PSY2071 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1-2: Longitudinal Study, Fetus, Endometrium
5 Jun 2018
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PSY2071 – Week 1 – Readings
• lifespan development - the scientific study of human growth throughout
life - covering all the human lifespan
• developmentalists - researchers and practitioners whose professional
interest lies in the study of the human lifespan
• child development - the scientific study of development from birth
through adolescence
• gerontology - the scientific study of the ageing process and older adults
• adult development - the scientific study of the adult part of life
• normative transitions - predictable life changes that occur during
development
• non-normative transitions - unpredictable or atypical life changes that
occur during development
• lifespan development
•
o multidisciplinary
o explores the predictable milestone on our human journey
o focuses on individual differences
o explores the impact of life transitions and practices
o
▪ deals with normative or predictable transitions
▪ non-normative or atypical transitions
▪ enduring life practices - e.g. smoking
~ contexts of development
• defined as - fundamental markers, including cohort, socioeconomic status,
culture, and gender, that shape how we develop throughout the lifespan
• the impact of cohort
•
o cohort - birth group - the age group whom we travel through life
o baby boom cohort
o
▪ defined as people born from 1946 to 1964
▪ traditional family values
▪ huge size
▪ following WWII the average family size increased to almost
four children
o changing conceptions of childhood
o
▪ childhood and adolescence - relatively new concepts -
related to mandatory education
▪ emerging adulthood - the phase of life that begins after high
school, tapers off toward the late twenties and is devoted to
constructing an adult life
o changing conceptions of later life
o
▪ avergage life expectancy - a persons fifty-fifty chance at
birth of living to a given age
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▪ twentieth-century life expectancy revolution - the dramatic
increase in average life expectancy that occurred during the
first half of the twentieth century in the developed world
▪ maximum lifespan - the biological limits go human life -
about 105 years
▪ young-old - people in their sixties and seventies
▪ old-old - people aged 80 or older
o changing conceptions of adult life
o
▪ revolution in lifestyles
▪ The 96s Decade of Protest included the civil rights and
women’s movements, the sexual revolution, and the
counterculture movement that emphasized liberation in
every area of life
• impact of socioeconomic status
•
o a basic marker referring to status on the educational and income
rungs - term referring to our education and income.
o developed world - the most affluent countries in the world
o developing world - the more impoverished countries of the world
• impact of culture and ethnicity
•
o collectivist cultures - societies that prize social harmony,
obedience, and close family connectedness over individual
achievement.
o individualistic cultures - societies that prize independence,
competition and personal success
• impact of gender
~ theories
• theory - any perspective explaining why people act they way they do.
theories allow us to predict behaviour and also suggest how to intervene
to improve behaviour.
• nature - biological or genetic causes of development
• nurture - environmental causes of development
• behaviourism
•
o traditional behaviourism
o
▪ the original behavioural worldview that focused on
charting and modifying only objective visible behaviours
o operant conditioning
o
▪ according to the traditional behavioural perspective, the
law of learning that determine any voluntary response.
specifically we act the way the way we of because we are
reinforced for acting that way
o reinforcement - behavioural term for reward
o responses that we reinforce will be learned
o responses that are not reinforced are extinguished
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o variable reinforcement schedules
o cognitive behaviourism
o
▪ social learning theory
▪ albet bandura
▪ a behavioural worldview that emphasis that people learn
by watching others and that our thoughts about the
reinforcers determine our behaviour
▪ cognitive behaviourists focuses on charting and modifying
people’s thoughts
▪ modelling - learning by watching and imitating others
▪ self-efficacy - according to cognitive behaviourism - an
internal belief in our competence that predicts whether we
initiate activities or permit in the face of failures, and
predict the goals we set.
▪
▪ belief in our competence - successful at a certain
task
• attachment theory
•
o john bowlby
o attachment response - disruptions in the programmed biological
response can result in problems later in life
• evolutionary psychology
•
o theory or worldview highlighting the role that inborn species-
specific behaviours play in human development and life
• behavioural genetics
•
o field devoted to scientifically determining the role that hereditary
forces play in determining individual differences in behaviour
o twin study - behavioural genetic research strategy, designed to
determine the genetic contribution of a given trait, that involves
comparing identical - monozygotic twins with fraternal - dizygotic
twins or other people.
o adoption studies - behavioural genetic research strategy designed
to determine the genetic contribution to a given trait, that involves
comparing adopted children with their biological and adoptive
parents
o twin/adoption studies - identical twins are separated and then
reunited in later life.
• nature and nurture combined
•
o evocative forces
o
▪ the nature-interacts-with nurture principle that our genetic
temperamental tendencies and predispositions evoke or
produce certain responses from other people
o bidirectionally
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