1 An Introduction to Lifespan Development

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What if for your entire life, the image that others held of you was colored by the way in which you were conceived?

In some ways, that’s what it has been like for Louise Brown, who was the world’s first “test tube baby,” born by in vitro fertilization (IVF), a procedure in which fertilization of a mother’s egg by a father’s sperm takes place outside of the mother’s body.

Louise was a preschooler when her parents told her about how she was conceived, and throughout her childhood she was bombarded with questions. It became routine to explain to her classmates that she in fact was not born in a laboratory.

As a child, Louise sometimes felt completely alone. “I thought it was something peculiar to me,” she recalled. But as she grew older, her isolation declined as more and more children were born in the same manner.

In fact, today Louise is hardly isolated. More than 5 million babies have been born using the procedure, which has become almost routine. And at the age of 28, Louise became a mother herself, giving birth to a baby boy name Cameron—conceived, by the way, in the old-fashioned way (Falco, 2012; ICMRT, 2012).

P r o l o g u e : New Conceptions

Learning Objectives

LO 1-1 What is lifespan development?

LO 1-2 What are some of the basic influences on human development?

LO 1-3 What are the key issues in the field of development?

LO 1-4 Which theoretical perspectives have guided lifespan development?

LO 1-5 What role do theories and hypotheses play in the study of development?

LO 1-6 How are developmental research studies conducted?

LO 1-7 What are some of the ethical issues regarding psychological research?

C h a P t e r o v e r v i e w

An Orientation to Lifespan Development

Characterizing Lifespan Development: The Scope of the Field

Cohort and Other Influences on Development: Developing with Others in a Social World

Key Issues and Questions: Determining the Nature—and Nurture—of Lifespan Development

Continuous Change versus Discontinuous Change

Critical and Sensitive Periods: Gauging the Impact of Environmental Events

Lifespan Approaches versus a Focus on Particular Periods

The Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture on Development

Theoretical Perspectives on Lifespan Development

The Psychodynamic Perspective: Focusing on the Inner Person

The Behavioral Perspective: Focusing on Observable Behavior

The Cognitive Perspective: Examining the Roots of Understanding

The Humanistic Perspective: Concentrating on the Unique Qualities of Human Beings

The Contextual Perspective: Taking a Broad Approach to Development

Evolutionary Perspectives: Our Ancestors’ Contributions to Behavior

Why “Which Approach Is Right?” Is the Wrong Question

Research Methods

Theories and Hypotheses: Posing Developmental Questions

Choosing a Research Strategy: Answering Questions

Correlational Studies

Experiments: Determining Cause and Effect

Theoretical and Applied Research: Complementary Approaches

Measuring Developmental Change

Ethics and Research

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4 PA RT 1 ▸ Beginnings

Louise Brown’s conception may have been novel, but her devel- opment, from infancy, through childhood and adolescence, and to her marriage and the birth of her baby, has followed a predict- able pattern. The specifics of our development vary: some encoun- ter economic deprivation or live in war-torn territories; others contend with genetic or family issues like divorce and step-parents. The broad strokes of the development, however, which were set in motion in that test tube 28 years ago are remarkably similar for all of us. Michael Phelps, Bill Gates, the Queen of England, and each and every one of us, is traversing the terri- tory known as lifespan development.

Louise Brown’s conception in the lab is just one of the brave new worlds of the twenty-first century. Issues ranging from cloning to the consequences of poverty on development, to the prevention of AIDS raise significant developmental concerns that affect human development. Underlying these are even more fundamental issues: How do we develop physically? How does our understanding of the world grow and change throughout our lives? And how do our personalities and our social relationships develop as we move from birth through the entire span of our lives?

Each of these questions, and many others we’ll encounter throughout this book, are cen- tral to the field of lifespan development. As a field, lifespan development encompasses not only a broad span of time—from before birth to death—but also a wide range of areas of develop- ment. Consider, for example, the range of interests that different specialists in lifespan develop- ment focus on when considering the life of Louise Brown:

• Lifespan development researchers who investigate behavior at the level of biological pro- cesses might determine if Louise’s functioning prior to birth was affected by her conception outside the womb.

• Specialists in lifespan development who study genetics might examine how the genetic endowment from Louise’s parents affects her later behavior.

• For lifespan development specialists who investigate the ways thinking changes over the course of life, Louise’s life might be examined in terms of how her understanding of the nature of her conception changed as she grew older.

• Other researchers in lifespan development, who focus on physical growth, might consider whether her growth rate differed from children conceived more traditionally.

• Lifespan development experts who specialize in the social world and social relationships might look at the ways that Louise interacted with others and the kinds of friendships she developed.

Although their interests take many forms, these specialists in lifespan development share one concern: understanding the growth and change that occur during the course of life. Taking many differing approaches, developmentalists study how both the biological inheritance from our parents and the environment in which we live jointly affect our behavior.

Some developmentalists focus on explaining how our genetic background can determine not only how we look but also how we behave and relate to others in a consistent manner—that is, matters of personality. They explore ways to identify how much of our potential as human beings is provided—or limited—by heredity. Other lifespan development specialists look to

Louise Brown and son.

LO O k I N G A H E A D

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C h A P T e R 1 ▸ An Introduction to Lifespan Development 5

the environment, exploring ways in which our lives are shaped by the world that we encounter. They investigate the extent to which we are shaped by our early environments, and how our current circumstances influence our behavior in both subtle and evident ways.

Whether they focus on heredity or environment, all developmental specialists acknowl- edge that neither heredity nor environment alone can account for the full range of human development and change. Instead, our understanding of people’s development requires that we look at the joint effects of the interaction of heredity and environment, attempting to grasp how both, in the end, underlie human behavior.

In this chapter, we orient ourselves to the field of lifespan development. We begin with a discussion of the scope of the discipline, illustrating the wide array of topics it covers and the full range of ages it examines. We also survey the key issues and controversies of the field and consider the broad perspectives that developmentalists take. Finally, we discuss the ways developmentalists use research to ask and answer questions.

An Orientation to Lifespan Development LO 1-1 What is lifespan development?

LO 1-2 What are some of the basic influences on human development?

Have you ever wondered how it is possible that an infant tightly grips your finger with tiny, perfectly formed hands? Or marveled at how a preschooler methodically draws a picture? Or at the way an adolescent can make involved decisions about whom to invite to a party or the ethics of downloading music files? Or the way a middle-aged politician can deliver a long, flawless speech from memory? Or wondered what it is that makes a grandfather at 80 so simi- lar to the father he was when he was 40?

If you’ve ever wondered about such things, you are asking the kinds of questions that scientists in the field of lifespan development pose. Lifespan development is the field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire life span.

Although the definition of the field seems straightforward, the simplicity is somewhat misleading. In order to understand what development is actually about, we need to look un- derneath the various parts of the definition.

In its study of growth, change, and stability, lifespan development takes a scientific approach. Like members of other scientific disciplines, researchers in lifespan development test their assumptions about the nature and course of human development by applying scientific methods. As we’ll see later in the chapter, they develop theories about development, and they use me- thodical, scientific techniques to validate the accuracy of their assumptions systematically.

Lifespan development focuses on human development. Although there are developmentalists who study the course of development in nonhuman species, the vast majority examines growth and change in people. Some seek to understand universal principles of development, whereas others focus on how cultural, racial, and ethnic differences affect the course of development. Still others aim to understand the unique aspects of individuals, looking at the traits and characteristics that differentiate one person from another. Regardless of approach, however, all developmentalists view development as a continuing process throughout the life span.

As developmental specialists focus on the ways people change and grow during their lives, they also consider stability in people’s lives. They ask in which areas, and in what periods, people show change and growth, and when and how their behavior reveals consistency and continuity with prior behavior.

How people grow and change over the course of their lives is the focus of lifespan development.

lifespan development the field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire life span.

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Finally, developmentalists assume that the process of development persists through- out every part of people’s lives, beginning with the moment of conception and continuing until death. Developmental specialists assume that in some ways people continue to grow and change right up to the end of their lives, while in other respects their behavior remains stable. At the same time, developmentalists believe that no particular, single period of life governs all development. Instead, they believe that every period of life contains the potential for both growth and decline in abilities, and that individuals maintain the capacity for sub- stantial growth and change throughout their lives.

Characterizing Lifespan Development: The Scope of the Field Clearly, the definition of lifespan development is broad and the scope of the field is extensive. Consequently, lifespan development specialists cover several quite diverse areas, and a typical developmentalist will choose to specialize in both a topical area and an age range.

TOPICAL AReAs IN LIfesPAN DeveLOPMeNT. Some developmentalists focus on physical development, examining the ways in which the body’s makeup—the brain, nervous system, muscles, and senses, and the need for food, drink, and sleep—helps determine behav- ior. For example, one specialist in physical development might examine the effects of malnu- trition on the pace of growth in children, while another might look at how athletes’ physical performance declines during adulthood (Fell & Williams, 2008).

Other developmental specialists examine cognitive development, seeking to understand how growth and change in intellectual capabilities influence a person’s behavior. Cognitive developmentalists examine learning, memory, problem-solving skills, and intelligence. For example, specialists in cognitive development might want to see how problem-solving skills change over the course of life, or whether cultural differences exist in the way people explain their academic successes and failures. They would also be interested in how a person who experiences significant or traumatic events early in life would remember them later in life (Alibali, Phillips, & Fischer, 2009; Dumka et al., 2009; Penido et al., 2012).

Finally, some developmental specialists focus on personality and social development. Personality development is the study of stability and change in the enduring characteristics that differentiate one person from another over the life span. Social development is the way in which individuals’ interactions with others and their social relationships grow, change, and remain stable over the course of life. A developmentalist interested in personality develop- ment might ask whether there are stable, enduring personality traits throughout the life span, whereas a specialist in social development might examine the effects of racism or poverty or divorce on development (Evans, Boxhill, & Pinkava, 2008; Lansford, 2009). These four ma- jor topic areas—physical, cognitive, social, and personality development—are summarized in Table 1-1.

Age RANges AND INDIvIDuAL DIffeReNCes. In addition to choosing to spe- cialize in a particular topical area, developmentalists also typically look at a particular age range. The life span is usually divided into broad age ranges: the prenatal period (the pe- riod from conception to birth); infancy and toddlerhood (birth to age 3); the preschool period (ages 3 to 6); middle childhood (ages 6 to 12); adolescence (ages 12 to 20); young adulthood (ages 20 to 40); middle adulthood (ages 40 to 65); and late adulthood (age 65 to death).

It’s important to keep in mind that these broad periods—which are largely accepted by lifespan developmentalists—are social constructions. A social construction is a shared notion of reality, one that is widely accepted but is a function of society and culture at a given time. Consequently, the age ranges within a period—and even the periods themselves—are in many

physical development development involv- ing the body’s physical makeup, including the brain, nervous system, muscles, and senses, and the need for food, drink, and sleep.

cognitive development development in- volving the ways that growth and change in intellectual capabilities influence a person’s behavior.

personality development development in- volving the ways that the enduring characteris- tics that differentiate one person from another change over the life span.

social development the way in which in- dividuals’ interactions with others and their social relationships grow, change, and remain stable over the course of life.

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C h A P T e R 1 ▸ An Introduction to Lifespan Development 7

ways arbitrary and often culturally derived. For example, later in the book we’ll discuss how the concept of childhood as a special period did not even exist during the seventeenth cen- tury; at that time, children were seen simply as miniature adults. Furthermore, while some periods have a clear-cut boundary (infancy begins with birth, the preschool period ends with entry into public school, and adolescence starts with sexual maturity), others don’t.

For instance, consider the period of young adulthood, which at least in Western cultures is typically assumed to begin at age 20. That age, however, is notable only because it marks the end of the teenage period. In fact, for many people, such as those enrolled in higher edu- cation, the age change from 19 to 20 has little special significance, coming as it does in the middle of the college years. For them, more substantial changes may occur when they leave college and enter the workforce, which is more likely to happen around age 22. Furthermore, in some non-Western cultures, adulthood may be considered to start much earlier, when chil- dren whose educational opportunities are limited begin full-time work.

In fact, some developmentalists have proposed entirely new developmental periods. For instance, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett argues that adolescence extends into emerging adulthood, a period beginning in the late teenage years and continuing into the mid-twenties. During emerging adulthood, people are no longer adolescents, but they haven’t fully taken on the responsibilities of adulthood. Instead, they are still trying out different identities and engage in self-focused exploration (Schwartz, Côté, & Arnett, 2005; Lamborn & Groh, 2009; Arnett, 2010, 2011; de Dios, 2012).

In short, there are substantial individual differences in the timing of events in people’s lives. In part, this is a biological fact of life: People mature at different rates and reach develop- mental milestones at different points. However, environmental factors also play a significant role in determining the age at which a particular event is likely to occur. For example, the typi- cal age of marriage varies substantially from one culture to another, depending in part on the functions that marriage plays in a given culture.

TAbLe 1-1 Approaches to Lifespan Development

Orientation Defining Characteristics examples of Question Asked*

Physical development Emphasizes how brain, nervous system, muscles, sensory capabilities, needs for food, drink, and sleep affect behavior

• What determines the sex of a child? (2) • What are the long-term results of premature birth? (3) • What are the benefits of breast milk? (4) • What are the consequences of early or late sexual maturation? (1) • What leads to obesity in adulthood? (13) • How do adults cope with stress? (15) • What are the outward and internal signs of aging? (17) • How do we define death? (19)

Cognitive development Emphasizes intellectual abilities, including learning, memory, problem solving, and intelligence

• What are the earliest memories that can be recalled from infancy? (5) • What are the intellectual consequences of watching television? (7) • Do spatial reasoning skills relate to music practice? (7) • Are there benefits to bilingualism? (9) •  How does an adolescent’s egocentrism affect his or her view of the

world? (11) • Are there ethnic and racial differences in intelligence? (9) • How does creativity relate to intelligence? (13) • Does intelligence decline in late adulthood? (17)

Personality and social development

Emphasizes enduring characteristics that differentiate one person from another, and how interactions with others and social relationships grow and change over the lifetime

• Do newborns respond differently to their mothers than to others? (3) • What is the best procedure for disciplining children? (8) • When does a sense of gender identity develop? (8) • How can we promote cross-race friendships? (10) • What are the causes of adolescent suicide? (12) • How do we choose a romantic partner? (14) • Do the effects of parental divorce last into old age? (18) • Do people withdraw from others in late adulthood? (18) • What are the emotions involved in confronting death? (19)

*Numbers in parentheses indicate in which chapter the question is addressed.

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It is important to keep in mind, then, that when developmental specialists discuss age ranges, they are talking about averages—the times when people, on average, reach particular milestones. Some people will reach the milestone earlier, some later, and many will reach it around the time of the average. Such variation becomes noteworthy only when children show substantial deviation from the average. For example, parents whose child begins to speak at a much later age than aver- age might decide to have their son or daughter evaluated by a speech therapist.

The LINKs beTweeN TOPICs AND Ages. Each of the broad topical areas of lifes- pan development—physical, cognitive, social, and personality development—plays a role throughout the life span. Consequently, some developmental experts focus on physical devel- opment during the prenatal period, and others during adolescence. Some might specialize in social development during the preschool years, while others look at social relationships in late adulthood. And still others might take a broader approach, looking at cognitive development through every period of life.

In this book, we’ll take a comprehensive approach, proceeding chronologically from the prenatal period through late adulthood and death. Within each period, we’ll look at different topical areas: physical, cognitive, social, and personality. Furthermore, we’ll also be consider- ing the impact of culture on development, as we discuss next.

