Issues on

Human
Development
 Regis Marie College Prayer

Almighty father encourage our actions by your grace. May

we be diligent, thorough, responsible and conscientious.
Open our minds to new possibilities and help us make
innovative connections with the things we learn as we aim
for excellence. May all that we are today and all that we
try to do be in your hands.
Amen.
INTRODUCTION

•Each of us has his/her own way of looking at

our own and other people’s development. These
paradigms of human development while
obviously lacking in scholastic vigor, provide us
with a conceptual framework for understanding
ourselves and others. Scholars have come up
with their own models of human development.
Back up by solid research, they take stand on
issues on human development.
THREE ISSUES IN
DEVELOPMENT
• Nature versus Nurture
• Continuity versus Discontinuity
• Stability versus Change
Nature versus Nurture
•The degree to which human
behavior is determined by
genetics/biology (nature) or
learned through interacting with
the environment (nurture)
Nature
 Behavior is caused by innate characteristics :
The physiological/biological
characteristics we are born with.
 Behavior is therefore determined by biology.
 Also, a Determinist view- suggests all behavior is
determined by hereditary factors: Inherited
characteristics, or genetic make-up we are born
with.
• All possible behaviors are said to be present
from conception.
• Genes provide the blueprint for all behaviors; some
present from birth, others pre-programmed to
emerge with age.
• Is a developmental approach:
•E.g., Piaget: children’s thought processes change at
predetermined age-related stages changes in age are
related to changes in behavior.
Nurture
An individual's behavior is determined by the environment-
the things people teach them, the things they observe, and
because of the different situations they are in.

Also, a determinist view- proposes all human behavior is the

result of interactions with the environment.
 Nurture
Behaviorist theories are nurture theories:

-Behavior is shaped by interactions with the environment.

Born an empty vessel- waiting to be filled up by experiences gained from environmental

interaction.

No limit to what they can achieve:

-Depends on quality of external influences and

NOT genes.
• The quality of the environment is KEY

-You can become anything provided the environment is right.

Nature Nurture Interaction
• Behavior is often a result of the interaction between
nature AND nurture.
• An individual's characteristics may elicit particular
responses in other people e.g., Temprament: how
active, responsive or emotional an infant is influences in
part determines their caregivers' responses. Gender:
people tend to react differently to boys and girls due to
expectations of masculine and feminine characteristics.
• Aggression: Displaying aggressive behavior create
particular responses from other people.
SUPPORTING APPROACHES &
PERSPECTIVE
Supporting Nature Supporting
Nurture
-Physiological - Social (e.g.,
Helping Behavior)
- Individual Differences -
Behavioral
- Developmental
Continuity versus Discontinuity
•Continuity and discontinuity are two competing
theories in developmental psychology that
attempt to explain how people change through
the course of their lives, where the continuity
theory says that someone changes throughout
their life along a smooth course while the
discontinuity theory instead contends that people
change abruptly. These changes can be described
as a wide variety of someone's social and
behavioral makeup, like their emotions,
traditions, beliefs, habits, personality and so on.
• Furthermore, continuity and discontinuity disagree with one another
in how they assess the changes that someone undergoes throughout
the course of their life. The continuity theory examines the way
someone changes in a quantitative and continuous respect.
Discontinuity theory, on the other hand, looks at these changes
through the lens of a qualitative analysis with an emphasis on the
discontinuous nature of how someone changes.
• Developmental psychology encompasses a very wide array of
observations related to how people think, behave and interact with
their environment as well as other people. This field, at first, was
focused on how young children develop but, in recent years, it has
expanded past the pediatric setting to encompass studies of how
people change throughout the course.
Is Child Development continuous or
discontinuous?

Not all development is a continuous

process. Some view
psychologists, development as a
discontinuous process. They
however, agree believe development involves
distinct and separate stages
that with different kinds of behavior
occurring in each stage.
What is the theory of development?

Developmental stage theories are theories

that divide child development into distinct
stages which are characterized by qualitative
differences in behaviour. There are a number of
different views about the way in which
psychological and physical development
proceed throughout the life span.
Stability versus Discontinuity

• deals with the issue of

whether or not personality
traits present during present
during infancy endure
throughout the lifespan.
• The stability-change debate describes the
developmental psychology discussion about
whether personality traits that are present in an
individual at birth remain constant or change
throughout the life span.

• For example, does a naturally extroverted and

talkative baby remain that way for their entire life?
The stability vs. change debate is one of the
fundamental questions in developmental psychology
along with nature vs. nurture. Typically, cross-
sectional and longitudinal studies are used in
research concerning stability vs. change.
 •Change Theorists- argue that
personalities are modified by
interactions with family, experiences
at school, and acculturation.
• Studies of children have often
revealed impressive stability over
time in aspects of development
Change such as the attachment to their
parents or in personality.
• However, there is evidence which
suggests a contrary view, that
change is both possible and indeed,
is likely under appropriate
conditions.
• Freud was one of the first
psychologist to emphasize the critical
nature of our early experiences for
our later development. He believed
that how we resolve our sexual and
aggressive urges is strongly tied to
the nature of our personality as
adults. Psychoanalysts believe that
personality traits developed in the
first 5 years predict adult personality.
Reflection
Relate what you learned here to your personal
development. Reflect on your own personal
development. What has helped you become
the person that you are now? Is what you have
become a product of the mere interaction of
heredity and environment? Or is what you have
become a product of both heredity and
environment interacting and what you have
decided or determined yourself to become?
Write your reflections.