PSYB20H3 Chapter 1: Psyb20 CHAP1
Document Summary
Child development- scientific study of systematic processes of change and stability in human children. Division of lifespan into periods of development is a social construction: concept about what is real based on societally shared perceptions and assumptions. We follow a social construction about human development as a sequence of 5 periods, genereally accepted in western industrial societies. Developmental scientists study 3 broad domains of self: physical, cognitive and psychological in the different periods of developemtn. Physical development: growth of body and brain, sensory capacities, motor skills and health. Cognitive development: leraning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creaitivy. Psychological development: emotions, personality and social relationships. Individual differences: differences among children in characteristics, influences, or developmental outcomes. How they develop can be impacted by heredity, environment and maturation, contexts of their lives, normative influences and the timing of these variables. Nature and nurture work together e. g. in determingin intelligence. Maturation- unfolding of a universal, natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes.
