Psychology 110-506, CRN 32120 Term 202330 2nd Half 8-Week – SS 2023

Instructor: Dr. Heidi Lind

Hailey Richman: July 9, 2023
Lifespan Human Development class

SIGNATURE ASSIGNMENT

My signature assignment focuses on Life Span of Human Development, which means learning
about who we used to be and who we will be. This could be used to help your children grow up
to be a great citizen, allow yourself to understand how you got to be where you are, and what
your future may look like. They researched this topic by studying/observing humans from when
the moment of conception until death (Santrock, 2022, p. 3). They may use surveys, interviews,
standardized tests, case studies, physiological measures, and several other research to get
qualitative data. (Santrock, 2022, p. 28-35). This can be described in 3 different developmental
ways; cognitive, physical, and socioemotional. These can be different at every stage from birth to
death. With infants, gognitive development can include Piaget’s theory, how they learn,
remember, and think things through (Lamb, Bornstein, & Teti, 2002). While physical
development may include, body change and growth, further development of the brain, and
increased motor skills in early childhood. Socioemotional development can be different for all
stages in your life but in adolescents, it means searching for an identity when you’re in the tail
end of your childhood going into adulthood. (Santrock, 2022, p. 293).

The purpose of studying human cognitive, physical, and socioemotional development over their
lifespan from birth to death is so we can understand the growth through each stage of life. For
example, we can use the information that adolescents are going through socioemotional changes,
that include searching for their identity because they don’t know where they belong when they’re
in between childhood and adulthood. This can cause adolescents to have depression so our
knowledge on this subject will allow us to give them the resources that they need to help them
through that (Santrock, 2022, p. 293). There are factors that can influence the cognitive, physical,
and socioemotional development of humans as well. One factor that has shown to be a great
disturbance can be socio-economic status. Adolescents that experience poverty are at risk for
emotional issues, unable to keep a job, and experience lower achievement, emotional problems
(Magnuson & Duncan, 2019), lower working memory (Judd & others, 2020), and inadequate
medical care (Liu & Lachman, 2019). We can use this information to keep children out of homes
that may experience poverty or give adolescents the resources to get help early on to prevent
those unwanted habits and care, considering that adolescents that have a higher-SES background,
don’t have these types of issues (Peralta & others, 2019).
Psychology 110-506, CRN 32120 Term 202330 2nd Half 8-Week – SS 2023
Instructor: Dr. Heidi Lind
Hailey Richman: July 9, 2023
Lifespan Human Development class

Executive function being displayed compared to their socioeconomic background; Yujun

Liu , Margie E Lachman,
2019. Graph. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30888020/#&gid=article-figures&pid=figure-1-
uid-0
We can use human development research findings to solve real-life applications like high car
insurance prices for 16-24 year old’s. This is a controversial topic because every individual is
different, but considering that their brain isn’t fully developed, they become a higher risk
because of the choices they make. Because adolescents haven't experienced much yet and their
brain isn't fully developed, they have a sense of invulnerability and invisibility. This is stated in
the textbook, "Adolescents also often show a sense of invincibility or invulnerability. For
example, during a conversation with another girl, 14-year old Margaret says "Are you kidding? I
won't get pregnant." This sense of invincibility may lead adolescents to believe that they are
invulnerable to dangers and catastrophes (such as deadly car wrecks) that happen to other
people." (Alberts, Elking, & Ginsberg, 2007). With that being said, adolescents may engage in
dangerous activities because they don't feel like it is any real danger to them because they haven't
personally experienced it yet. The physical development has little to do with this decision of car
insurance, considering that it inquires the puberty change, that may allow hormonal and
emotional changes to each individual but hormones alone do not make up a big part of
adolescent development and decisions (Susman & Dorn, 2013). While socioemotional
development in adolescents regards the struggle of finding their own identity, which would not
affect their ability to drive like their cognitive development does. (Santrock, 2022, p. 293).
People may use the argument that 'smarter' adolescent individuals won't do act careless, but it
overall is about their cognitive development that will allow them to do careless acts, rather than
their physical and socioemotional development.
Psychology 110-506, CRN 32120 Term 202330 2nd Half 8-Week – SS 2023
Instructor: Dr. Heidi Lind
Hailey Richman: July 9, 2023
Lifespan Human Development class

The growing brain differences in development throughout the years; Eva Ritvo.
2013. Photo. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/vitality/201306/parenting-and-the-
amazing-teen-brain-part-1
In conclusion, I was able to use the information about cognitive development that adolescents
gain, and don’t gain, when thinking about real-life applications, regarding the car insurance
policy. Once I was able to learn that adolescent’s brains aren’t completely formed so car
insurance companies must take precautions to prevent other people from getting hurt, it helped
me understand the topic better and overall think about adolescents in other situations as well. It’s
important to me for people to learn about life-span development because I want to be able to give
everyone the resources that they need to help better themselves. If they understand why they’re
doing things and how they came to be, they would be able to be who they want to be. Society is
using this knowledge in that way by giving children and adolescents guidance when they are in a
fragile socioemotional state. This added a lot to my understanding of human development
because I wasn’t aware of how important environmental factors were to young children,
specifically, parenting methods. I will keep that information in mind when raising my kids
sometime in the future.