This wedding of two children in India is an example of how environmental factors can play a significant role in determining the age when a particular event is likely to occur.

Developmental Diversity anD your life

How Culture, Ethnicity, and Race Influence Development Mayan mothers in Central America are certain that almost con- stant contact between themselves and their infant children is nec- essary for good parenting, and they are physically upset if contact is not possible. They are shocked when they see a North American mother lay her infant down, and they attribute the baby’s crying to the poor parenting of the North American. (Morelli et al., 1992)

***

What are we to make of the two views of parenting expressed in this passage? Is one right and the other wrong? Probably not, if we take into consideration the cultural context in which the mothers are operating. Different cultures and subcultures have their own views of appropriate and inappropriate childrearing, just as they have different developmental goals for children (Feldman & Masalha, 2007; Huijbregts et al., 2009; Chen & Tianying Zheng, 2012).

It has become clear that in order to understand development, devel- opmentalists must take into consideration broad cultural factors, such as an orientation toward individualism or collectivism. They must also consider finer ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, and gender differences if they are to achieve an understanding of how people change and grow throughout the life span. If developmentalists succeed in doing so, not only can they achieve a better understanding of human development, but they may be able to derive more precise applications for improving the human social condition.

Efforts to understand how diversity affects development have been hindered by difficulties in finding an appropriate vocabulary. For example, members of the research community—as well as society at large—have sometimes used terms such as race and ethnic group in inappropriate ways. Race is a biological concept, which should be employed to refer to classifications based on physical and structural characteristics of species. In contrast, ethnic group and ethnicity are

broader terms, referring to cultural background, nationality, religion, and language.

The concept of race has proven especially problematic. Although it formally refers to biological factors, race has taken on substantially more meanings—many of them inappropriate—that range from skin color to religion to culture. Moreover, the concept of race is exceed- ingly imprecise; depending on how it is defined, there are between 3 and 300 races, and no race is genetically distinct. The fact that 99.9 per- cent of humans’ genetic makeup is identical in all humans makes the question of race seem comparatively insignificant (Bamshad & Olson, 2003; Helms, Jernigan, & Mascher, 2005; Smedley & Smedley, 2005).

In addition, there is little agreement about which names best reflect different races and ethnic groups. Should the term African American— which has geographical and cultural implications—be preferred over black, which focuses primarily on skin color? Is Native American preferable to Indian? Is Hispanic more appropriate than Latino? And how can researchers accurately categorize people with multiethnic backgrounds? The choice of category has important implications for the validity and usefulness of research. The choice even has political implications. For example, the decision to permit people to identify themselves as “multiracial” on U.S. government forms and in the U.S. Census initially was highly controversial (Perlmann & Waters, 2002).

In order to fully understand development, then, we need to take the complex issues associated with human diversity into account. It is only by looking for similarities and differences among various ethnic, cultural, and racial groups that developmental researchers can distin- guish principles of development that are universal from principles that are culturally determined. In the years ahead, then, it is likely that lifes- pan development will move from a discipline that focuses primarily on North American and European development to one that encompasses development around the globe (Fowers & Davidov, 2006; Matsumoto & Yoo, 2006; Kloep et al., 2009).

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C h A P T e R 1 ▸ An Introduction to Lifespan Development 9

Cohort and Other Influences on Development: Developing with Others in a Social World Bob, born in 1947, is a baby boomer; he was born soon after the end of World War II, when an enormous bulge in the birth rate occurred as soldiers returned to the United States from overseas. He was an adolescent at the height of the civil rights movement and the beginning of protests against the Vietnam War. His mother, Leah, was born in 1922; she is part of the generation that passed its childhood and teenage years in the shadow of the Great Depression. Bob’s son, Jon, was born in 1975. Now building a career after graduating from college and starting his own family, he is a member of what has been called Generation X. Jon’s younger sister, Sarah, who was born in 1982, is part of the next generation, which sociologists have called the Millennial Generation.

These people are in part products of the social times in which they live. Each belongs to a particular cohort, a group of people born at around the same time in the same place. Such major social events as wars, economic upturns and depressions, famines, and epidemics (like the one due to the AIDS virus) work similar influences on members of a particular cohort (Mitchell, 2002; Dittmann, 2005).

Cohort effects provide an example of history-graded influences, which are biological and environmental influences associated with a particular historical moment. For instance, peo- ple who lived in New York City during the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center experienced shared biological and environmental challenges due to the attack (Bonanno et al., 2006; Laugharne, Janca, & Widiger, 2007; Park, Riley, & Snyder, 2012). In contrast, age-graded influences are biological and environmental influences that are similar for indi- viduals in a particular age group, regardless of when or where they are raised. For example, biological events such as puberty and menopause are universal events that occur at rela- tively the same time throughout all societies. Similarly, a sociocultural event such as entry into formal education can be considered an age-graded influence because it occurs in most cultures around age six.

Development is also affected by sociocultural-graded influences, the social and cultural factors present at a particular time for a particular individual, depending on such variables as ethnicity, social class, and subcultural membership. For example, sociocultural-graded influ- ences will be considerably different for children who are white and affluent than for children who are members of a minority group and living in poverty (Rose et al., 2003).

Finally, non-normative life events are specific, atypical events that occur in a person’s life at a time when such events do not happen to most people. For example, a child whose parents die in an automobile accident when she is six years old has experienced a significant non- normative life event.

key Issues and Questions: Determining the Nature—and Nurture—of Lifespan Development LO 1-3 What are the key issues in the field of development?

Lifespan development is a decades-long journey. Though there are some shared markers along the way—such as learning to speak, going to school, and finding a job—there are, as we have just seen, many individual routes with twists and turns along the way that also influence this journey.

For developmentalists working in the field, the range and variation in lifespan devel- opment raises a number of issues and questions. What are the best ways to think about the enormous changes that a person undergoes from before birth to death? How important is chronological age? Is there a clear timetable for development? How can one begin to find common threads and patterns?

From an educator’s perspective:

How would a student’s cohort membership affect

his or her readiness for school? For example, what would be

the benefits and drawbacks of coming from a cohort in which

Internet use was routine, compared with earlier cohorts

prior to the appearance of the Internet?

cohort a group of people born at around the same time in the same place.

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These questions have been debated since lifespan development first became established as a separate field in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though a fascination with the nature and course of human development can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. We will look at some of these issues, which are summarized in Table 1-2.

Continuous Change versus Discontinuous Change One of the primary issues challenging developmentalists is whether development proceeds in a continuous or discontinuous fashion. In continuous change, development is gradual, with achievements at one level building on those of previous levels. Continuous change is quanti- tative in nature; the basic underlying developmental processes that drive change remain the same over the course of the life span. Continuous change, then, produces changes that are a matter of degree, not of kind. Changes in height prior to adulthood, for example, are continu- ous. Similarly, as we’ll see later in the chapter, some theorists suggest that changes in people’s thinking capabilities are also continuous, showing gradual quantitative improvements rather than developing entirely new cognitive processing capabilities.

In contrast, one can view development as being made up of primarily discontinuous change, occurring in distinct stages. Each stage or change brings about behavior that is assumed to be qualitatively different from behavior at earlier stages. Consider the example of cognitive development again. We’ll see later in the chapter that some cognitive developmentalists suggest that as we develop our thinking changes in fundamental ways, and that such development is not just a matter of quantitative change but of qualitative change.

Most developmentalists agree that taking an either/or position on the continuous– discontinuous issue is inappropriate. While many types of developmental change are continu- ous, others are clearly discontinuous.

Critical and Sensitive Periods: Gauging the Impact of Environmental Events If a woman comes down with a case of rubella (German measles) in the first 20 weeks of preg- nancy, the consequences for the child she is carrying are likely to be devastating: They include

continuous change gradual development in which achievements at one level build on those of previous levels.

discontinuous change development that occurs in distinct steps or stages, with each stage bringing about behavior that is assumed to be qualitatively different from behavior at earlier stages.

TAbLe 1-2 Major Issues in Lifespan Development

Continuous Change Discontinuous Change

•  Change is gradual. •  Change occurs in distinct steps or stages.

•  Achievements at one level build on previous level. •  Behavior and processes are qualitatively different at different stages.

•   Underlying developmental processes remain the same  over the lifespan.

Critical Periods Sensitive Periods

•   Certain environmental stimuli are necessary for normal  development.

•   People are susceptible to certain environmental stimuli, but  consequences of absent stimuli are reversible.

•  Emphasized by early developmentalists. •  Current emphasis in lifespan development.

Lifespan Approach Focus on Particular Periods

•   Current theories emphasize growth and change  throughout life, relatedness of different periods.

•   Infancy and adolescence emphasized by early developmentalists as  most important periods.

Nature (Genetic Factors) Nurture (Environmental Factors)

•   Emphasis is on discovering inherited genetic traits and  abilities.

•   Emphasis is on environmental influences that affect a person’s  development.

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C h A P T e R 1 ▸ An Introduction to Lifespan Development 11

the potential for blindness, deafness, and heart defects. However, if she comes down with the exact same strain of rubella in the thirtieth week of pregnancy, damage to the child is unlikely.

The differing outcomes of the disease in the two periods demonstrate the concept of criti- cal periods. A critical period is a specific time during development when a particular event has its greatest consequences. Critical periods occur when the presence of certain kinds of environmental stimuli is necessary for development to proceed normally (Uylings, 2006).

Although early specialists in lifespan development placed great emphasis on the impor- tance of critical periods, more recent thinking suggests that in many realms individuals are more malleable than was first thought, particularly in the domain of personality and social development. For instance, rather than suffering permanent damage from a lack of certain kinds of early social experiences, there is increasing evidence that people can use later experi- ences to their benefit, to help them overcome earlier deficits.

Consequently, developmentalists are now more likely to speak of sensitive periods rather than critical periods. In a sensitive period, organisms are particularly susceptible to certain kinds of stimuli in their environment. A sensitive period represents the optimal period for par- ticular capacities to emerge, and children are particularly sensitive to environmental influences.

It is important to understand the difference between the concepts of critical periods and sensitive periods. In critical periods, it is assumed that the absence of certain kinds of environmental influences is likely to produce permanent, irreversible consequences for the developing individual. In contrast, although the absence of particular environ- mental influences during a sensitive period may hinder development, it is possible for later experiences to overcome the earlier deficits. In other words, the concept of sensitive period recognizes the plasticity of developing humans (Konig, 2005; Armstrong, et al., 2006; Hooks & Chen, 2008).

Lifespan Approaches versus a Focus on Particular Periods On which part of the life span should developmentalists focus their attention? For early developmentalists, the answers tended to be infancy and adolescence. Most attention was clearly concentrated on those two periods, largely to the exclusion of other parts of the lifespan.

Today, the story is different. Developmentalists now believe that the entire lifespan is important, for several reasons. One is the discovery that developmental growth and change continue during every part of life—as we’ll discuss throughout this book.

Furthermore, an important part of every person’s environment is the presence of other people around him or her, the person’s social environment. To fully understand the social influences on people of a given age, we need to understand the people who are in large measure providing those influences. For instance, to understand development in infants, we need to unravel the effects of their parents’ ages on their social environments. A fifteen-year-old first- time mother will provide parental influences of a very different sort from those provided by an experienced thirty-seven-year-old mother. Consequently, infant development is in part an outgrowth consequence of adult development.

In addition, as lifespan developmentalist Paul Baltes points out, development across the life span involves both gains and losses. With age, certain capabilities become more refined and sophisticated, while others involve loss of skill and capacity. For example, vocabulary tends to grow throughout childhood and continues this growth through most of adulthood. At the same time, certain physical abilities, like reaction time, improve until early and middle adult- hood, when they begin to decline (Baltes, Staudinger, & Lindenberger, 1999; Baltes, 2003).

People also shift in how they invest their resources (in terms of motivation, energy, and time) at different points during the life span. Early in life, more of one’s personal resources are devoted to activities involving growth, such as studying or learning new skills. As one grows older, more resources are devoted to dealing with the losses people face during late adulthood (Staudinger & Leipold, 2003).

critical period a specific time during develop- ment when a particular event has its greatest consequences and the presence of certain kinds of environmental stimuli is necessary for development to proceed normally.

sensitive period a point in development when organisms are particularly suscep- tible to certain kinds of stimuli in their environments, but the absence of those stimuli does not always produce irreversible consequences.

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The Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture on Development One of the enduring questions of development involves how much of people’s behavior is due to their genetically determined nature and how much is due to nurture, the influences of the physical and social environment in which a child is raised. This issue, which has deep philosophical and historical roots, has dominated much work in lifespan development (Wexler, 2006).

In this context, nature refers to traits, abilities, and capacities that are inherited from one’s parents. It encompasses any factor that is produced by the predetermined unfolding of genetic information—a process known as maturation. These genetic, inherited influences are at work as we move from the one-cell organism that is created at the moment of conception to the bil- lions of cells that make up a fully formed human. Nature influences whether our eyes are blue or brown, whether we have thick hair throughout life or eventually go bald, and how good we are at athletics. Nature allows our brains to develop in such a way that we can read the words on this page.

In contrast, nurture refers to the environmental influences that shape behavior. Some of these influences may be biological, such as the impact of a pregnant mother’s use of cocaine on her unborn child or the amount and kind of food available to children. Other environmen- tal influences are more social, such as the ways parents discipline their children and the effects of peer pressure on an adolescent. Finally, some influences are a result of larger, societal-level factors, such as the socioeconomic circumstances in which people find themselves.

The LATeR ACTION Of NATuRe AND NuRTuRe. If our traits and behavior were determined solely by either nature or nurture, there would probably be little debate regarding the issue. However, for most critical behaviors this is hardly the case. Take, for instance, one of the most controversial areas: intelligence. As we’ll consider in detail in Chapter 9, the question of whether intelligence is determined primarily by inherited, genetic factors—nature—or is shaped by environmental factors—nurture—has caused lively and often bitter arguments that have spilled out of the scientific arena and into the realm of politics and social policy.

Consider the implications of the issue: If the extent of one’s intelligence is primarily determined by heredity and consequently is largely fixed at birth, then efforts to improve intellectual performance later in life may be doomed to failure. In contrast, if intelligence is primarily a result of environmental factors, such as the amount and quality of schooling and stimulation to which one is exposed, then we would expect that an improvement in social conditions could bring about an increase in intelligence.

The extent of social policy affected by ideas about the origins of intelligence illustrates the significance of issues that involve the nature–nurture question. As we address this question in relation to several topical areas throughout this book, we should keep in mind that devel- opmentalists reject the notion that behavior is the result solely of either nature or nurture. Instead, the question is one of degree—and the specifics of that, too, are hotly debated.

Furthermore, the interaction of genetic and environmental factors is complex, in part because certain genetically determined traits have not only a direct influence on children’s behavior, but an indirect influence in shaping children’s environments as well. For example, a child who is consistently cranky and who cries a great deal—a trait that may be produced by genetic factors—may influence his or her environment by making his or her parents so highly responsive to the insistent crying that they rush to comfort the child whenever he or she cries. Their responsivity to the child’s genetically determined behavior consequently becomes an environmental influence on his or her subsequent development (Bradley & Corwyn, 2008; Stright, Gallagher, & Kelley, 2008; Barnes & Boutwell, 2012).

