CULTURAL AND ETHIC BIAS

Shaine C. Hayag, RPm

You might also like