Slide presentation for Week 2 of PSY 375

1. LIFESPAN
PERSPECTIVE
PSY 375: Lifespan Development
Week 2

2. Let’s back up for a minute…
What is development?
• Learning and change
• Includes growth, but also decline and dying
What is the traditional view of development?

3. The Life-Span Perspective
Life-span perspective
• Developmental change throughout adulthood as well as
during childhood
Human life expectancy
• Maximum life span—upper boundary of the human
life span
Currently regarded as 122 years
• Life expectancy—average number of years that a person
born in a particular year can expect to live
Currently 79 years in the United States

4. © Eliza Snow/iStockPhoto.com

5. The Life-Span Perspective
Characteristics of development according to the
life-span perspective:
• Lifelong
• Multidimensional
• Multidirectional
• Plastic
• Contextual
• Involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss
• Constructed through biological, sociocultural, and
individual factors working together

6. Development is contextual
Three types of contextual changes
• Normative age-graded influences
Similar for individuals sharing the same age group
• Normative history-graded influences
Common to people of a particular generation due to historical
circumstances
• Non-normative life events
Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an
individual’s life

7. Some contemporary concerns
• Health and well-being
• Parenting and education
• Sociocultural contexts and diversity
• Culture: behavior patterns, beliefs, and other products of a
people that are passed on from generation to generation
• Ethnicity: characteristic based on cultural heritage,
nationality characteristics, race, religion, and language
• Socioeconomic status (SES)
• Gender

8. Some contemporary concerns
• Social policy
• Infant/child mortality rates, children, malnourishment,
impoverished families
• Older adults and the growing number of older adults
• Health-care costs and access to adequate health care
• Social supports available to older adults

9. The Nature of Development
Developmental processes
• Biological processes
• Produce changes in an individual’s physical nature
• Examples: height, weight, and motor skill changes
• Cognitive processes
• Involve changes in an individual’s thought, intelligence, and
language
• Examples: two-word sentences and solving a puzzle
• Socioemotional processes
• Involve changes in an individual’s relationships with other
people, emotions, and personality
• Examples: smiling in response to interacting with a
playmate

10. Processes Involved in Developmental Changes

11. The Nature of Development
Two rapidly emerging fields
• Developmental cognitive neuroscience
• Developmental social neuroscience
Periods of development
• Developmental period—a time frame characterized by
certain features

13. The Nature of Development
Of recent interest: emerging adulthood
• Period of transition from adolescence to adulthood
• 18 – 25 years of age
Significance of age
• Is one age in life better than another?
• Age and happiness
• In the U.S., adults are happier as they age
• Psychological well-being increases after age 50
• Older adults report having more positive emotional
experiences than younger adults

14. The Nature of Development
Conceptions of age
• Chronological age—number of years since birth
• Biological age—age in terms of biological health
• Psychological age—adaptive capacities compared with
others of the same chronological age
• Social age—connectedness with others and the social
roles that individuals adopt

15. Theories of Development

16. Theories of Development:
Psychoanalytic Theories
Psychoanalytic theories
• Describe development as primarily unconscious and
heavily influenced by emotions
• Stress that early experiences with parents deeply shape
development
Freud’s stages of psychosexual development
• Five stages
• Adult personality is determined by how
we resolve conflicts between sources of
pleasure at each stage and the demands
of reality

17. Freudian Stages
Oral Stage Anal Stage Phallic Stage Latency Stage Genital Stage
Infant’s pleasure
centers on the
mouth.
Child’s pleasure
focuses on the
anus.
Child’s pleasure
focuses on the
genitals.
Child represses
sexual interest and
develops social and
intellectual skills.
A time of sexual
reawakening;
source of sexual
pleasure becomes
someone outside
the family.
Birth to 1½
Years
1½ to 3 Years 3 to 6 Years 6 Years to
Puberty
Puberty Onward

18. Theories of Development:
Psychoanalytic Theories
Erikson’s psychosocial theory
• Primary motivation for human behavior is social and
reflects a desire to affiliate with other people
• Developmental change occurs throughout the life span
• Emphasized the importance of both early and later
experiences
• Eight stages, representing eight key crises that must be
resolved

19. Erikson’s Eight Life-Span
Stages
Erikson’s
Stages
Developmental
Period
Integrity
versus despair
Late adulthood
(60s onward)
Generativity
versus
stagnation
Middle adulthood
(40s, 50s)
Intimacy
versus
isolation
Early adulthood
(20s, 30s)
Identity versus
identity
confusion
Adolescence (10
to 20 years)
Industry
versus
inferiority
Middle and late
childhood
(elementary
school years, 6
years to puberty)
Initiative
versus guilt
Early childhood
(preschool years,
3 to 5 years)
Autonomy
versus shame
and doubt
Infancy (1 to 3
years)
Trust versus
mistrust
Infancy (first
year)

20. Theories of Development
Evaluation of psychoanalytic theories
• Stress the importance of the unconscious
• Criticized for a lack of scientific support, an emphasis on
sexual underpinnings, and a negative image of people,
lack of cultural considerations

21. Theories of Development:
Cognitive Theories
Cognitive theories emphasize conscious thought
• Three important theories:
• Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory
• Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognitive theory
• Information-processing theory