Similarly, although our genetic background orients us toward particular behaviors, those behaviors will not necessarily occur in the absence of an appropriate environment. People with similar genetic backgrounds (such as identical twins) may behave in very different ways;

maturation the predetermined unfolding of genetic information.

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and people with highly dissimilar genetic backgrounds can behave quite similarly to one another in certain areas (Coll, Bearer, & Lerner, 2004; Kato & Pedersen, 2005).

In sum, the question of how much of a given behavior is due to nature, and how much to nurture, is a challenging one. Ultimately, we should consider the two sides of the nature– nurture issue as opposite ends of a continuum, with particular behaviors falling somewhere between the two ends. We can say something similar about the other controversies that we have considered. For instance, continuous versus discontinuous development is not an either/ or proposition; some forms of development fall toward the continuous end of the continuum, whereas others lie closer to the discontinuous end. In short, few statements about develop- ment involve either/or absolutes (Rutter, 2006; Deater-Deckard & Cahill, 2007).

Theoretical Perspectives on Lifespan Development LO 1-4 Which theoretical perspectives have guided lifespan development?

LO 1-5 What role do theories and hypotheses play in the study of development?

In Europe, there was no concept of “childhood” until the seventeenth century. Instead, children were simply thought of as miniature adults. They were assumed to be subject to the same needs and desires as adults, to have the same vices and virtues as adults, and to warrant no more privileges than adults. They were dressed the same as adults, and their work hours were the same as adults. Children also received the same punishments for misdeeds. If they stole, they were hanged; if they did well, they could achieve prosperity, at least so far as their station in life or social class would allow.

This view of childhood seems wrong-headed now, but at the time it was what passed for life span development. From this

Society’s view of childhood, and what is appropriate to ask of children, has changed through the ages. These children worked full-time in mines in the early 1900s.

Review and Apply

Review ◼ Lifespan development, a scientific approach to understanding human growth and change

throughout life, encompasses physical, cognitive, social, and personality development.

◼ Culture and ethnicity also play an important role in development, both broad culture and aspects of culture, such as race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

◼ Membership in a cohort, based on age and place of birth, subjects people to influences based on historical events (history-graded influences). People are also subject to age-graded influences, sociocultural-graded influences, and non-normative life events.

◼ Four important issues in lifespan development are continuity versus discontinuity in development, the importance of critical periods, whether to focus on certain periods or on the entire life span, and the nature–nurture controversy.

Applying Lifespan Development ◼ What are some examples of the ways culture (either broad culture or aspects of culture)

affects human development?

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perspective, there were no differences due to age; except for size, people were assumed to be virtually unchanging, at least on a psychological level, throughout most of the life span (Ariès, 1962; Acocella, 2003; Hutton, 2004; Wines, 2006).

Although, looking back over several centuries, it is easy to reject the medieval view of childhood, it is less clear how to formulate a contemporary substitute. Should our view of development focus on the biological aspects of change, growth, and stability over the life span? The cognitive or social aspects? Or some other factors?

People who study lifespan development approach the field from a number of different perspectives. Each general perspective encompasses one or more theories—broad, orga- nized explanations and predictions concerning phenomena of interest. A theory provides a framework for understanding the relationships among a seemingly unorganized set of facts or principles.

We all develop theories about development, based on our experience, folklore, and arti- cles in magazines and newspapers. However, theories in lifespan development are different. Whereas our own personal theories are built on unverified observations that are developed haphazardly, developmentalists’ theories are more formal, based on a systematic integration of prior findings and theorizing. These theories allow developmentalists to summarize and organize prior observations, and they also permit them to move beyond existing observa- tions to draw deductions that may not be immediately apparent. In addition, these theories are then subject to rigorous testing in the form of research. By contrast, the developmental theories of individuals are not subject to such testing and may never be questioned at all (Thomas, 2001).

We will consider six major theoretical perspectives used in lifespan development: the psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, contextual, and evolutionary perspectives. Each emphasizes somewhat different aspects of development and steers developmentalists in particular directions. Furthermore, each perspective continues to evolve and change, as befits a growing and dynamic discipline.

The Psychodynamic Perspective: Focusing on the Inner Person When Marisol was six months old, she was involved in a bloody automobile accident—or so her parents tell her, since she has no conscious recollection of it. Now, however, at age 24, she is having difficulty maintaining relationships, and her therapist is seeking to determine whether her current problems are a result of the earlier accident.

Looking for such a link might seem a bit far-fetched, but to proponents of the psycho- dynamic perspective, it is not so improbable. Advocates of the psychodynamic perspective believe that much of behavior is motivated by inner forces, memories, and conflicts of which a person has little awareness or control. The inner forces, which may stem from one’s childhood, continually influence behavior throughout the life span.

fReuD ’s PsyChOANALyTIC TheORy. The psychodynamic perspective is most closely associated with a single person and theory: Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic theory. Freud, who lived from 1856 to 1939, was a Viennese physician whose revolutionary ideas ultimately had a profound effect not only on the fields of psychology and psychiatry, but on Western thought in general (Masling & Bornstein, 1996; Greenberg, 2012).

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory suggests that unconscious forces act to determine person- ality and behavior. To Freud, the unconscious is a part of the personality about which a person is unaware. It contains infantile wishes, desires, demands, and needs that, because of their dis- turbing nature, are hidden from conscious awareness. Freud suggested that the unconscious is responsible for a good part of our everyday behavior.

According to Freud, everyone’s personality has three aspects: id, ego, and superego. The id is the raw, unorganized, inborn part of personality that is present at birth. It represents

theories explanations and predictions con- cerning phenomena of interest, providing a framework for understanding the relation- ships among an organized set of facts or principles.

psychodynamic perspective the approach stating that behavior is motivated by inner forces, memories, and conflicts that are gen- erally beyond people’s awareness and control.

Sigmund Freud.

psychoanalytic theory the theory proposed by Freud that suggests that unconscious forces act to determine personality and behavior.

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primitive drives related to hunger, sex, aggression, and irrational impulses. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, in which the goal is to maximize satisfaction and reduce tension.

The ego is the part of personality that is rational and reasonable. The ego acts as a buffer between the real world outside of us and the primitive id. The ego operates on the reality prin- ciple, in which instinctual energy is restrained in order to maintain the safety of the individual and help integrate the person into society.

Finally, Freud proposed that the superego represents a person’s conscience, incorporat- ing distinctions between right and wrong. It begins to develop around age five or six and is learned from an individual’s parents, teachers, and other significant figures.

In addition to providing an account of the various parts of the personality, Freud also suggested the ways in which personality developed during childhood. He argued that psychosexual development occurs as children pass through a series of stages in which plea- sure, or gratification, is focused on a particular biological function and body part. As illustrated in Table 1-3 on page 16, he suggested that pleasure shifts from the mouth (the oral stage) to the anus (the anal stage) and eventually to the genitals (the phallic stage and the genital stage).

According to Freud, if children are unable to gratify themselves sufficiently during a par- ticular stage, or conversely, if they receive too much gratification, fixation may occur. Fixa- tion is behavior reflecting an earlier stage of development due to an unresolved conflict. For instance, fixation at the oral stage might produce an adult who is unusually absorbed in oral activities—eating, talking, or chewing gum. Freud also argued that fixation is represented through symbolic sorts of oral activities, such as the use of “biting” sarcasm.

eRIKsON’s PsyChOsOCIAL TheORy. Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, who lived from 1902 to 1994, provided an alternative psychodynamic view in his theory of psychosocial development, which emphasizes our social interaction with other people. In Erikson’s view, both society and culture challenge and shape us. Psychosocial development encompasses changes in our interactions with and understandings of one another as well as in our know- ledge and understanding of ourselves as members of society (Erikson, 1963; Côtè, 2005; Dunkel, Kim, Papini, 2012).

Erikson’s theory suggests that developmental change occurs throughout our lives in eight distinct stages (see Table 1-3 on page 16). The stages emerge in a fixed pattern and are similar for all people. Erikson argued that each stage presents a crisis or conflict that the individual must resolve. Although no crisis is ever fully resolved, making life increasingly complicated, the individual must at least address the crisis of each stage sufficiently to deal with demands made during the next stage of development.

Unlike Freud, who regarded development as relatively complete by adolescence, Erikson suggested that growth and change continue throughout the life span. For instance, as we’ll discuss further in Chapter 16, Erikson suggested that during middle adulthood, people pass through the generativity versus stagnation stage, in which their contributions to family, community, and society can produce either positive feelings about the continuity of life or a sense of stagnation and disappointment about what they are passing on to future generations (de St. Aubin, McAdams, & Kim, 2004).

AssessINg The PsyChODyNAMIC PeRsPeCTIve. It is hard for us to grasp the full significance of psychodynamic theories represented by Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development. Freud’s introduction of the notion that uncon- scious influences affect behavior was a monumental accomplishment, and that it seems at all reasonable to us shows how extensively the idea of the unconscious has pervaded thinking in Western cultures. In fact, work by contemporary researchers studying memory and learning suggests that we carry with us memories—of which we are not consciously aware—that have a significant impact on our behavior. The example of Marisol, who was in a car accident when she was a baby, shows one application of psychodynamically based thinking and research.

psychosexual development according to Freud, a series of stages that children pass through in which pleasure, or gratification, focuses on a particular biological function and body part.

psychosocial development the approach that encompasses changes in our interactions with and understandings of one another, as well as in our knowledge and understanding of ourselves as members of society.

Erik Erikson.

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Some of the most basic principles of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory have been called into question, however, because they have not been validated by subsequent research. In particular, the notion that people pass through stages in childhood that determine their adult personalities has little definitive research support. In addition, because much of Freud’s theory was based on a limited population of upper-middle-class Austrians living during a strict, puritanical era, its application to broad, multicultural populations is ques- tionable. Finally, because Freud’s theory focuses primarily on male development, it has been criticized as sexist and may be interpreted as devaluing women. For such reasons, many developmentalists question Freud’s theory (Guterl, 2002; Messer & McWilliams, 2003; Schachter, 2005).

Erikson’s view that development continues throughout the life span is highly important— and has received considerable support. However, the theory also has its drawbacks. Like

TAbLe 1-3 Freud’s and Erikson’s Theories

Approximate Age

freud’s stages of Psychosexual Development

Major Characteristics of freud’s stages

erikson’s stages of Psychosocial Development

Positive and Negative Outcomes of erikson’s stages

Birth to 12–18 months

Oral Interest in oral gratification from sucking, eating, mouthing, biting

Trust vs. mistrust Positive: Feelings of trust from environmental support

Negative: Fear and concern regarding others

12–18 months to 3 years

Anal Gratification from expelling and withholding feces; coming to terms with society’s controls relating to toilet training

Autonomy vs. shame and doubt

Positive: Self-sufficiency if exploration is encouraged

Negative: Doubts about self, lack of independence

3 to 5–6 years Phallic Interest in the genitals; coming to terms with Oedipal conflict, leading to identification with same-sex parent

Initiative vs. guilt Positive: Discovery of ways to initiate actions

Negative: Guilt from actions and thoughts

5–6 years to adolescence

Latency Sexual concerns largely unimportant

Industry vs. inferiority Positive: Development of sense of competence Negative: Feelings of inferiority, no sense of mastery

Adolescence to adulthood (Freud) Adolescence (Erikson)

Genital Reemergence of sexual interests and establishment of mature sexual relationships

Identity vs. role diffusion Positive: Awareness of uniqueness of self, knowledge of role to be followed Negative: Inability to identify appropriate roles in life

Early adulthood (Erikson)

Intimacy vs. isolation Positive: Development of loving, sexual relationships and close friendships Negative: Fear of relationships with others

Middle adulthood (Erikson)

Generativity vs. stagnation

Positive: Sense of contribution to continuity of life

Negative: Trivialization of one’s activities

Late adulthood (Erikson)

Ego-integrity vs. despair Positive: Sense of unity in life’s accomplishments Negative: Regret over lost opportunities of life

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Freud’s theory, it focuses more on men’s than women’s development. It is also vague in some respects, making it difficult for researchers to test rigorously. And, as is the case with psychodynamic theories in general, it is difficult to make definitive predictions about a given individual’s behavior using the theory. In sum, then, the psychodynamic perspective provides good descriptions of past behavior, but imprecise predictions of fu- ture behavior (Whitbourne et al., 1992; Zauszniewski & Martin, 1999; de St. Aubin & McAdams, 2004).

The Behavioral Perspective: Focusing on Observable Behavior When Elissa Sheehan was three, a large brown dog bit her, and she needed dozens of stitches and several operations. From the time she was bitten, she broke into a sweat whenever she saw a dog, and in fact never enjoyed being around any pet.

To a lifespan development specialist using the behavioral perspective, the explanation for Elissa’s behavior is straightforward: She has a learned fear of dogs. Rather than looking inside the organism at unconscious processes, the behavioral perspective suggests that the keys to understanding development are observable behavior and outside stimuli in the environment. If we know the stimuli, we can predict the behavior. In this respect, the behavioral perspective reflects the view that nurture is more important to development than nature.

Behavioral theories reject the notion that people universally pass through a series of stages. Instead, people are assumed to be affected by the environmental stimuli to which they happen to be exposed. Developmental patterns, then, are personal, reflecting a particular set of environmental stimuli, and behavior is the result of continuing exposure to specific factors in the environment. Furthermore, developmental change is viewed in quantitative, rather than qualitative, terms. For instance, behavioral theories hold that advances in problem-solving capabilities as children age are largely a result of greater mental capacities, rather than changes in the kind of thinking that children are able to bring to bear on a problem.

CLAssICAL CONDITIONINg: sTIMuLus subsTITuTION.

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of spe- cialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities. (Watson, 1925)

With these words, John B. Watson, one of the first American psychologists to advocate a behavioral approach, summed up the behavioral perspective. Watson, who lived from 1878 to 1958, believed strongly that we could gain a full understanding of development by carefully studying the stimuli that composed the environment. In fact, he argued that by effectively controlling a person’s environment, it was possible to produce virtually any behavior.

As we’ll consider further in Chapter 5, classical conditioning occurs when an organism learns to respond in a particular way to a neutral stimulus that normally does not evoke that type of response. For instance, if a dog is repeatedly exposed to the pairing of the sound of a bell and the presentation of meat, it may learn to react to the bell alone in the same way it reacts to the meat—by salivating and wagging its tail with excitement. Dogs don’t typically respond to bells in this way; the behavior is a result of conditioning, a form of learning in which the response associated with one stimulus (food) comes to be connected to another—in this case, the bell.

The same process of classical conditioning explains how we learn emotional responses. In the case of dog-bite victim Elissa Sheehan, for instance, Watson would say that one stimulus has been substituted for another: Elissa’s unpleasant experience with a particular dog (the ini- tial stimulus) has been transferred to other dogs and to pets in general.

behavioral perspective the approach suggesting that the keys to understanding development are observable behavior and outside stimuli in the environment.

John B. Watson.

classical conditioning a type of learning in which an organism responds in a particular way to a neutral stimulus that normally does not bring about that type of response.

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OPeRANT CONDITIONINg. In addition to classical conditioning, other types of learning also derive from the behavioral perspective. The learning approach that probably has had the greatest influence is operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a form of learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened by its association with positive or negative consequences. It differs from classical conditioning in that the response being conditioned is voluntary and purposeful rather than automatic (such as salivating).

In operant conditioning, formulated and championed by psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904–1990), individuals learn to act deliberately on their environments in order to bring about desired consequences (Skinner, 1975). In a sense, then, people operate on their environ- ments to bring about a desired state of affairs.

