PSY 2105 Lecture 1: Background and Theories I

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 2105
• Professor: Kim Yurkowski

Document Summary

The study of how behaviour and abilities change across the lifespan. 2 goals: describe changes in between behaviours, explain changes in behaviours. Theorists adopt a certain perspective or area of development. Will address some questions while ignoring others: voluntary omissions, negligent oversights. Infants are born equal and their minds are like a tabula rasa ( blank slate) Infants are born with knowledge and ideas that manifest in a definite pattern over development: nativism. Infants are born into a particular cultural community with a shared language and traditions which shape the minds of the members: cultural relativism. Human development follows the same stages of different prehuman species. G. stanley hall (1846-1924: founder of the field of developmental psych, conducted and published the first studies of children, found and first president of the apa. James mark baldwin (1861-1934: first academic psychologist in canada, first psychologist in canada, development evolves through stages.