22. Theories of Development:
Cognitive Theories
Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory
• Four stages
• Children actively construct their understanding of
the world
• Two key processes: organization and adaptation
• Each age-related stage consists of a distinct way of
thinking
• Child’s cognition is qualitatively different in one stage
compared with another

23. Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive
Development
(Left to right): © Stockbyte/Getty Images RF; © BananaStock/PunchStock RF; © image100/Corbis RF; © Purestock/Getty Images RF
Sensorimotor
Stage
Preoperational
Stage
Concrete
Operational Stage
Formal Operational
Stage
The infant constructs an
understanding of the
world by coordinating
sensory experiences
with physical actions.
An infant progresses
from reflexive,
instinctual action at
birth to the beginning of
symbolic thought
toward the end of the
stage.
The child begins to
represent the world with
words and images.
These words and images
reflect increased
symbolic thinking and
go beyond the
connection of sensory
information and
physical action.
The child can now
reason logically about
concrete events and
classify objects into
different sets.
The adolescent reasons
in more abstract,
idealistic, and logical
ways.
Birth to 2 Years of
Age
2 to 7 Years of Age 7 to 11 Years of Age 11 Years of Age
Through Adulthood

24. Theories of Development:
Cognitive Theories
Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognitive theory
• Children actively construct knowledge about the world
• Culture and social interaction play a greater role
• Social interaction with more-skilled adults and peers is
necessary for cognitive development
Information-processing theory
• Individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and
strategize about it
• Development is gradual rather than stage-like, allowing
them to acquire increasingly complex knowledge and
skills

25. Theories of Development:
Cognitive Theories

26. Theories of Development
Evaluating cognitive theories
• Noted for an emphasis on the active construction of
understanding
• Criticized for insufficient attention to individual variation

27. Theories of Development
Behavioral and social cognitive theories
• Development is observable behavior that we can learn
through experience with the environment
• Emphasize continuity in development
• Two significant versions:
• Skinner’s operant conditioning
• Bandura’s social cognitive theory

28. Theories of Development:
Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theories
Skinner’s operant conditioning
• Consequences of a behavior produce changes in
the probability of the behavior’s occurrence
• Rewards and punishments shape behavior
Bandura’s social cognitive theory
• Development is shaped through observational learning
• Model of learning and development includes three
elements: behavior, the person/cognition, and the
environment

29. Theories of Development:
Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theories

30. Theories of Development:
Ethological Theory
Ethological theory
• Behavior is strongly influenced by biology, tied to evolution,
and characterized by critical or sensitive periods
• Presence or absence of certain experiences during specific time
frames has a long-lasting influence
Konrad Lorenz
• European zoologist who studied the behavior of
greylag geese
• Imprinting: rapid, innate learning involving attachment to the
first moving object seen
• Imprinting takes place in a critical period

31. Theories of Development:
Ethological Theory
John Bowlby
• Applied ethological theory to human development
• Studied attachment to caregivers
• Attachment over the first year of life has important
consequences throughout the life span
• Secure attachment predicts optimal development in
childhood and adulthood
• Attachment should occur in a sensitive period

32. Theories of Development:
Ethological Theory

33. Theories of Development:
Ecological Theory
Ecological theory
• Emphasizes environmental factors on development
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory
• Development reflects the influence of several
environmental systems
• Microsystem
• Mesosystem
• Exosystem
• Macrosystem
• Chronosystem

35. So, why do we care?
• Why do we care about developmental theories?
• What can they tell us?

36. Here’s why…
• They can help us order our thinking
• They can help us make sense out of processes,
events, and situations
• They can provide red flags

37. Let’s test this out…
• Short case study
• Lucas is almost four years old and lives with his mom and
dad in a house in the country. His father is a truck driver
and spends 5 days a week on the road while his mother
stays at home. Their house is surrounded by woods on one
side and a cornfield on the other. They have neighbors but
only on one side and across the street. They also have
many pets, two dogs, three cats, and some fish. Lucas was
born at 40 weeks and has not had any major health issues.
Lucas is presently the only child but that will be changing
in a few months, as his mother is pregnant and due at the
end of July. He loves trains, animals, ice tea, and being
inside and outside of his house. He does not like the word
“No” and is having a tough time adjusting to his mom’s
attempts to add structure into their lives as her due date
approaches.

38. What do we know?
• Take out a notebook or type out the following:
• Name
• Age
• Birth
• Family composition
• SES?
• Behavior?

39. What might our theorists say?
• Why is Lucas struggling with the idea of the new
baby?
• Psychoanalytic
• Cognitive
• Behavioral and Social Cognitive
• Ethological
• Ecological

40. What helps you the most?
• Eclectic?
• Can look to different theorists for different answers
• No single theory explains the complexity of life-span
development
• Each theory has furthered understanding of the factors that
shape development
• Rather than a strict following of a single approach, an
eclectic theoretical orientation selects from each theory
whatever is considered best in it
• There is not necessarily a single correct theory!
• You will find those who disagree, however!

41. Theories of Development
An eclectic theoretical orientation
• No single theory explains the complexity of life-span
development
• Each theory has furthered understanding of the factors
that shape development
• Rather than a strict following of a single approach, an
eclectic theoretical orientation selects from each theory
whatever is considered best in it