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Child Psychology???
Psych 171 First Semester, SY 2011-2012 UP Visayas

+ Developmental Psychology
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takes into account development throughout the lifespan the branch of psychology devoted to understanding all changes that human beings experience throughout the lifespan

Child Psychology
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takes into account development from conception through adolescence field of study devoted to understanding all aspects of human growth from conception through adolescence

Historical Foundations

Historical Foundations

Historical Foundations

Historical Foundations

Historical Foundations

Historical Foundations

Historical Foundations

Historical Foundations

An Emerging Consensus
All

domains of development are interrelated

Normal

development includes a wide range of individual difference help shape their own development and influence others responses to them and cultural contexts strongly influence development

Children

Historical Early

experience is important, but children can be remarkably resilient in childhood is connected to development throughout the rest of the life

Development

Important Concepts

Quantitative Change

Change in number or amount Can you give an example?

Qualitative Change

Change in kind, structure or organization Can you give an example?

Important Concepts
Influences

on Development

Heredity Inborn influences or traits inherited from biological parents Environment Totality of nonhereditary, or experiential, influences on development Maturation Unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes, including readiness to master new abilities

Important Concepts

Normative Influences Nonnormative Influences

Important Concepts
Major

Contextual Influences

Family

: Nuclear or Extended Socioeconomic Status : Income, Education, Occupation

Neighborhood, Nutrition, Schooling Risk Factors conditions that increase the likelihood of negative developmental outcomes

Culture

and Ethnicity The Historical Context time

Important Concepts
Normative

Influences

Normative age-graded influences - are highly similar for people in a particular age group Normative history-graded influences are common to a particular cohort (group of people who share a similar experience)

Nonnormative

Influences

unusual events that have a major impact on individual lives and may cause stress because they are unexpected

Important Concepts
Critical

Periods

Specific time when a given event, or its absence has the greatest impact on development

Plasticity

Modifiability of performance

Domains of Development

Physical Development

e.g., growth of the brain and body, sensory and motor skills, health

Cognitive Development

e.g., learning, memory, language, thinking, reasoning

Psychosocial Development

e.g., personality, emotional life, and social relationships

Periods of Development
Prenatal Period Infancy Early Childhood Middle Childhood Adolescence
Conception to birth Birth to age 3 3 to 6 6 to 11 11 to about 20

Social Constr uction

Theoretical Issues
Theory

Coherent set of logically related concepts that seeks to organize, explain, and predict data

Hypotheses

Tentative explanations or predictions that can be tested by further research

Issue 1: Heredity or Environment

Theorists have differed in the relative importance they give to nature and nurture How do these two work together?

Issue 2: Are children active or passive in their development?

Mechanistic

Model

Views development as a passive predictable response to stimuli

Organismic

Model

Views development as internally initiated by an active organism and as occurring in a sequence of qualitatively different stages

Issue 3: Is development continuous or does it occur in stages?

Can

you think of Theories that adhere to a continuous view of development? Theories that adhere to a discontinuous view of development?

N.B.: lessons were culled from Berk (1997) and Papalia, Olds & Feldman (2007, 2010)