PSY 244 Lecture 1: Developmental Psych Class Notes Lecture One
Document Summary
Understanding human nature: each child is a tiny laboratory of cause and effect, developmental research provides important insights into some of the most intriguing questions regarding human nature. How do nature and nurture together shape development: nurture-environment, nature/genome-individual"s complete set of hereditary information. All human characteristics are created through interaction of genes and environment. Child as agent: three of the most important contributions during children"s rst years as thier: Play: older children and adolescents choose many environments, friends, and activities for themselves. In what ways is development continuous and in what ways is it discontinuous: continuous development: Changes with age occur gradually, in small increments. Development occurs skill by skill and task by task: discontinuous development: Changes with age include occasional large shifts. Piaget, freud, erikson, and kohlberg were stage theorists. How does change occur: describing development is one thing , discovering how it occurs and why is another, scienti c study of development = discovering cause and effect.
