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As anyone who has spent any time around little kids can tell you, they’re a font of questions. Being with young children means being barraged with an endless series of “whys” and “hows.” This is adorable. It can also be exhausting. And as they grow older, it can sometimes be perplexing.
When your 4-year-old asks, “Why is the sky blue?” the answer is only a rummage in your memory banks (or a Google search) away. When an older child asks, “Why did Fido have to die?” or “Why are those two countries at war?” you can find yourself nearly as confused as your kid.…Continue reading…
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Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan. Developmental psychologists aim to explain how thinking, feeling, and behaviors change throughout life.
This field examines change across three major dimensions, which are physical development, cognitive development, and social emotional development. Within these three dimensions are a broad range of topics including motor skills, executive functions, moral understanding, language acquisition, social change, personality, emotional development, self-concept, and identity formation.
Developmental psychology examines the influences of nature and nurture on the process of human development, as well as processes of change in context across time. Many researchers are interested in the interactions among personal characteristics, the individual’s behavior, and environmental factors. This includes the social context and the built environment.
Ongoing debates in regards to developmental psychology include biological essentialism vs. neuroplasticity and stages of development vs. dynamic systems of development. Research in developmental psychology has some limitations but at the moment researchers are working to understand how transitioning through stages of life and biological factors may impact our behaviors and development.
Developmental psychology involves a range of fields, such as educational psychology, child psychopathology, forensic developmental psychology, child development, cognitive psychology, ecological psychology, and cultural psychology. Influential developmental psychologists from the 20th century include Urie Bronfenbrenner, Erik Erikson, Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Jean Piaget, Barbara Rogoff, Esther Thelen, and Lev Vygotsky.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John B. Watson are typically cited as providing the foundation for modern developmental psychology. In the mid-18th century, Jean Jacques Rousseau described three stages of development: infants (infancy), puer (childhood) and adolescence in Emile: Or, On Education. Rousseau’s ideas were adopted and supported by educators at the time.
Developmental psychology generally focuses on how and why certain changes (cognitive, social, intellectual, personality) occur over time in the course of a human life. Many theorists have made a profound contribution to this area of psychology. One of them, Erik Erikson developed a model of eight stages of psychological development. He believed that humans developed in stages throughout their lifetimes and that this would affect their behaviors.
In the late 19th century, psychologists familiar with the evolutionary theory of Darwin began seeking an evolutionary description of psychological development; prominent here was the pioneering psychologist G. Stanley Hall, who attempted to correlate ages of childhood with previous ages of humanity. James Mark Baldwin, who wrote essays on topics that included Imitation:
A Chapter in the Natural History of Consciousness and Mental Development in the Child and the Race: Methods and Processes, was significantly involved in the theory of developmental psychology. Sigmund Freud, whose concepts were developmental, significantly affected public perceptions. German-American psychologist Erik Erikson and his collaborator and wife, Joan Erikson, posits eight stages of individual human development influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors throughout the lifespan.
At each stage the person must resolve a challenge, or an existential dilemma. Successful resolution of the dilemma results in the person ingraining a positive virtue, but failure to resolve the fundamental challenge of that stage reinforces negative perceptions of the person or the world around them and the person’s personal development is unable to progress.
The first stage, “Trust vs. Mistrust”, takes place in infancy. The positive virtue for the first stage is hope, in the infant learning whom to trust and having hope for a supportive group of people to be there for him/her. The second stage is “Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt” with the positive virtue being will.
This takes place in early childhood when the child learns to become more independent by discovering what they are capable of whereas if the child is overly controlled, feelings of inadequacy are reinforced, which can lead to low self-esteem and doubt. The third stage is “Initiative vs. Guilt”. The virtue of being gained is a sense of purpose. This takes place primarily via play. This is the stage where the child will be curious and have many interactions with other kids.
They will ask many questions as their curiosity grows. If too much guilt is present, the child may have a slower and harder time interacting with their world and other children in it. The fourth stage is “Industry (competence) vs. Inferiority”. The virtue for this stage is competency and is the result of the child’s early experiences in school. This stage is when the child will try to win the approval of others and understand the value of their accomplishments.
A way to improve developmental psychology is a representation of cross-cultural studies. The psychology field in general assumes that “basic” human developments are represented in any population, specifically the Western-Educated-Industrialized-Rich and Democratic (W.E.I.R.D.) subjects that are relied on for a majority of their studies.
Previous research generalizes the findings done with W.E.I.R.D. samples because many in the Psychological field assume certain aspects of development are exempted from or are not affected by life experiences. However, many of the assumptions have been proven incorrect or are not supported by empirical research. For example, according to Kohlberg, moral reasoning is dependent on cognitive abilities.
While both analytical and holistic cognitive systems do have the potential to develop in any adult, the West is still on the extreme end of analytical thinking, and the non-West tend to use holistic processes. Furthermore, moral reasoning in the West only considers aspects that support autonomy and the individual, whereas non-Western adults emphasize moral behaviors supporting the community and maintaining an image of holiness or divinity.
Not all aspects of human development are universal and we can learn a lot from observing different regions and subjects.
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