Whether or not children and adults will seek to repeat a behavior depends on whether it is followed by reinforcement. Reinforcement is the process by which a stimulus is pro- vided that increases the probability that a preceding behavior will be repeated. Hence, a student is apt to work harder in school if he or she receives good grades; workers are likely to labor harder at their jobs if their efforts are tied to pay increases; and people are more apt to buy lottery tickets if they are reinforced by winning occasionally. In addition, punishment, the introduction of an unpleasant or a painful stimulus or the removal of a desirable stimulus, will decrease the probability that a preceding behavior will occur in the future.

Behavior that is reinforced, then, is more likely to be repeated in the future, while behavior that receives no reinforcement or is punished is likely to be discontinued, or in the language of operant conditioning, extinguished. Principles of operant conditioning are used in behavior modification, a formal technique for promoting the frequency of desirable behaviors and decreasing the incidence of unwanted ones. Behavior modification has been used in a variety of situations, ranging from teaching severely retarded people the rudiments of language to helping people stick to diets (Hoek & Gendall, 2006; Matson & LoVullo, 2008; Wupperman et al., 2012).

sOCIAL-COgNITIve LeARNINg TheORy: LeARNINg ThROugh IMITATION. A five-year-old boy seriously injures his 22-month-old cousin while imitating a violent wrestling move he had seen on television. Although the infant sustained spinal cord injuries, he improved and was discharged five weeks after his hospital admission (Reuters Health eLine, 2002).

Cause and effect? We can’t know for sure, but it certainly seems possible, especially look- ing at the situation from the perspective of social-cognitive learning theory. According to developmental psychologist Albert Bandura and colleagues, a significant amount of learning is explained by social-cognitive learning theory, an approach that emphasizes learning by observing the behavior of another person, called a model (Bandura, 1994, 2002).

According to social-cognitive learning theory, behavior is learned primarily through observation and not through trial and error, as it is with operant conditioning. We don’t need to experience the consequences of a behavior ourselves to learn it. Social-cognitive learning theory holds that when we see the behavior of a model being rewarded, we are likely to imi- tate that behavior. For instance, in one classic experiment, children who were afraid of dogs were exposed to a model, nicknamed the “Fearless Peer,” who was seen playing happily with a dog (Bandura, Grusec, & Menlove, 1967). After exposure, the children who previously had been afraid were more likely to approach a strange dog than children who had not seen the model.

Bandura suggests that social-cognitive learning proceeds in four steps (Bandura, 1986). First, an observer must pay attention and perceive the most critical features of a model’s behavior. Second, the observer must successfully recall the behavior. Third, the observer must reproduce the behavior accurately. Finally, the observer must be motivated to learn and carry out the behavior.

On the reality show Survivor, contestants often must learn new survival skills in order to be successful. What form of learning is being demonstrated on this show?

From a social worker’s perspective:

How do the concepts of social learning and modeling

relate to the mass media, and how might exposure

to mass media influence a child’s family life?

operant conditioning a form of learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened by its association with positive or negative consequences.

behavior modification a formal technique for promoting the frequency of desirable behaviors and decreasing the incidence of unwanted ones.

social-cognitive learning theory learning by observing the behavior of another person, called a model.

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AssessINg The behAvIORAL PeRsPeCTIve. Research using the behavioral per- spective has made significant contributions, ranging from techniques for educating children with severe mental retardation to identifying procedures for curbing aggression. At the same time, some controversies surround the behavioral perspective. For example, although they are part of the same general behavioral perspective, classical and operant conditioning and social learning theory diverge in some basic ways. Both classical and operant conditioning present learning in terms of external stimuli and responses, in which the only important factors are the observable features of the environment. In such an analysis, people and other organisms are like inanimate “black boxes,” nothing that occurs inside the box is understood—nor much cared about, for that matter.

To social learning theorists, such an analysis is an oversimplification. They argue that what makes people different from rats and pigeons is the occurrence of mental activity, in the form of thoughts and expectations. A full understanding of people’s development, they main- tain, cannot occur without moving beyond external stimuli and responses.

In many ways, social learning theory has come to predominate in recent decades over classical and operant conditioning theories. In fact, another perspective that focuses explicitly on internal mental activity has become enormously influential. This is the cognitive approach, which we consider next.

The Cognitive Perspective: Examining the Roots of Understanding When three-year-old Jake is asked why it sometimes rains, he answers “so the flowers can grow.” When his 11-year-old sister Lila is asked the same question, she responds “because of evaporation from the surface of the earth.” And when their cousin Ajima, who is studying meteorology in graduate school, considers the same question, her extended answer includes a discussion of cumulo-nimbus clouds, the Coriolis effect, and synoptic charts.

To a developmental theorist using the cognitive perspective, the difference in the sophis- tication of the answers is evidence of a different degree of knowledge and understanding, or cognition. The cognitive perspective focuses on the processes that allow people to know, understand, and think about the world.

The cognitive perspective emphasizes how people internally represent and think about the world. By using this perspective, developmental researchers hope to understand how children and adults process information and how their ways of thinking and understanding affect their behavior. They also seek to learn how cognitive abilities change as people develop, the degree to which cognitive development represents quantitative and qualitative growth in intellectual abilities, and how different cognitive abilities are related to one another.

PIAgeT’s TheORy Of COgNITIve DeveLOPMeNT. No single person has had a greater impact on the study of cognitive development than Jean Piaget. A Swiss psychologist who lived from 1896 to 1980, Piaget proposed that all people pass in a fixed sequence through a series of universal stages of cognitive development. He suggested that not only does the quantity of information increase in each stage, but the quality of knowledge and understand- ing changes as well. His focus was on the change in cognition that occurs as children move from one stage to the next (Piaget, 1952, 1962, 1983).

Although we’ll consider Piaget’s theory in detail beginning in Chapter 5, we can get a broad sense of it now. Piaget suggested that human thinking is arranged into schemes, that is, organized mental patterns that represent behaviors and actions. In infants, such schemes represent concrete behavior—a scheme for sucking, for reaching, and for each separate behav- ior. In older children, the schemes become more sophisticated and abstract, such as the set of skills involved in riding a bike or playing an interactive video game. Schemes are like intel- lectual computer software programs that direct and determine how data from the world are looked at and handled (Parker, 2005).

cognitive perspective the approach that focuses on the processes that allow people to know, understand, and think about the world.

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Piaget suggests that the growth in children’s understanding of the world can be explained by the two basic principles of assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the pro- cess in which people understand an experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development and way of thinking. Assimilation occurs when people use their current ways of thinking about and understanding the world to perceive and understand a new experience. In contrast, accommodation refers to changes in existing ways of thinking in response to encoun- ters with new stimuli or events. Assimilation and accommodation work in tandem to bring about cognitive development.

Assessing Piaget’s Theory. Piaget has profoundly influenced our understanding of cog- nitive development and is one of the towering figures in lifespan development. He provided masterful descriptions of how intellectual growth proceeds during childhood—descriptions that have stood the test of literally thousands of investigations. By and large, then, Piaget’s broad view of the sequence of cognitive development is accurate.

However, the specifics of the theory, particularly in terms of change in cognitive capa- bilities over time, have been called into question. For instance, some cognitive skills clearly emerge earlier than Piaget suggested. Furthermore, the universality of Piaget’s stages has been disputed. A growing amount of evidence suggests that the emergence of particular cogni- tive skills occurs according to a different timetable in non-Western cultures. And in every culture, some people never seem to reach Piaget’s highest level of cognitive sophistication: for- mal, logical thought (McDonald & Stuart-Hamilton, 2003; Genovese, 2006; De Jesus-Zayas, Buigas, & Denney, 2012).

Ultimately, the greatest criticism leveled at the Piagetian perspective is that cognitive development is not necessarily as discontinuous as Piaget’s stage theory suggests. Remem- ber that Piaget argued that growth proceeds in four distinct stages in which the quality of cogni tion differs from one stage to the next. However, many developmental researchers argue that growth is considerably more continuous. These critics have suggested an alternative per- spective, known as the information processing approach, which focuses on the processes that underlie learning, memory, and thinking throughout the life span.

INfORMATION PROCessINg APPROAChes. Information processing approaches have become an important alternative to Piagetian approaches. Information processing approaches to cognitive development seek to identify the ways individuals take in, use, and store information.

Information processing approaches grew out of developments in the electronic process- ing of information, particularly as carried out by computers. They assume that even complex behavior such as learning, remembering, categorizing, and thinking can be broken down into a series of individual, specific steps.

Like computers, children are assumed by information processing approaches to have lim- ited capacity for processing information. As they develop, however, they employ increasingly sophisticated strategies that allow them to process information more efficiently.

In stark contrast to Piaget’s view that thinking undergoes qualitative advances as children age, information processing approaches assume that development is marked more by quanti- tative advances. Our capacity to handle information changes with age, as does our processing speed and efficiency. Furthermore, information processing approaches suggest that as we age, we are better able to control the nature of processing and that we can change the strategies we use to process information.

An information processing approach that builds on Piaget’s research is known as neo- Piagetian theory. In contrast to Piaget’s original work, which viewed cognition as a single sys- tem of increasingly sophisticated general cognitive abilities, neo-Piagetian theory considers cognition as being made up of different types of individual skills. Using the terminology of information processing approaches, neo-Piagetian theory suggests that cognitive development proceeds quickly in certain areas and more slowly in others. For example, reading ability and

information processing approaches mod- els that seek to identify the ways individuals take in, use, and store information.

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the skills needed to recall stories may progress sooner than the sorts of abstract computational abilities used in algebra or trigonometry. Furthermore, neo-Piagetian theorists believe that experience plays a greater role in advancing cognitive development than traditional Piagetian approaches claim (Case, Demetriou, & Platsidou, 2001; Yan & Fischer, 2002; Loewen, 2006).

Assessing Information Processing Approaches. As we’ll see in future chapters, information processing approaches have become a central part of our understanding of devel- opment. At the same time, they do not offer a complete explanation for behavior. For example, information processing approaches have paid little attention to behavior such as creativity, in which the most profound ideas often are developed in a seemingly nonlogical, nonlinear man- ner. In addition, they do not take into account the social context in which development takes place. That’s one of the reasons that theories emphasizing the social and cultural aspects of development have become increasingly popular—as we’ll discuss next.

COgNITIve NeuROsCIeNCe APPROAChes. One of the most recent additions to the array of approaches taken by lifespan developmentalists, cognitive neuroscience approaches look at cognitive development through the lens of brain processes. Like other cognitive perspectives, cognitive neuroscience approaches consider internal, mental pro- cesses, but they focus specifically on the neurological activity that underlies thinking, prob- lem solving, and other cognitive behavior.

Cognitive neuroscientists seek to identify actual locations and functions within the brain that are related to different types of cognitive activity, rather than simply assuming that there are hypothetical or theoretical cognitive structures related to thinking. For example, using sophisticated brain scanning techniques, cognitive neuroscientists have demonstrated that thinking about the meaning of a word activates different areas of the brain than thinking about how the word sounds when spoken.

The work of cognitive neuroscientists is also providing clues to the cause of autism, a major developmental disability that can produce profound language deficits and self- injurious behavior in young children. For example, neuroscientists have found that the brains of children with the disorder show explosive, dramatic growth in the first year of life, making their heads significantly larger than those of children without the disorder (see Figure 1-1). By identifying children with the disorder very early in their lives, health- care providers can provide crucial early intervention (Akshoomoff, 2006; Nadel & Poss, 2007; Lewis & Elman, 2008).

Cognitive neuroscience approaches are also on the forefront of cutting-edge research that has identified specific genes associated with disorders ranging from physical problems such as breast cancer to psychological disorders such as schizophrenia. Identifying the genes that make one vulnerable to such disorders is the first step in genetic engineering in which gene therapy can reduce or even prevent the disorder from occurring (Strobel et al., 2007; Ranganath, Minzenberg, & Ragland, 2008; Rodnitzky, 2012).

AssessINg COgNITIve NeuROsCIeNCe APPROAChes. Cognitive neuro- science approaches represent a new frontier in child and adolescent development. Using sophisticated measurement techniques that many of them developed only in the last few years, cognitive neuroscientists are able to peer into the inner functioning of the brain. Advances in our understanding of genetics also has opened a new window into both normal and abnormal development and has suggested a variety of treatments for abnormalities.

Critics of the cognitive neuroscience approach have suggested that it sometimes provides a better description than explanation of developmental phenomena. For instance, finding that children with autism have larger brains than those without the disorder does not explain why their brains became larger—that’s a question that remains to be answered. Still, such work not only offers important clues to appropriate treatments, but ultimately it can lead to a full understanding of a range of developmental phenomena.

cognitive neuroscience approaches approaches that examine cognitive develop- ment through the lens of brain processes.

Figure 1-1 brain size Matters Neuroscientists have found evidence that the brains of children with autism are somewhat larger than those of children without the disorder. This finding might help identify cases of autism early, allow- ing for more effective intervention and treatment.

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The Humanistic Perspective: Concentrating on the Unique Qualities of Human Beings The unique qualities of humans are the central focus of the humanistic perspective, the fourth of the major theories used by lifespan developmentalists. Rejecting the notion that our behav- ior is largely determined by unconscious processes, by learning from our environment, or by rational cognitive processing, the humanistic perspective contends that people have a natural capacity to make decisions about their lives and to control their behavior. According to this approach, each individual has the ability and motivation to reach more advanced levels of ma- turity, and people naturally seek to reach their full potential.

The humanistic perspective emphasizes free will, the ability of humans to make choices and come to decisions about their lives. Instead of relying on societal standards, then, peo- ple are assumed to be motivated to make their own decisions about what they do with their lives.

Carl Rogers, one of the major proponents of the humanistic perspective, suggested that all people have a need for positive regard that results from an underlying wish to be loved and respected. Because it is other people who provide this positive regard, we become dependent on them. Consequently, our view of ourselves and our self-worth is a reflection of how we think others view us (Rogers, 1971; Motschnig & Nykl, 2003). Rogers, along with another key figure in the humanistic perspective, Abraham Maslow, suggests that self-actualization is a primary goal in life. Self-actualization is a state of self-fulfillment in which people achieve their highest potential in their own unique way. Although the concept initially was deemed to apply to only a few select, famous people, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and Albert Einstein, later theorists expanded the concept to apply to any person who realizes his or her own potential and possibilities (Maslow, 1970; Jones & Crandall, 1991; Sheldon, Joiner, & Pettit, 2003; Machiodi, 2012).

AssessINg The huMANIsTIC PeRsPeCTIve. Despite its emphasis on impor- tant and unique human qualities, the humanistic perspective has not had a major impact on the field of lifespan development. Its lack of influence is primarily due to its inability to identify any sort of broad developmental change that is the result of increasing age or experience. Still, some of the concepts drawn from the humanistic perspective, such as self-actualization, have helped describe important aspects of human behavior and are widely discussed in areas ranging from health care to business (Laas, 2006; Zalenski & Raspa, 2006; Elkins, 2009).

The Contextual Perspective: Taking a Broad Approach to Development Although lifespan developmentalists often consider the course of development separately in terms of physical, cognitive, personality, and social factors, such a categorization has one serious drawback: In the real world, none of these broad influences occurs in isolation from any other. Instead, there is a constant, ongoing interaction between the different types of influence.

