PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER 10 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD SECTION 1

PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER 10: INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD SECTION 1: THE STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT

• Developmental psychology is the field in which psychologists study how people grow and change throughout the life span- from conception, through infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, until death.

• Psychologists are interested in studying the two stages discussed in this chapter – infancy and childhood- for many reasons. – One is that early childhood experiences affect people as adolescents and adults.

• Because developmental psychologists study people across the life span, they are interested in seeing how people change over time. • Psychologists use two methods to study change: the longitudinal method and the cross-sectional method.

• Using the longitudinal method, developmental researchers select a group of participants, then observe that same group for a period of time, often years or even decades. – Since the longitudinal method is very time-consuming (and also expensive). Psychologists often use the cross-sectional method instead.

• Using the cross-sectional method, researchers select a sample that includes people of different ages. • They then compare the participants in the different age groups.

THE ROLES OF NATURE AND NURTURE • Psychologists have long debated the extent to which human behavior is determined by heredity (nature) or environment (nurture). • In the field of human development, heredity manifests itself primarily in the process called maturation. Maturation is the automatic and sequential process of development that results from genetic signals. – Example: (Infants usually sit up before they crawl, crawl before they stand, and stand before they walk). – No matter how much one might try to teach these skills to infants, they will not do these things until they are “ready. ”

• The concept of “readiness” relates to an important term in the study of development: critical period. • A critical period is a stage or point in development during which a person or animal is best suited to learn a particular skill or behavior pattern. – Young children seem to learn language more easily than older children and adults.

• Psychologist Arnold Gesell (1880 -1961) believed that maturation played the most important role in development. He focused on many areas of development, including physical and social development.

• Behavioral psychologists, such as John Watson, took a different view from Gesell’s. • This school of thought originated with the 17 th-century English philosopher John Locke, who believed that the mind of the infant is like a tabula rasa (blank slate). • That is, when an infant is born, her or his mind is like a blank slate on which the infant’s experiences will be written. – In this view, “nurture” – or the environment – will have the greatest effect on the newborn’s development.

• Today nearly all psychologists would agree that both nature and nurture play key roles in children’s development.

STAGES VERSUS CONTINUITY • Another topic of debate among psychologists is whether human development occurs primarily in stages or as a continuous process. • Certain aspects of physical development appear to take place in stages.

• Rapid changes usher in dramatically new kinds of behavior, causing entry into the next stage. – When an infant’s legs become strong enough to support him or her, the infant stands and soon begins to walk.

• Once of the most famous stage theorists was Jean Piaget. • His field was cognitive development.

• Not all psychologists agree that development occurs in stages. • J. H. Flavell and his colleagues argue that cognitive development is a gradual process. • Cognitive development is an example of continuous development, which happens slowly and gradually.