PSYC 289 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Practical Action, Developmental Science, Heredity
Document Summary
Developmental science: a filed of study devoted to understanding constancy and change throughout the lifespan. Theory: an orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains and predicts behavior. They are vital for two reasons: provide organizing frameworks for our observations of people, guiding and giving meaning to what we see, provide a sound basis for practical action. Once a theory helps s understand development, we are much better to know how to improve the welfare and treatment of adults and children. Continuous a process of gradually augmenting the same types of skills that were there to begin with. Discontinuous a process in which new ways of understanding and responding the world emerge at specific times: theories that accept this regard development to take place in stages . Stages: qualitative changes in thinking, feeling, and behaving that characterize specific periods of development. Context: unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances that can result in different paths of change.