The contextual perspective considers the relationship between individuals and their physical, cognitive, personality, and social worlds. It suggests that a person’s unique develop- ment cannot be properly viewed without seeing how that person is enmeshed within a rich social and cultural context. We’ll consider two major theories that fall under this category, Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological approach and Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.

The bIOeCOLOgICAL APPROACh TO DeveLOPMeNT. In acknowledging the problem with traditional approaches to lifespan development, psychologist Urie Bronfen- brenner (1989, 2000, 2002) has proposed an alternative perspective, called the bioecological

humanistic perspective the theory con- tending that people have a natural capacity to make decisions about their lives and control their behavior.

contextual perspective the theory that considers the relationship between individuals and their physical, cognitive, personality, and social worlds.

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approach. The bioecological approach suggests that five levels of the environment simultane- ously influence individuals. Bronfenbrenner notes that we cannot fully understand develop- ment without considering how a person is influenced by each of these levels (illustrated in Figure 1-2).

• The microsystem is the everyday, immediate environment in which children lead their daily lives. Homes, caregivers, friends, and teachers all are influences that are part of the micro- system. But the child is not just a passive recipient of these influences. Instead, children actively help construct the microsystem, shaping the immediate world in which they live. The microsystem is the level at which most traditional work in child development has been directed.

• The mesosystem provides connections between the various aspects of the microsystem. Like links in a chain, the mesosystem binds children to parents, students to teachers, em- ployees to bosses, friends to friends. It acknowledges the direct and indirect influences that bind us to one another, such as those that affect a mother or father who has a bad day at the office and then is short-tempered with her or his son or daughter at home.

• The exosystem represents broader influences, encompassing societal institutions such as local government, the community, schools, places of worship, and the local media. Each of these larger institutions of society can have an immediate, and major, impact on per- sonal development, and each affects how the microsystem and mesosystem operate. For example, the quality of a school will affect a child’s cognitive development and potentially can have long-term consequences.

• The macrosystem represents the larger cultural influences on an individual. Society in gen- eral, types of governments, religious and political value systems, and other broad, encom- passing factors are parts of the macrosystem. For example, the value a culture or society places on education or the family will affect the values of the people who live in that society.

bioecological perspective the perspective suggesting that different levels of the environ- ment simultaneously influence individuals.

Figure 1-2 bronfenbrenner’s Approach to Development Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological approach to development offers five levels of the environ- ment that simultaneously influence individuals: the macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem, and microsystem.

The Individual: Sex Age

Health etc.

Friends of family

Neighbors

Family

Church group

Neighborhood play area

School

Health services

Peers

Mass media

Legal services

Social welfare services

Chronosystem (patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life course; sociohistorical conditions)

(s o

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Exosystem

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Children are part of both a broader culture (such as Western culture) and are influenced by their membership in a particular subculture (for instance, being part of the Mexican American subculture).

• Finally, the chronosystem underlies each of the previous systems. It involves the way the passage of time, including historical events (such as the terrorist attacks in September of 2001) and more gradual historical changes (such as changes in the number of women who work outside of the home), affect children’s development.

The bioecological approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of the influences on devel- opment. Because the various levels are related to one another, a change in one part of the system affects other parts of the system. For instance, a parent’s loss of a job (involving the mesosystem) has an impact on a child’s microsystem.

Conversely, changes on one environmental level may make little difference if other lev- els are not also changed. For instance, improving the school environment may have a negli- gible effect on academic performance if children receive little support for academic success at home. Similarly, the bioecological approach illustrates that the influences among different family members are multidirectional. Parents don’t just influence their child’s behavior—the child also influences the parents’ behavior.

Finally, the bioecological approach stresses the importance of broad cultural factors that affect development. Researchers in lifespan development increasingly look at how member- ship in cultural and subcultural groups influences behavior.

Consider, for instance, whether you agree that children should be taught that their class- mates’ assistance is indispensable to getting good grades in school, or that they should defi- nitely plan to continue their fathers’ businesses, or that children should follow their parents’ advice in determining their career plans. If you have been raised in the most widespread North American culture, you would likely disagree with all three statements, since they violate the premises of individualism, the dominant Western philosophy that emphasizes personal identity, uniqueness, freedom, and the worth of the individual.

On the other hand, if you were raised in a traditional Asian culture, your agreement with the three statements would be considerably more likely. The reason? The statements reflect the value orientation known as collectivism—the notion that the well-being of the group is more important than that of the individual. People raised in collectivistic cultures tend to empha- size the welfare of the groups to which they belong, sometimes even at the expense of their own personal well-being.

The bioecological approach to develop- ment focuses on the vast differences in environments in which children develop.

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The individualism–collectivism spectrum is one of several di- mensions along which cultures differ, and it illustrates differences in the cultural contexts in which people operate. Such broad cultural values play an important role in shaping the ways people view the world and behave (Leung, 2005; Garcia & Saewyc, 2007; Yu & Stiff- man, 2007).

Assessing the Bioecological Approach. Although Bronfen- brenner considers biological influences as an important component of the bioecological approach, ecological influences are central to the the- ory. Some critics argue that the perspective pays insufficient attention to biological factors. Still, the bioecological approach is of considerable importance to child development, suggesting as it does the multiple levels at which the environment affects children’s development.

vygOTsKy’s sOCIOCuLTuRAL TheORy. To Russian developmentalist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, a full understanding of development was impossible without taking into account the culture in which people develop. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory emphasizes how cognitive development proceeds as a result of social interactions between members of a culture (Vygotsky, 1926/1997, 1979; Beilin, 1996; Winsler, 2003; Edwards, 2005; Göncü, 2012).

Vygotsky, who lived a brief life from 1896 to 1934, argued that children’s understand- ing of the world is acquired through their problem-solving interactions with adults and other children. As children play and cooperate with others, they learn what is important in their society and, at the same time, advance cognitively in their understanding of the world. Con- sequently, to understand the course of development, we must consider what is meaningful to members of a given culture.

More than most other theories, sociocultural theory emphasizes that development is a reciprocal transaction between the people in a child’s environment and the child. Vygotsky believed that people and settings influence the child, who in turn influences the people and settings. This pattern continues in an endless loop, with children being both recipients of socialization influences and sources of influence. For example, a child raised with his or her extended family nearby will grow up with a different sense of family life than a child whose relatives live a considerable distance away. Those relatives, too, are affected by that situation and that child, depending on how close and frequent their contact is with the child.

Assessing Vygotsky’s Theory. Sociocultural theory has become increasingly in- fluential, despite Vygotsky’s death almost eight decades ago. The reason is the growing acknowledgment of the central importance of cultural factors in development. Children do not develop in a cultural vacuum. Instead, their attention is directed by society to cer- tain areas, and as a consequence, they develop particular kinds of skills that are an out- come of their cultural environment. Vygotsky was one of the first developmentalists to recognize and acknowledge the importance of culture, and—as today’s society becomes increasingly multicultural—sociocultural theory is helping us to understand the rich and varied influences that shape development (Fowers & Davidov, 2006; Koshmanova, 2007; Rogan, 2007).

Sociocultural theory is not without its critics, however. Some suggest that Vygotsky’s strong emphasis on the role of culture and social experience led him to ignore the effects of biological factors on development. In addition, his perspective seems to minimize the role that individuals can play in shaping their own environment. As we can see from the emphasis of the humanistic perspective—described on page 22—each individual can play a central role in determining the course of his or her own development.

According to Vygotsky, children can develop cognitively in their understanding of the world, and learn what is important in society, through play and cooperation with others.

sociocultural theory the approach that em- phasizes how cognitive development proceeds as a result of social interactions between members of a culture.

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Evolutionary Perspectives: Our Ancestors’ Contributions to Behavior One increasingly influential approach is the evolutionary perspective, the sixth and final de- velopmental perspective that we will consider. The evolutionary perspective seeks to identify behavior that is the result of our genetic inheritance from our ancestors (Buss & Kern, 2003; Bjorklund, 2005; Goetz & Shackelford, 2006). Watch the Video on MyDevelopmentLab

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Evolutionary approaches have grown out of the groundbreaking work of Charles Darwin. In 1859, Darwin argued in his book On the Origin of Species that a process of natural selection creates traits in a species that are adaptive to its environment. Using Darwin’s arguments, evolu- tionary approaches contend that our genetic inheritance determines not only such physical traits as skin and eye color, but certain personality traits and social behaviors as well. For instance, some evolutionary developmentalists suggest that behaviors such as shyness and jealousy are produced in part by genetic causes, presumably because they helped increase the survival rates of humans’ ancient relatives (Easton, Schipper, & Shackelford, 2007; Buss, 2003, 2009, 2012).

The evolutionary perspective draws heavily on the field of ethology, which examines the ways in which our biological makeup influences our behavior. A primary proponent of ethol- ogy was Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989), who discovered that newborn geese are genetically pre- programmed to become attached to the first moving object they see after birth. His work, which demonstrated the importance of biological determinants in influencing behavior pat- terns, ultimately led developmentalists to consider the ways in which human behavior might reflect inborn genetic patterns.

As we’ll consider further in Chapter 2, the evolutionary perspective encompasses one of the fastest growing areas within the field of lifespan development: behavioral genetics. Be- havioral genetics studies the effects of heredity on behavior. Behavioral geneticists seek to un- derstand how we might inherit certain behavioral traits and how the environment influences whether we actually display such traits. It also considers how genetic factors may produce psy- chological disorders such as schizophrenia (Li, 2003; Bjorklund & Ellis, 2005; Rembis, 2009).

AssessINg The evOLuTIONARy PeRsPeCTIve. There is little argument among lifespan developmentalists that Darwin’s evolutionary theory provides an accurate description of basic genetic processes, and the evolutionary perspective is increasingly visible in the field of lifespan development. However, applications of the evolutionary perspective have been subjected to considerable criticism.

evolutionary perspective the theory that seeks to identify behavior that is a result of our genetic inheritance from our ancestors.

Konrad Lorenz, seen here with geese who from their birth have followed him, consid- ered the ways in which behavior reflects inborn genetic patterns.

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Psychologist: Evolutionary Psychology” in to learn more about

the evolutionary perspective.

“Thinking Like a

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Some developmentalists are concerned that because of its focus on genetic and biological aspects of behavior, the evolutionary perspective pays insufficient attention to the environ- mental and social factors involved in producing children’s and adults’ behavior. Other critics argue that there is no good way to experimentally test theories derived from the evolution- ary approach because they all happened so long ago. For example, it is one thing to say that jealousy helped individuals to survive more effectively and another thing to prove it. Still, the evolutionary approach has stimulated a significant amount of research on how our bio- logical inheritance at least partially influences our traits and behaviors (Angus & Reeve, 2003; Bjorklund, 2006; Baptista et al., 2008).

“Which Approach Is Right?” Is the Wrong Question We have considered the six major perspectives used in lifespan development—psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, contextual, and evolutionary. These perspectives are summa- rized in Table 1-4 and will be applied to the case of a young adult who is overweight. It would be natural to wonder which of the six provides the most accurate account of human development.

For several reasons, this question is not entirely appropriate. For one thing, each per- spective emphasizes somewhat different aspects of development. For instance, the psychody- namic approach emphasizes emotions, motivational conflicts, and unconscious determinants of behavior. In contrast, behavioral perspectives emphasize overt behavior, paying far more attention to what people do than to what goes on inside their heads, which is deemed largely irrelevant. The cognitive and humanistic perspectives take quite the opposite tack, looking more at what people think than at what they do. Finally, the evolutionary perspective focuses on how inherited biological factors underlie development.

TAbLe 1-4 Major Perspectives on Lifespan Development

Perspective Key Ideas About human behavior and Development

Major Proponents example

Psychodynamic Behavior throughout life is motivated by inner, unconscious forces, stemming from childhood, over which we have little control.

Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson

This view might suggest that a young adult who is overweight has a fixation in the oral stage of development.

Behavioral Development can be understood through studying observable behavior and environmental stimuli.

John B. Watson, B. F. Skinner, Albert Bandura

In this perspective, a young adult who is overweight might be seen as not being rewarded for good nutritional and exercise habits.

Cognitive Emphasis on how changes or growth in the ways people know, understand, and think about the world affect behavior.

Jean Piaget This view might suggest that a young adult who is overweight hasn’t learned effective ways to stay at a healthy weight and doesn’t value good nutrition.

Humanistic Behavior is chosen through free will and motivated by our natural capacity to strive to reach our full potential.

Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow

In this view, a young adult who is overweight may eventually choose to seek an optimal weight as part of an overall pattern of individual growth.

Contextual Development should be viewed in terms of the interrelationship of a person’s physical, cognitive, personality, and social worlds.

Urie Bronfenbrenner, Lev Vygotsky

In this perspective, being overweight is caused by a number of interrelated factors in that person’s physical, cognitive, personality, and social worlds.

Evolutionary Behavior is the result of genetic inheritance from our ancestors; traits and behavior that are adaptive for promoting the survival of our species have been inherited through natural selection.

Influenced by early work of Charles Darwin, Konrad Lorenz

This view might suggest that a young adult might have a genetic tendency toward obesity because extra fat helped his or her ancestors to survive in times of famine.

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For example, a developmentalist using the psychodynamic approach might consider how the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon might affect chil- dren, unconsciously, for their entire life span. A cognitive approach might focus on how children perceived and came to interpret and understand terrorism, while a contextual approach might consider what personality and social factors led the perpetrators to adopt terrorist tactics.

Clearly, each perspective is based on its own premises and focuses on different aspects of development. Furthermore, the same developmental phenomenon can be looked at from a number of perspectives simultaneously. In fact, some lifespan developmentalists use an eclec- tic approach, drawing on several perspectives simultaneously.

We can think of the different perspectives as analogous to a set of maps of the same gen- eral geographical area. One map may contain detailed depictions of roads; another map may show geographical features; another may show political subdivisions, such as cities, towns, and counties; and still another may highlight particular points of interest, such as scenic areas and historical landmarks. Each of the maps is accurate, but each provides a different point of view and way of thinking. Although no one map is “complete,” by considering them together, we can come to a fuller understanding of the area.

The various theoretical perspectives provide different ways of looking at development. Considering them together paints a fuller portrait of the myriad ways human beings change and grow over the course of their lives. However, not all theories and claims derived from the various perspectives are accurate. How do we choose among competing explanations? The answer is research, which we consider in the final part of this chapter.

The diversity of America is reflected in these children’s faces. The various perspectives on development all seek to improve the human condition by explaining the course of human development over life spans.

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Review and Apply

Review ◼ The psychodynamic perspective looks primarily at the influence of internal, unconscious

forces on development.

◼ The behavioral perspective focuses on external, observable behaviors as the key to development.

◼ The cognitive perspective focuses on mental activity.

◼ The humanistic perspective concentrates on the theory that each individual has the ability and motivation to reach more advanced levels of maturity and that people naturally seek to reach their full potential.

◼ The contextual perspective focuses on the relationship between individuals and the social context in which they lead their lives.

◼ Finally, the evolutionary perspective seeks to identify behavior that is a result of our genetic inheritance from our ancestors.

Applying Lifespan Development ◼ What examples of human behavior have you seen that seem to have been inherited from our

ancestors because they helped individuals survive and adapt more effectively? Why do you think they are inherited?

Research Methods LO 1-6 How are developmental research studies conducted?

LO 1-7 What are some of the ethical issues regarding psychological research?

The Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote of an experiment conducted by Psamtik, the King of Egypt in the seventh century b.c. Psamtik was eager to prove a cherished Egyptian belief, that his people were the oldest race on earth. To test this notion, he developed a hypothesis: If a child was never exposed to the language of his elders, he would instinctively adopt the primal language of humanity—the original language of the first people. Psamtik was certain this would be Egyptian.

For his experiment, Psamtik entrusted two Egyptian infants to the care of a herdsman in an isolated area. They were to be well looked after, but not allowed to leave their cottage. And they were never to hear anyone speak a single word.

When Herodotus investigated the story, he learned that Psamtik’s sought to learn what the first word the children would say. Herodotus claims the experiment worked, but not as Psamtik had hoped. One day, when the children were two years old, they greeted the herds- man with the word “Becos!” The herdsman didn’t know this word but when the children continued to use it, he contacted Psamtik. The king sent for the children who repeated the strange word to him. Psamtik did some research. Becos, it turned out, was “bread” in Phry- gian. Psamtik had to conclude the Phrygians had preceded the Egyptians.

With the perspective of several thousand years, we can easily see the shortcomings—both sci- entific and ethical—in Psamtik’s approach. Yet his procedure represents an improvement over mere speculation, and as such is sometimes seen as the first developmental experiment in recorded history (Hunt, 1993).

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Theories and Hypotheses: Posing Developmental Questions Questions such as those raised by Psamtik drive the study of development. In fact, develo- mentalists are still studying how children learn language. Others are trying to find answers to such questions as, What are the effects of malnutrition on later intellectual performance? How do infants form relationships with their parents, and does participation in day care disrupt such relationships? Why are adolescents particularly susceptible to peer pressure? Can men- tally challenging activities reduce the declines in intellectual abilities related to aging? Do any mental faculties improve with age?

To answer such questions, developmentalists, like all psychologists and other scientists, rely on the scientific method. The scientific method is the process of posing and answer- ing questions using careful, controlled techniques that include systematic, orderly observation and the collection of data. The scientific method involves three major steps: (1) identifying questions of interest, (2) formulating an explanation, and (3) carrying out research that either lends support to the explanation or refutes it.

The scientific method involves the formulation of theories, the broad explanations, and predictions about phenomena of interest that scientists create. For instance, many people the- orize that a crucial bonding period between parent and child takes place immediately after birth, which is a necessary ingredient in forming a lasting parent–child relationship. Without such a bonding period, they assume, the parent–child relationship will be forever compro- mised (Furnham & Weir, 1996).

Developmental researchers use theories to form hypotheses. A hypothesis is a predic- tion stated in a way that permits it to be tested. For instance, someone who subscribes to the general theory that bonding is a crucial ingredient in the parent–child relationship might derive the more specific hypothesis that adopted children whose adoptive parents never had the chance to bond with them immediately after birth may ultimately have less secure re- lationships with their adoptive parents. Others might derive other hypotheses, such as that effective bonding occurs only if it lasts for a certain length of time, or that bonding affects the mother–child relationship, but not the father–child relationship. (In case you’re wondering: As we’ll discuss in Chapter 3, these particular hypotheses have not been upheld; there are no long-term reactions to the separation of parent and child immediately after birth, even if the separation lasts several days.)

Choosing a Research Strategy: Answering Questions Once researchers have formed a hypothesis, they must develop a research strategy for testing its validity. There are two major categories of research: correlational research and experimen- tal research. Correlational research seeks to identify whether an association or relationship between two factors exists. As we’ll see, correlational research cannot be used to determine whether one factor causes changes in the other. For instance, correlational research could tell us if there is an association between the number of minutes a mother and her newborn child are together immediately after birth and the quality of the mother–child relationship when the child reaches two years of age. Such correlational research indicates whether the two fac- tors are associated or related to one another, but not whether the initial contact caused the relationship to develop in a particular way (Schutt, 2001).

In contrast, experimental research is designed to discover causal relationships between various factors. In experimental research, researchers deliberately introduce a change in a carefully structured situation in order to see the consequences of that change. For instance, a researcher conducting an experiment might vary the number of minutes that mothers and children interact immediately following birth, in an attempt to see whether the amount of bonding time affects the mother–child relationship.

Because experimental research is able to answer questions of causality, it is funda- mental to finding answers to various developmental hypotheses. However, some research

scientific method the process of posing and answering questions using careful, controlled techniques that include systematic, orderly observation and the collection of data.

hypothesis a prediction stated in a way that permits it to be tested.

correlational research research that seeks to identify whether an association or relation- ship between two factors exists.

experimental research research designed to discover causal relationships between various factors.

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questions cannot be answered through experiments, for either tech- nical or ethical reasons (for example, it would be unethical to design an experiment in which a group of infants was offered no chance to bond with a caregiver at all). In fact, a great deal of pioneering devel- opmental research—such as that conducted by Piaget and Vygotsky— employed correlational techniques. Consequently, correlational research remains an important tool in the developmental researcher’s toolbox.

Correlational Studies As we’ve noted, correlational research examines the relationship between two variables to determine whether they are associated, or correlated. For instance, researchers interested in the relationship between televised ag- gression and subsequent behavior have found that children who watch a good deal of aggression on television—murders, crime shows, shootings, and the like—tend to be more aggressive than those who watch only a little. In other words, as we’ll discuss in greater detail in Chapter 15, viewing of aggression and actual aggression are strongly associated, or cor- related, with one another (Center for Communication & Social Policy, 1998; Singer & Singer, 2000; Feshbach & Tangney, 2008).

But does this mean we can conclude that the viewing of televised aggression causes the more aggressive behavior of the viewers? Not at all. Consider some of the other possibilities: It might be that being aggressive in the first place makes children more likely to choose to watch violent programs. In such a case, then, it is the aggressive tendency that causes the viewing behavior, and not the other way around.

Or consider another possibility. Suppose that children who are raised in poverty are more likely to behave aggressively and to watch higher levels of aggressive television than those raised in more affluent settings. In this case, it is a third variable—low socioeconomic status— that causes both the aggressive behavior and the television viewing. The various possibilities are illustrated in Figure 1-3.

In experimental research, one uses con- trolled conditions to attempt to discover causal relationships between various factors.

Figure 1-3 finding a Correlation Finding a correlation between two factors does not imply that one factor causes the other factor to vary. For instance, suppose a study found that viewing television shows with high levels of aggression is correlated with actual aggression in children. The correlation may reflect at least three pos- sibilities: (a) watching television programs containing high levels of aggression causes aggression in viewers; (b) children who behave aggressively choose to watch TV programs with high levels of aggression; or (c) some third factor, such as a child’s socioeconomic status, leads both to high viewer aggression and to choosing to watch television programs with high levels of aggression. What other factors, besides socioeconomic status, might be plausible third factors?

High viewer aggression

Choosing to watch television programs

with high aggressive content

High viewer aggression

Choosing to watch television programs

with high aggressive content

Possible Cause Potential Result

High viewer aggression

Low socioeconomic

status

Choosing to watch television programs

with high aggressive content

a

b

c

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In short, finding that two variables are correlated proves nothing about causality. Although the variables may be linked causally, this is not necessarily the case.

Correlational studies do provide important information, however. For instance, as we’ll see in later chapters, we know from correlational studies that the closer the genetic link between two people, the more highly associated is their intelligence. We have learned that the more parents speak to their young children, the more extensive are the children’s vocabularies. And we know from correlational studies that the better the nutrition that infants receive, the fewer the cognitive and social problems they experience later (Hart, 2004; Colom, Lluis-Font, & Andrès-Pueyo, 2005; Robb, Richert, & Wartella, 2009).

The CORReLATION COeffICIeNT. The strength and direction of a relationship be- tween two factors is represented by a mathematical score, called a correlation coefficient, that ranges from +1.0 to -1.0. A positive correlation indicates that as the value of one factor in- creases, it can be predicted that the value of the other will also increase. For instance, if we find that the more money people make in their first job after college, the higher their scores on a survey of job satisfaction, and that people who make less money have lower scores when surveyed about their job satisfaction, we have found a positive correlation. (Higher values of the factor “salary” are associated with higher values of the factor “job satisfaction,” and lower values of “salary” are associated with lower values of “job satisfaction.”) The correlation coeffi- cient, then, would be indicated by a positive number, and the stronger the association between salary and job satisfaction, the closer the number would be to +1.0.

In contrast, a correlation coefficient with a negative value informs us that as the value of one factor increases, the value of the other factor declines. For example, suppose we found that the greater the number of hours adolescents spend using instant messaging on their computers, the worse their academic performance is. Such a finding would result in a nega- tive correlation, ranging between 0 and -1. More instant messaging is associated with lower performance, and less instant messaging is associated with better performance. The stronger the association between instant messaging and school performance, the closer the correlation coefficient will be to -1.0.

Finally, it is possible that two factors are unrelated to one another. For example, it is un- likely that we would find a correlation between school performance and shoe size. In this case, the lack of a relationship would be indicated by a correlation coefficient close to 0.

It is important to reiterate what we noted earlier: Even if the correlation coefficient in- volving two variables is very strong, there is no way we can know whether one factor causes another factor to vary. It simply means that the two factors are associated with one another in a predictable way.

TyPes Of CORReLATIONAL sTuDIes. There are several types of correlational stud- ies. Naturalistic observation is the observation of a naturally occurring behavior without intervention in the situation. For instance, an investigator who wishes to learn how often pre- school children share toys with one another might observe a classroom over a 3-week period, recording how often the preschoolers spontaneously share with one another. The key point about naturalistic observation is that the investigator simply observes the children, without interfering with the situation whatsoever (e.g., Prezbindowski & Lederberg, 2003; Fanger, Frankel, & Hazen, 2012).

Though naturalistic observation has the advantage of identifying what children do in their “natural habitat,” there is an important drawback to the method: Researchers are unable to exert control over factors of interest. For instance, in some cases researchers might find so few naturally occurring instances of the behavior of interest that they are unable to draw any conclusions at all. In addition, children who know they are being watched may modify their behavior as a result of the observation. Consequently, their behavior may not be representa- tive of how they would behave if they were not being watched.

naturalistic observation a type of correla- tional study in which some naturally occurring behavior is observed without intervention in the situation.

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Ethnography and Qualitative Research. Increasingly, naturalistic observation emp loys ethnography a method borrowed from the field of anthropology and used to investigate cultural questions. In ethnography, a researcher’s goal is to understand a culture’s values and attitudes through careful, extended examination. Typically, researchers using ethnography act as partici- pant observers, living for a period of weeks, months, or even years in another culture. By carefully observing everyday life and conducting in-depth interviews, researchers are able to obtain a deep understanding of the nature of life within another culture (Dyson, 2003).

Ethnographic studies are an example of a broader category of research known as qualita- tive research. In qualitative research, researchers choose particular settings of interest and seek to carefully describe, in narrative fashion, what is occurring, and why. Qualitative research can be used to generate hypotheses that can later be tested using more objective, quantitative methods.

Although ethnographic and qualitative studies provide a fine-grained view of behavior in particular settings, they suffer from several drawbacks. As mentioned, the presence of a participant observer may influence the behavior of the individuals being studied. Further- more, because only a small number of individuals are studied, it may be hard to generalize the findings to other settings. Finally, ethnographers carrying out cross-cultural research may misinterpret and misconceive what they are observing, particularly in cultures that are very different from their own (Polkinghorne, 2005).

Case studies involve extensive, in-depth interviews with a particular individual or small group of individuals. They often are used not just to learn about the individual being in- terviewed, but to derive broader principles or draw tentative conclusions that might apply to others. For example, case studies have been conducted on children who display unusual genius and on children who have spent their early years in the wild, apparently without human contact. These case studies have provided important information to researchers and have suggested hypotheses for future investigation (Goldsmith, 2000; Cohen & Cashon, 2003; Wilson, 2003).

Using diaries, participants are asked to keep a record of their behavior on a regular ba- sis. For example, a group of adolescents may be asked to record each time they interact with friends for more than 5 minutes, thereby providing a way to track their social behavior.

Surveys represent another sort of correlational research. In survey research, a group of people chosen to represent some larger population are asked questions about their attitudes, behavior, or thinking on a given topic. For instance, surveys have been conducted about par- ents’ use of punishment on their children and on attitudes toward breastfeeding. From the responses, inferences are drawn regarding the larger population represented by the individu- als being surveyed.

Naturalistic observation is utilized to exam- ine a situation in its natural habitat without interference of any sort. What are some disadvantages of naturalistic observation?

case study study that involves extensive, in-depth interviews with a particular individual or small group of individuals.

survey research a type of study where a group of people chosen to represent some larger population are asked questions about their attitudes, behavior, or thinking on a given topic.

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PsyChOPhysIOLOgICAL MeThODs. Some developmental researchers, particularly those using a cognitive neuroscience approach, make use of psychophysiological methods. Psychophysiological methods focus on the relationship between physiological processes and behavior. For instance, a researcher might examine the relationship between blood flow within the brain and problem-solving capabilities. Similarly, some studies use infants’ heart rate as a measure of their interest in stimuli to which they are exposed (Santesso, Schmidt, & Trainor, 2007; Field, Diego, & Hernandez-Reif, 2009; Mazoyer et al., 2009).

Among the most frequently used psychophysiological measures are the following:

• Electroencephalogram (EEG). The EEG reports electrical activity within the brain re- corded by electrodes placed on the outside of the skull. That brain activity is transformed into a pictorial representation of the brain, permitting the representation of brain wave patterns and diagnosis of disorders such as epilepsy and learning disabilities.

• Computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan. In a CAT scan, a computer constructs an image of the brain by combining thousands of individual X-rays taken at slightly differ- ent angles. Although it does not show brain activity, it does illuminate the structure of the brain.

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. An fMRI provides a detailed, three- dimensional computer-generated image of brain activity by aiming a powerful magnetic field at the brain. It offers one of the best ways of learning about the operation of the brain, down to the level of individual nerves.

Experiments: Determining Cause and Effect In an experiment, an investigator or experimenter typically devises two different conditions (or treatments) and then studies and compares the outcomes of the participants exposed to those two different conditions in order to see how behavior is affected. One group, the treat- ment or experimental group, is exposed to the treatment variable being studied; the other, the control group, is not.

Although the terminology may seem daunting at first, there is an underlying logic that helps sort it out. Think in terms of a medical experiment in which the aim is to test the ef- fectiveness of a new drug. In testing the drug, we wish to see if the drug successfully treats the disease. Consequently, the group that receives the drug would be called the treatment group. In comparison, another group of participants would not receive the drug treatment. Instead, they would be part of the no-treatment control group.

Similarly, suppose you want to see if exposure to movie violence makes viewers more ag- gressive. You might take a group of adolescents and show them a series of movies that contain a great deal of violent imagery. You would then measure their subsequent aggression. This group would constitute the treatment group. For the control group you might take a second group of adolescents, show them movies that contain no aggressive imagery, and then mea- sure their subsequent aggression. By comparing the amount of aggression displayed by mem- bers of the treatment and control groups, you would be able to determine whether exposure to violent imagery produces aggression in viewers. And this is just what a group of researchers in Belgium found: Running an experiment of this very sort, psychologist Jacques-Philippe Leyens and colleagues (Leyens et al., 1975) found that the level of aggression rose significantly for the adolescents who had seen the movies containing violence.

