Chapter 1:

Introduction

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 The
Life-Span
Perspective

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• What Is Life-Span Development?
• A pattern of change involving
growth and decline, beginning at
conception and lasting until death.

• Life phases: infancy, childhood,

adolescence, young adulthood,
middle adulthood, and late
adulthood.

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• The Historical Perspectives:
• Childhood has been of interest for a
long time. (mid 1800’s)
• Adulthood became of interest in the
late 1900s.
• Three philosophical views of child
development:
• Original sin
• Tabula rasa
• Innate goodness
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• Childhood is seen as a special time of
growth and change, influenced by
– child-rearing practices,
– childhood experiences, and
– environmental influences.

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 Humans are living longer
• Check out the life-span of other species on
page 8 (figure 1.1)
• What is the average life span for humans
and how has it grown in the past 100 yrs?
– Figure 1.2
– What is the average life span for American
Indians?

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Average Human Life Expectancy (in Years)
at Birth, from Prehistoric to Contemporary
Times – page 8

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• Characteristics of the life-span
perspective:
• 1. Development is lifelong
– No age period dominates
development. Biological, cognitive,
and socioeconomic dimensions of
experiences and psychological
orientation are very important to
study.
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• 2. Development is multidimensional:
age, body, mind, emotions, and
relationships are affecting and
changing each other.

• 3. Development is multidirectional:
some aspects of dimensions shrink and
some expand.

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 Multidimensional aspect
• social/emotional, biological, cognitive =
–
Cognitive

Social / Emotional
Biological

• and within cognitive we include: attention,

memory, abstract thought, processing info, social
intelligence
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• 3. Development is multidirectional:
some aspects of dimensions shrink and
some expand.
• Examples: language, wisdom, reflexes,
processing time

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• 4. Development is plastic: it has the capacity
for change.
• For example: a small child has a head
injury and other parts of the brain take
over
• OR, bully in grade school
• OR, elderly may be forgetful

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• 5. Development science is multidisciplinary:
it is of interest to:
• Psychologists.
• Sociologists.
• Nurses
• PT/OT/Speech
• Anthropologists.
• Neuroscientists.
• Medical researchers.

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• 6. Development is contextual: the context
or SETTING in which something occurs
• So a person acts on and responds to
contexts such as:
• a. Sociocultural and environmental
experiences.
– Where did your early childhood take place?
• Home, family, neighborhood, daycare,
school, peers, church etc.
• City? Rural? Poverty? Wealthy? Culture?
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• b. Historical circumstances. Is there
generational injury?
• c. Life events or unusual
circumstances impacting on the
specific individual.

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Context - also splits into 3 types of
influence
1. normative age grade – similar for certain
ages
2. normative history grade – common to a
particular generation – like Baby Boomers,
Generation X or Generation Y
3. Non – normative or Individual Events or
Unusual Circumstances that have/had a
major impact on your life

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• 7. Development involves growth,
maintenance, and regulation of loss.

• 8. Development is a co-construction of
biology, culture, and individual factors all
working together.

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 Some Contemporary Concerns
• Sociocultural contexts and diversity
• Culture – what are your beliefs &
values? Are they shared?
• Ethnicity – how is it valued? Or not?
• Socioeconomic status – poverty vs.
lower, middle, and upper classes
• Gender – do you feel “equal”?

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• All of these affect lifespan development

• Health and well-being, parenting and

education are all affected by the
sociocultural contexts in which people live
and grow.

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 Social Policy Issues
• Social policy: national government’s course
of action and politics affect the welfare of
citizens
• Social policy has needs related to children:
poverty, family issues,
the aging population.

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 73
Children Exposed
to Six Stressors
Poor housing
quality
Excessive noise 49
Crowding 45
Exposure to violence
Child separation 32

Family turmoil 24
21
16
14
Percentage 12
7
3
Poor Middle-income
children children
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Figure 1.5
 The Well-Being of Older Adults
• Is of major concern, since the number of older
adults in the U.S. is growing dramatically.
• Many of these older adults will need society’s help,
as more will be unmarried, childless, and living
alone.
• A significant increase will occur in the number of
individuals in the 85-and-older group.
• Centenarians—persons 100 years of age or older
—are the fastest growing age group in the U.S.
and their numbers are expected to continue to
increase in the coming decades.
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The Aging of America

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 Developmental
Processes and Periods

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• The key developmental processes, all of
which are intertwined:
• Biological – genes, brain development,
height and weight gains, changes in motor
skills, hormonal changes, cardiovascular
decline.
• Cognitive – changes in thought,
intelligence, and language.

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• Socioemotional – changes in relationships,
emotions, and personality.

• In many instances, biological, cognitive,

and socioemotional processes are
bidirectional because each can affect the
other.

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 Developmental Changes Are a Result of Biological,
Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes

Biological
processes

Cognitive Socioemotional
processes processes

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Figure 1.6
• Periods of development focus on time frames:
– Prenatal period.
– Infancy.
– Early childhood.
– Middle and late childhood.
– Adolescence.
– Early adulthood.
– Middle adulthood.
– Late adulthood.
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 How Important is age?
• Age and Happiness
• No specific age group reports more
happiness or satisfaction than another,
because each age period has its own
stresses, advantages, and disadvantages; for
example:
• Adolescents must cope with identity
development, feelings of competency, and
self-perceptions

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 And ………….
• Older adults must cope with reduced
income, less energy, decreasing physical
skills, concerns about death, more leisure
time, and accumulation of life experiences.
• What are YOUR concerns at this time?

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 Age and Happiness
100
Happy
people
(%) 80

60

40

20

0
15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65 +
Age range (years)

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Figure 1.9
 Conceptions of age
• Perhaps we are becoming an
age-irrelevant society
• How should age be conceptualized?
• Chronological age
• Biological age
• Psychological age
• Social age
• How old would you be if you didn’t know
how old you were? (Ask Dr. OZ)

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 Chronological age
Number of years since birth

Biological age
Conceptions Age in terms of physical health
of age
Psychological age
Adaptive capacity compared with
others of the same chronological age

Social age
Social roles and expectations
relative to chronological age

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Figure 1.10
Developmental
Issues

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 Nature vs. Nurture
• A debate about whether development is
influenced most by biological heredity or
environmental experiences.
• Nature proponents argue that genetic
blueprints produce commonalities in
growth and development.

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• Nature proponents acknowledge the
influence of extreme environments on
development.
• Psychologists emphasize the importance of
nurture and that the range of environments
can be vast.

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 What constitutes Stability and
Change?
• The assumption that nothing much changes
in adulthood
• The concept of plasticity, ongoing change
• Major changes were believed to occur only
in the first 5 years of childhood (early
experience doctrine);
• We are no longer able to ignore the rest of
the life span.
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 Continuity and Discontinuity:
• The continuity–discontinuity issue
focuses on whether development is…
• A gradual, cumulative quantitative
change process or
• A set of distinct stages that are
qualitatively different from each other

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 Discontinuity

Continuity and
Discontinuity in
Development

Continuity

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Figure 1.11
 These are the issues
• And the concepts we will look at in this text
• What questions are popping up in your
mind??

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