REFLECTIVE ASSIGNMENT

My summative reflection is how important it is to learn this information about lifespan

development. This made me explicitly think about how I will be raising my children in the
future, considering how much environmental factors affect children. I could also use the
information regarding socioemotional development in late childhood and adolescents. I can do
this by giving children resources to get mental health when needed because it can be easy for
them to feel alone when they don’t know what their next step is. I also want to take my parenting
style into account when I think about my child’s goals and mental health because it can be a
lasting effect on children in any decision they make.
Psychology 110-506, CRN 32120 Term 202330 2nd Half 8-Week – SS 2023
Instructor: Dr. Heidi Lind
Hailey Richman: July 9, 2023
Lifespan Human Development class

My process reflection is getting over stereotypes. It was interesting to see what type of things I
have heard about certain parenting types and how it will make their child ‘act better’ if they
choose a certain way to parent their child. When I compared what I heard versus research, I was
shocked to see that most of it was wrong. For example, in the textbook, it speaks about how
authoritarian parents are more strict and create a child that externalizes their problems and have
weak communication skills when the parents around me, that use authoritarian parenting, think
that their child is well-behaved because they’re more strict with them. I troubleshooted them by
keeping an open mind, which can be hard for me sometimes. When I start to have an idea on
something, it’s hard for me to think another way so I had to be open to the facts that were right in
front of me, and it helped me learn a lot.

My evaluative reflection is that it may be biased, even though the facts may express themselves.
I recently had a family member pass away that was 19 years old because he was driving
recklessly. He thought he was invincible and that nothing like that could possibly happen to him,
and repeatedly lived that way. I think my weakness in that argument is that I have a personal
experience with this subject, I will always believe that car insurance companies should take that
extra precaution. I do think that my strength is that the research lines up with my beliefs, so it
allows me to express that argument effectively, and that is why I believe that it has been my best
piece of work for this semester.

My reflection on learning is how complex the mind of an adolescent is. It can range on each
individual, but they have an overall feeling of what the adolescent is going through, and I think
that is what made me so interested to learn about it. I was interested to learn that the adolescent
brain isn’t completely developed but we hold them with such big responsibilities. We allow them
to drive at 16 years old and vote at 18 years old, but they haven’t even finished growing
completely yet, which makes me want to learn more about the cognitive development of
adolescents.

My interpretive reflection is how much I enjoyed creating this assignment. With this assignment
taking me around 4 hours of completion, I was able to do it all in one sitting because I was so
interested to learn about the changes of humans as we grow. It made me take a step back and
think about the children that are living in poverty, not getting the opportunities that I am getting
and the children that are living in abusive homes that are scared to live how they want to live
because it’s all they know. It made me appreciate what I have and remember to seek out to
people who may be struggling and not getting the help they need, because some of this
information isn’t basic knowledge that people can use on an everyday basis.

REFERENCES

Alberts, E., Elkind, D., & Ginsberg, S. (2007). The personal fable and risk taking in early
adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36, 71–76.
Psychology 110-506, CRN 32120 Term 202330 2nd Half 8-Week – SS 2023
Instructor: Dr. Heidi Lind
Hailey Richman: July 9, 2023
Lifespan Human Development class

Judd, N., & others (2020). Cognitive and brain development is independently influenced by
socioeconomic status and polygenic scores for educational attainment. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences U.S.A., 117(22), 12411–12418.

Lamb, M.E., Bornstein, M.H., & Teti, D.M. (2002). Development in infancy (4th ed.). Erlbaum.

Liu, Y., & Lachman, M.E. (2019). Socioeconomic status and parenting style in childhood: Long-
term effects on cognitive function in middle and later adulthood. Journals of Gerontology B:
Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 74, e13–e24.

Magnuson, K.A., & Duncan, G.J. (2019). Parents in poverty. In M.H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook
of parenting (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Peralta, L.R., & others (2019). Influence of school-level socioeconomic status on children’s

physical activity, fitness, and fundamental movement skills. Journal of School Health, 89, 460–
467.

Santrock, J.W. (2022). Essentials of Life-Span Development (7th ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.

Susman, E.J., & Dorn, L.D. (2013). Puberty: Its role in development. In I.B. Weiner & others
(Eds.), Handbook of psychology (3rd ed., Vol. 6). New York: Wiley.