The central feature of this experiment—and all experiments—is the comparison of the consequences of different treatments. The use of both treatment and control groups allows re- searchers to rule out the possibility that something other than the experimental manipulation produced the results found in the experiment. For instance, if a control group was not used, experimenters could not be certain that some other factor, such as the time of day the movies were shown, the need to sit still during the movie, or even the mere passage of time, produced the changes that were observed. By using a control group, then, experimenters can draw ac- curate conclusions about causes and effects.

psychophysiological methods research that focuses on the relationship between physiological processes and behavior.

experiment a process in which an investiga- tor, called an experimenter, devises two dif- ferent experiences for participants and then studies and compares the outcomes.

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INDePeNDeNT AND DePeNDeNT vARIAbLes. The independent variable is the variable that researchers manipulate in the experiment (in our example, it is the type of movie participants saw—violent or nonviolent). In contrast, the dependent variable is the variable that researchers measure in an experiment and expect to change as a result of the experimen- tal manipulation. In our example, the degree of aggressive behavior shown by the participants after viewing violent or nonviolent films is the dependent variable. (One way to remember the difference: A hypothesis predicts how a dependent variable depends on the manipulation of the independent variable.) In an experiment studying the effects of taking a drug, for instance, manipulating whether participants receive or don’t receive a drug is the independent variable. Measurement of the effectiveness of the drug or no-drug treatment is the dependent variable. Every experiment has an independent and dependent variable.

Experimenters need to make sure their studies are not influenced by factors other than those they are manipulating. For this reason, they take great care to make sure that the par- ticipants in both the treatment and control groups are not aware of the purpose of the experi- ment (which could affect their responses or behavior) and that the experimenters do not have any influence over who is chosen for the control and treatment groups. The procedure that is used is known as random assignment. In random assignment, participants are assigned to dif- ferent experimental groups or “conditions” on the basis of chance and chance alone. By using this technique, the laws of statistics ensure that personal characteristics that might affect the outcome of the experiment are divided proportionally among the participants in the different groups, making groups equivalent. Equivalent groups achieved by random assignment allow an experimenter to draw conclusions with confidence.

Figure 1-4 illustrates the Belgian experiment on adolescents exposed to films containing violent or nonviolent imagery and its effects on subsequent aggressive behavior. As you can see, it contains each of the elements of an experiment:

• An independent variable (the assignment to a film condition)

• A dependent variable (measurement of the adolescents’ aggressive behavior)

independent variable the variable that researchers manipulate in an experiment.

dependent variable the variable that researchers measure in an experiment and expect to change as a result of the experimental manipulation.

Figure 1-4 elements of An experiment In this experiment, researchers randomly assigned a group of adolescents to one of two conditions: viewing a film that contained vio- lent imagery, or viewing a film that lacked violent imagery (manipulation of the independent variable). Participants were observed later to determine how much aggression they showed (the dependent variable). Analysis of the findings showed that adolescents exposed to aggressive imagery showed more aggression later. (Based on an experiment by Leyens et al., 1975.)

(a) Identify participants (b) Randomly assign participants to a condition

(c) Manipulate the independent variable

Observe �lm with aggressive imagery

Group 1: Treatment group

Group 2: Control group

Observe �lm with no aggressive imagery

(d) Measure the dependent variable (aggression displayed by participants)

(e) Compare the results of the two groups

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36 PA RT 1 ▸ Beginnings

• Random assignment to condition (viewing a film with aggressive imagery versus a film with nonaggressive imagery)

• A hypothesis that predicts the effect the independent variable will have on the depen- dent variable (that viewing a film with aggressive imagery will produce subsequent aggression)

Given the advantage of experimental research—that it provides a means of determin- ing causality—why aren’t experiments always used? The answer is that there are some situations that a researcher, no matter how ingenious, simply cannot control. And there are some situations in which control would be unethical, even if it were possible. For in- stance, no researcher would be able to assign different groups of infants to parents of high and low socioeconomic status in order to learn the effects of such status on subsequent development. Similarly, we cannot control what a group of children watch on television throughout their childhood years in order to learn if childhood exposure to televised ag- gression leads to aggressive behavior later in life. Consequently, in situations in which ex- periments are logistically or ethically impossible, developmentalists employ correlational research.

Furthermore, it’s also important to keep in mind that a single experiment is insuffi- cient to answer a research question definitively. Before complete confidence can be placed in a conclusion, research must be replicated, or repeated, sometimes using other procedures and techniques with other participants. Sometimes developmentalists use a procedure called meta-analysis, which permits combining the results of many studies into one overall conclu- sion (Peterson & Brown, 2005). Watch the Video on MyDevelopmentLab

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ChOOsINg A ReseARCh seTTINg. Deciding where to conduct a study may be as important as determining what to do. In the Belgian experiment on the influence of exposure to media aggression, the researchers used a real-world setting—a group home for boys who had been convicted of juvenile delinquency. They chose this sample, the group of participants selected for the experiment, because it was useful to have adolescents whose normal level of aggression was relatively high and because they could incorporate showing the films into the everyday life of the home with minimal disruption.

Using a real-world setting like the one in the aggression experiment is the hallmark of a field study. A field study is a research investigation carried out in a naturally occurring set- ting. Field studies may be carried out in preschool classrooms, at community playgrounds, on school buses, or on street corners. Field studies capture behavior in real-life settings, and research participants may behave more naturally than they would if they were brought into a laboratory.

Field studies may be used in both correlational studies and experiments. Field studies typically employ naturalistic observation, the technique we discussed earlier in which re- searchers observe some naturally occurring behavior without intervening or making changes in the situation. For instance, a researcher might examine behavior in a child-care center, view the groupings of adolescents in high school corridors, or observe elderly adults in a senior center.

However, it often is difficult to run an experiment in real-world settings, where it is hard to exert control over the situation and environment. Consequently, field studies are more typi- cal of correlational designs than experimental designs, and most developmental research ex- periments are conducted in laboratory settings. A laboratory study is a research investigation conducted in a controlled setting explicitly designed to hold events constant. The laboratory may be a room or building designed for research, as in a university’s psychology department. Their ability to control the settings in laboratory studies enables researchers to learn more clearly how their treatments affect participants.

sample the group of participants chosen for the experiment.

field study a research investigation carried out in a naturally occurring setting.

laboratory study a research investigation conducted in a controlled setting explicitly designed to hold events constant.

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experiments are designed and conducted in .

a video showing how

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C h A P T e R 1 ▸ An Introduction to Lifespan Development 37

Theoretical and Applied Research: Complementary Approaches Developmental researchers typically focus on one of two approaches to research, carrying out either theoretical research or applied research. Theoretical research is designed specifi- cally to test some developmental explanation and expand scientific knowledge, while applied research is meant to provide practical solutions to immediate problems. For instance, if we were interested in the processes of cognitive change during childhood, we might carry out a study of how many digits children of various ages can remember after one exposure to multi- digit numbers—a theoretical approach. Alternatively, we might focus on how children learn by examining ways in which elementary school instructors can teach children to remember information more easily. Such a study would represent applied research, because the findings are applied to a particular setting and problem.

There is not always a clear-cut distinction between theoretical and applied research. For instance, is a study that examines the effects of ear infections in infancy on later hearing loss theoretical or applied research? Because such a study may help illuminate the basic processes involved in hearing, it can be considered theoretical. But to the extent that the study helps us to understand how to prevent hearing loss in children and how various medicines may ease the consequences of the infection, it may be considered applied research (Lerner, Fisher, & Weinberg, 2000).

In short, even applied research can help advance our theoretical understanding of a par- ticular topical area, and theoretical research can provide concrete solutions to a range of prac- tical problems. In fact, as we discuss in the From Research to Practice box on page 38, research of both a theoretical and an applied nature has played a significant role in shaping and resolv- ing a variety of public policy questions.

Measuring Developmental Change How people grow and change through their life spans is central to the work of all develop- mental researchers. Consequently, one of the thorniest research issues they face concerns the measurement of change and differences over age and time. To solve this problem, research- ers have developed three major research strategies: longitudinal research, cross-sectional re- search, and sequential research.

LONgITuDINAL sTuDIes: MeAsuRINg INDIvIDuAL ChANge. If you were interested in learning how a child’s moral development changes between the ages of three and five, the most direct approach would be to take a group of three-year-olds and follow them until they were five, testing them periodically.

Such a strategy illustrates longitudinal research. In longitudinal research, the behavior of one or more study participants is measured as they age. Longitudinal research measures change over time. By following many individuals over time, researchers can understand the general course of change across some period of life.

The granddaddy of longitudinal studies, which has become a classic, is a study of gifted children begun by Lewis Terman about 80 years ago. In the study—which has yet to be concluded—a group of 1,500 children with high IQs were tested about every five years. Now in their 80s, the participants—who call themselves “Termites”—have provided information on everything from intellectual accomplishment to personality and longevity (Feldhusen, 2003; McCullough, Tsang, & Brion, 2003; Subotnik, 2006).

Longitudinal research has also provided great insight into language development. For in- stance, by tracing how children’s vocabularies increase on a day-by-day basis, researchers have been able to understand the processes that underlie the human ability to become competent

theoretical research research designed specifically to test some developmental expla- nation and expand scientific knowledge.

applied research research meant to provide practical solutions to immediate problems.

longitudinal research research in which the behavior of one or more participants in a study is measured as they age.

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in using language (Gershkoff-Stowe & Hahn, 2007; Oliver & Plomin, 2007; Childers, 2009; Fagan, 2009).

Longitudinal studies can provide a wealth of information about change over time. How- ever, they have several drawbacks. For one thing, they require a tremendous investment of time, because researchers must wait for participants to age. Furthermore, participants often drop out over the course of the research. Participants may drop out of a study, move away, or become ill or even die as the research proceeds.

Finally, participants who are observed or tested repeatedly may become “test-wise” and per- form better each time they are assessed as they become more familiar with the procedure. Even if the observations of participants in a study are not terribly intrusive (such as simply recording, over a lengthy period of time, increases in vocabulary among infants and preschoolers), experi- mental participants may be affected by the repeated presence of an experimenter or observer.

Consequently, despite the benefits of longitudinal research, particularly its ability to look at change within individuals, developmental researchers often turn to other methods in con- ducting research. The alternative they choose most often is the cross-sectional study.

from research to practice

Using Developmental Research to Improve Public Policy Does the Head Start preschool program actually work?

Are there drawbacks to using infant day care? What are some effective ways to bolster schoolgirls’ confi-

dence in their math and science aptitude? Are children better off with a mother and a father than they are

with two mothers or two fathers? Should children with developmental disabilities be schooled in

regular classrooms, or are they better off in special classrooms with other children who are similarly disabled?

Each of these questions represents a national policy issue that can be answered only by considering the results of relevant research stud- ies. By conducting controlled studies, developmental researchers have made a number of important contributions affecting education, family life, and health on a national scale. Consider, for instance, the variety of ways that public policy issues have been informed by various types of research findings (Brooks-Gunn, 2003; Maton et al., 2004; Mervis, 2004; Aber et al., 2007):

• Research findings can provide policymakers a means of determining what questions to ask in the first place. For example, studies of chil- dren’s caregivers (some of which we’ll consider in Chapter 10) have led policymakers to question whether the benefits of infant day care are outweighed by possible deterioration in parent–child bonds. Re- search has also disconfirmed the widespread belief that childhood vaccinations are linked to autism, contributing invaluable evidence to the controversy over the risks and benefits of mandatory child immunization (Price et al., 2010).

• Research findings and the testimony of researchers are often part of the process by which laws are drafted. A good deal of legislation has been passed based on findings from developmental researchers. For example, research revealed that children with developmental disabilities benefit from exposure to children without special needs, ultimately leading to passage of national legislation mandating that children with disabilities be placed in regular school classes as often

as possible. Research showing that children raised by same-sex couples fare just as well as children raised by a mother and father has undermined an often-used but baseless argument that same- sex marriage is harmful to children (Gartrell & Bos, 2010).

• Policymakers and other professionals use research findings to de- termine how best to implement programs. Research has shaped programs designed to reduce the incidence of unsafe sex among teenagers, to increase the level of prenatal care for pregnant moth- ers, to encourage and support women in the pursuit of math and science studies, and to promote flu shots for older adults. The com- mon thread among such programs is that many of the details of the programs are built on basic research findings.

• Research techniques are used to evaluate the effectiveness of ex- isting programs and policies. Once a public policy has been imple- mented, it is necessary to determine whether it has been effective and successful in accomplishing its goals. To do this, researchers employ formal evaluation techniques, developed from basic re- search procedures. For instance, researchers have continually scrutinized the Head Start preschool program, which has received massive federal funding, to ensure that it really does what it is sup- posed to do—improve children’s academic performance. Similarly, careful studies of DARE, a popular program meant to reduce chil- dren’s use of drugs, began to find that it was ineffective. Using the research findings of developmentalists, DARE instigated new tech- niques, and preliminary findings suggest that the revised program is more effective (Rhule, 2005; University of Akron, 2006).

By building on research findings, developmentalists have worked hand-in-hand with policymakers, and research has a substantial impact on public policies that can benefit us all.

◼ What are some policy issues affecting children and adolescents that are currently being debated nationally?

◼ Despite the existence of research data that might inform policy about development, politicians rarely discuss such data in their speeches. Why do you think that is the case?

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CROss-seCTIONAL sTuDIes. Suppose again that you want to consider how children’s moral development, their sense of right and wrong, changes from ages three to five. Instead of using a longitudinal approach and following the same children over several years, we might conduct the study by simul- taneously looking at three groups of children: three-year-olds, four-year-olds, and five-year-olds, perhaps presenting each group with the same problem, and then seeing how they respond to it and explain their choices.

Such an approach typifies cross-sectional research. In cross-sectional research, people of different ages are compared at the same point in time. Cross-sectional studies provide information about differences in development between different age groups.

Cross-sectional research is considerably more economical in terms of time than longitudinal research: Participants are tested at just one point in time. For instance, Terman’s study conceivably might have been completed 75 years ago if Terman had simply looked at a group of gifted fifteen-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, twenty-five-year-olds, and so forth, all the way through a group of eighty-year-olds. Because the participants would not be periodically tested, there would be no chance that they would become test-wise, and problems of participant attrition would not occur. Why, then, would anyone choose to use a procedure other than cross-sectional research?

The answer is that cross-sectional research brings its own set of difficulties. Recall that every person belongs to a particular cohort, the group of people born at around the same time in the same place. If we find that people of different ages vary along some dimension, it may be due to differences in cohort membership, not age per se.

Consider a concrete example: If we find in a correlational study that people who are 25 years old perform better on a test of intelligence than those who are 75 years old, there are several explanations. Although the finding may be due to decreased intelligence in older people, it may also be attributable to cohort differences. The group of seventy-five-year-olds may have had less formal education than the twenty-five-year-olds because members of the older cohort were less likely to finish high school and attend college than members of the younger one. Or perhaps the older group performed less well because as infants they received less adequate nutrition than members of the younger group. In short, we cannot fully rule out the possibility that the differences we find between people of different age groups in cross- sectional studies are due to cohort differences.

Cross-sectional studies also may suffer from selective dropout, in which participants in some age groups are more likely to quit participating in a study than others. For example, suppose a study of cognitive development in preschoolers includes a lengthy assessment of cognitive abilities. It is possible that young preschoolers would find the task more difficult and demanding than older preschoolers. As a result, the younger children would be more likely to discontinue participation in the study than the older preschoolers. If the least competent young preschoolers are the ones who drop out, then the remaining sample of participants in the study will consist of the more competent young preschoolers—together with a broader and more representative sample of older preschoolers. The results of such a study would be questionable (Miller, 1998).

Finally, cross-sectional studies have an additional, and more basic, disadvantage: They are unable to inform us about changes in individuals or groups. If longitudinal studies are like videos taken of a person at various ages, cross-sectional studies are like snapshots of entirely different groups. Although we can establish differences related to age, we cannot fully deter- mine whether such differences are related to change over time.

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seQueNTIAL sTuDIes. Because both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies have drawbacks, researchers have turned to some compromise techniques. Among the most fre- quently employed are sequential studies, which are essentially a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies.

Cross-sectional research allows researchers to compare representatives of different age groups at the same time.

cross-sectional research research in which people of different ages are compared at the same point in time.

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longitudinal research studies in .

cross-sectional and

M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 39 19/01/13 10:53 AM

40 PA RT 1 ▸ Beginnings

In sequential studies, researchers examine a number of different age groups at several points in time. For instance, an investigator interested in children’s moral behavior might be- gin a sequential study by examining the behavior of three groups of children, who are three years old, four years old, or five years old at the time the study begins. (This is no different from the way a cross-sectional study would be done.)

However, the study wouldn’t stop there but would continue for the next several years. During this period, each of the research participants would be tested annually. Thus, the three-year-olds would be tested at ages three, four, and five; the four-year-olds at ages four, five, and six; and the five-year-olds at ages five, six, and seven. Such an approach combines the advantages of longitudinal and cross-sectional research, and it permits developmental re- searchers to tease out the consequences of age change versus age difference. The major research techniques for studying development are summarized in Figure 1-5.

Ethics and Research In the “study” conducted by Egyptian King Psamtik, two children were removed from their mothers and held in isolation in an effort to learn about the roots of language. If you found yourself thinking this was extraordinarily cruel, you are in good company. Clearly, such an experiment raises blatant ethical concerns, and nothing like it would ever be done today.

In order to help researchers avoid ethical problems, the major organizations of devel- opmentalists, including the Society for Research in Child Development and the American Psychological Association, have developed comprehensive ethical guidelines for researchers. Among the basic principles that must be followed are those involving freedom from harm, informed consent, the use of deception, and maintenance of participants’ privacy (American Psychological Association, 2002; Fisher, 2003, 2004, 2005; Toporek, Kwan, & Williams, 2012):

• Researchers must protect participants from physical and psychological harm. Their wel- fare, interests, and rights come before those of researchers. In research, participants’ rights always come first (Sieber, 2000; Fisher, 2004).

• Researchers must obtain informed consent from participants before their involvement in a study. If they are over the age of seven, participants must voluntarily agree to be in a study. For those under 18, their parents or guardians must also provide consent.

The requirement for informed consent raises some difficult issues. Suppose, for instance, researchers want to study the psychological effects of abortion on adolescents. Although they may be able to obtain the consent of an adolescent who has had an abortion, the re- searchers may need to get her parents’ permission as well because she is a minor. But if the adolescent hasn’t told her parents about the abortion, the mere request for permission from the parents would violate her privacy—leading to a breach of ethics.

• The use of deception in research must be justified and cause no harm. Although decep- tion to disguise the true purpose of an experiment is permissible, any experiment that uses deception must undergo careful scrutiny by an independent panel before it is conducted. Suppose, for example, we want to know the reaction of participants to success and failure. It is ethical to tell participants that they will be playing a game when the true purpose is actually to observe how they respond to doing well or poorly on the task. However, such a procedure is ethical only if it causes no harm to participants, has been approved by a re- view panel, and ultimately includes a full debriefing, or explanation, for participants when the study is over (Underwood, 2005).

• Participants’ privacy must be maintained. If participants are videotaped during the course of a study, for example, they must give their permission for the videotapes to be viewed. Furthermore, access to the tapes must be carefully restricted.

sequential studies research in which re- searchers examine a number of different age groups over several points in time.

Year Data Collected

2013 2014 2015

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Figure 1-5 Research Techniques for studying Development In a cross-sectional study, three-, four-, and five-year-olds are compared at a similar point in time (in the year 2013). In longitudinal research, a set of participants who are three years old in 2013 are stud- ied when they are four years old (in 2014) and when they are five years old (in 2015). Finally, a sequential study combines cross- sectional and longitudinal techniques; here, a group of three-year-olds would be com- pared initially in 2013 with four- and five- year-olds, but would also be studied one and two years later, when they themselves were four and five years old. Although the graph does not illustrate this, researchers carrying out this sequential study might also choose to retest the children who were four and five in 2013 for the next two years. What advantages do the three kinds of studies offer?

From the perspective of a

health-care provider:

Do you think there are some special circumstances involving

adolescents, who are not legally adults, that would justify

allowing them to participate in a study without obtaining their parents’ permission?

What might such circumstances

involve?

M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 40 19/01/13 10:53 AM

C h A P T e R 1 ▸ An Introduction to Lifespan Development 41

Review and Apply

Review ◼ Theories in development are systematically derived explanations of facts or phenomena.

Theories suggest hypotheses, which are predictions that can be tested.

◼ Correlational studies examine relationships between factors without demonstrating causality. Naturalistic observation, case studies, and survey research are types of correlational studies.

◼ Experimental research seeks to discover cause-and-effect relationships by the use of a treat- ment group and a control group. By manipulating the independent variable and observing changes in the dependent variable, researchers find evidence of causal links between variables.

◼ Research studies may be conducted in field settings, where participants are subject to natural conditions, or in laboratories, where conditions can be controlled.

◼ Researchers measure age-related change through longitudinal studies, cross-sectional stud- ies, and sequential studies.

Applying Lifespan Development ◼ Formulate a theory about one aspect of human development and a hypothesis that relates to it.

are you an informeD consumer of Development?

Thinking Critically About “Expert” Advice If you immediately comfort crying babies, you’ll spoil them.

If you let babies cry without comforting them, they’ll be un- trusting and clingy as adults.

Spanking is one of the best ways to discipline your child. Never hit your child. If a marriage is unhappy, children are better off if their parents

divorce than if they stay together. No matter how difficult a marriage is, parents should avoid di-

vorce for the sake of their children.

There is no lack of advice on the best way to raise a child or, more generally, to lead one’s life. From best-sellers such as Chicken Soup for the Soul: On Being a Parent to magazine and newspaper columns that provide advice on every imaginable topic, each of us is exposed to tremendous amounts of information.

Yet not all advice is equally valid. The mere fact that something is in print or on television does not make it legitimate or accurate. Fortu- nately, some guidelines can help distinguish when recommendations and suggestions are reasonable and when they are not:

◼ Consider the source of the advice. Information from established, re- spected organizations such as the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Acad- emy of Pediatrics is likely to be the result of years of study, and its accuracy is probably high. If you don’t know the organization, inves- tigate further to find out more about its goals and philosophy.

◼ Evaluate the credentials of the person providing advice. Information coming from established, acknowledged researchers and experts in a field is likely to be more accurate than that coming from a person whose credentials are obscure. Consider where the author is em- ployed and whether he or she has a particular political or personal agenda.

◼ Understand the difference between anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence. Anecdotal evidence is based on one or two instances of a phenomenon, haphazardly discovered or encountered; scientific evi- dence is based on careful, systematic procedures. If an aunt tells you that all her children slept through the night by two months of age and therefore so can your child, that is quite different from reading a report that 75 percent of children sleep through the night by nine months. Of course, even with such a report, it would be a good idea to find out how large the study was or how this number was arrived at.

◼ If advice is based on research findings, there should be a clear, transparent description of the studies on which the conclusion is based. Who were the participants in the study? What were the methods used? What do the results show? Think critically about the way in which the findings were obtained before accepting them.

◼ Do not overlook the cultural context of the information. Although an assertion may be valid in some contexts, it may not be true in all situations. For example, it is typically assumed that providing infants the freedom to move about and exercise their limbs facilitates their muscular development and mobility. Yet in some cultures, infants spend most of their time closely bound to their mothers—with no apparent long-term damage (Tronick, 1995).

◼ Don’t assume that because many people believe something, it is necessarily true. Scientific evaluation has often proved that some of the most basic presumptions about the effectiveness of various techniques are invalid.

In short, the key to evaluating information relating to human devel- opment is to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. No source of infor- mation is invariably, unfailingly accurate. By keeping a critical eye on the statements you encounter, you’ll be in a better position to determine the very real contributions made by developmentalists to understand- ing how humans develop over the course of their life spans.

M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 41 19/01/13 10:53 AM

42 PA RT 1 ▸ Beginnings

Looking Back

LO 1-1 What is lifespan development? • Lifespan development is a scientific approach to questions

about growth, change, and stability in the physical, cognitive, social, and personality characteristics at all ages from con- ception to death.

LO 1-2 What are some of the basic influences on human development? • Culture—both broad and narrow—is an important issue in

lifespan development. Many aspects of development are influ- enced not only by broad cultural differences, but by ethnic, ra- cial, and socioeconomic differences within a particular culture.

• Each individual is subject to normative history-graded influ- ences, normative age-graded influences, normative sociocul- tural-graded influences, and non-normative life events.

LO 1-3 What are the key issues in the field of development? • Four key issues in lifespan development are (1) whether

developmental change is continuous or discontinuous; (2) whether development is largely governed by critical pe- riods during which certain influences or experiences must occur for development to be normal; (3) whether to focus on certain particularly important periods in human develop- ment or on the entire life span; and (4) the nature–nurture controversy, which focuses on the relative importance of ge- netic versus environmental influences.

LO 1-4 Which theoretical perspectives have guided lifespan development? • Six major theoretical perspectives currently dominate lifespan

development: the psychodynamic perspective (which focuses on inner, largely unconscious forces); the behavioral perspective (which focuses on external, observable actions); the cognitive perspective (which focuses on intellectual, cognitive processes); the humanistic perspective (which focuses on the unique quali- ties of human beings); the contextual perspective (which focuses on the relationship between individuals and their physical, cog- nitive, personality, and social worlds); and the evolutionary per- spective (which focuses on our genetic inheritance).

• The psychodynamic perspective is exemplified by the psycho- analytic theory of Freud and the psychosocial theory of Erik- son. Freud focused attention on the unconscious and on stages through which children must pass successfully to avoid harm- ful fixations. Erikson identified eight distinct stages of develop- ment, each characterized by a conflict, or crisis, to work out.

• The behavioral perspective typically concerns stimulus— response learning, exemplified by classical conditioning, the operant conditioning of Skinner, and Bandura’s social- cognitive learning theory.

• Within the cognitive perspective, the most notable theorist is Piaget, who identified developmental stages through which all children are assumed to pass. Each stage involves quali- tative differences in thinking. In contrast, information pro- cessing approaches attribute cognitive growth to quantitative

changes in mental processes and capacities, and cognitive neuroscience approaches focus on biological brain processes.

• The humanistic perspective contends that people have a natural capacity to make decisions about their lives and control their be- havior. The humanistic perspective emphasizes free will and the natural desire of humans to reach their full potential.

• The contextual perspective considers the relationship be- tween individuals and their physical, cognitive, personality, and social worlds. The bioecological approach stresses the in- terrelatedness of developmental areas and the importance of broad cultural factors in human development. Vygotsky’s so- ciocultural theory emphasizes the central influence on cog- nitive development exerted by social interactions between members of a culture.

• The evolutionary perspective attributes behavior to genetic inheritance from our ancestors, contending that genes deter- mine not only traits such as skin and eye color, but certain personality traits and social behaviors as well.

LO 1-5 What role do theories and hypotheses play in the study of development? • Theories are broad explanations of facts or phenomena of

interest, based on a systematic integration of prior findings and theories. Hypotheses are theory-based predictions that can be tested. The process of posing and answering questions systematically is called the scientific method.

• Researchers test hypotheses by correlational research (to de- termine whether two factors are associated) and experimen- tal research (to discover cause-and-effect relationships).

LO 1-6 How are developmental research studies conducted? • Correlational studies use naturalistic observation, case stud-

ies, and survey research to investigate whether certain char- acteristics of interest are associated with other characteristics. Correlational studies lead to no direct conclusions about cause and effect.

• Typically, experimental research studies are conducted on participants in a treatment group who receive the experi- mental treatment and participants in a control group who do not. Following the treatment, differences between the two groups can help the experimenter to determine the effects of the treatment. Experiments may be conducted in a labora- tory or in a real-world setting.

• To measure change across human ages, researchers use lon- gitudinal studies of the same participants over time, cross- sectional studies of different-age participants conducted at one time, and sequential studies of different-age participants at several points in time.

LO 1-7 What are some of the ethical issues regard- ing psychological research? • Ethical guidelines for research include the protection of par-

ticipants from harm, informed consent of participants, limits on the use of deception, and the maintenance of privacy.

M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 42 19/01/13 10:53 AM

C h A P T e R 1 ▸ An Introduction to Lifespan Development 43

Epilogue

As we’ve seen, the scope of lifespan development is broad, touching on a wide range of topics that address how people grow and change through the course of life. We’ve also found that there are a variety of techniques by which developmentalists seek to answer questions of interest.

Before proceeding to the next chapter, take a few minutes to reconsider the prologue of this chapter—about Louise Brown, the first child to be born through in vitro fertilization. Based on what you now know about lifespan development, answer the following questions: 1. What are some of the potential benefits, and the costs, of the

type of conception—in vitro fertilization—that was carried out for Louise’s parents?

2. What are some questions that developmentalists who study either physical, cognitive, or personality and social develop- ment might ask about the effects on Louise of being conceived via in vitro fertilization?

3. Louise reported feeling lonely and isolated as a child. Why do you think this occurred, and what effects might it have on her as an adult?

4. Louise’s own son was conceived in the traditional manner. How do you think his development will differ from that of his mother Louise, and why?

key Terms and Concepts

lifespan development (p. 5)

physical development (p. 6)

cognitive development (p. 6)

personality development (p. 6)

social development (p. 6)

cohort (p. 9)

continuous change (p. 10)

discontinuous change (p. 10)

critical period (p. 11)

sensitive period (p. 11)

maturation (p. 12)

theories (p. 14)

psychodynamic perspective (p. 14)

psychoanalytic theory (p. 14)

psychosexual development (p. 15)

psychosocial development (p. 15)

behavioral perspective (p. 17)

classical conditioning (p. 17)

operant conditioning (p. 18)

behavior modification (p. 18)

social-cognitive learning theory (p. 18)

cognitive perspective (p. 19)

information processing approaches (p. 20)

cognitive neuroscience approaches (p. 21)

humanistic perspective (p. 22)

contextual perspective (p. 22)

bioecological perspective (p. 23)

sociocultural theory (p. 25)

evolutionary perspective (p. 26)

scientific method (p. 30)

hypothesis (p. 30)

correlational research (p. 30)

experimental research (p. 30)

naturalistic observation (p. 32)

case study (p. 33)

survey research (p. 33)

psychophysiological methods (p. 34)

experiment (p. 34)

independent variable (p. 35)

dependent variable (p. 35)

sample (p. 36)

field study (p. 36)

laboratory study (p. 36)

theoretical research (p. 37)

applied research (p. 37)

longitudinal research (p. 37)

cross-sectional research (p. 39)

sequential studies (p. 40)

MyvirtualLife what decisions would you make while raising a child?

what would the consequences of those decisions be?

Find out by accessing MyvirtualLife at www.MyDevelopmentLab.com

and raising your own virtual child from birth to age 18.

M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 43 19/01/13 10:53 AM