PERSPECTIVE ON DEVELOPMENT

In this chapter, the objectives are to learn:

- learn the methods employed in studying  development

•  including longitudinal
•  cross-sectional and sequential designs.

- issues that are central to the study of development

•  including continuity vs. discontinuity of developmental processes
• generality vs. specificity in models of development
• the role of heredity and environment

- basic concepts of personality

- how personality development is regarded by

• the biological approach
• the behaviorist approach
• the cognitive approach
• the psycho dynamic approach
• the humanistic approach

-how the development of gender roles is viewed by each of the five approaches.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

• Developmental psychology is concerned with understanding the changes that occur over the course of human life, and the processes which govern the changes.
• In order to study changes over time, researchers tend to use longitudinal studies or cross- sequential studies involving groups of different ages; in some cases, researchers will use a sequential design, which combines elements of both of the other two.
• The origin of personality patterns and traits provides a useful focus for comparison of how the five approaches view development.
• The biological approach emphasizes the role of temperament is personality development, as being based on heredity.
• The behaviorist approach emphasizes the importance of environmental influences, particularly the role of environmental consistency and the person's history of reinforcement in accounting for the consistencies which are attributed to personality.
• The cognitive approach interprets development in terms of cognitive social learning theory, which emphasizes the role of imitation in learning and the importance of cognitive schemata in structuring behavior.
• The psycho dynamic approach, as represented by Freud's psychoanalytic theory, favours an interactionist interpretation of development
• The humanistic approach offers the least detailed analysis of development. Partly this is because emphasizes individual experience and subjective perceptions, which developmental researchers favour the search for common principles based on objective observation.
• The study of gender role development presents a clear example of the challenges of developmental research.
• Overall, developmental psychology represents the field of psychology in microcosm, since development involves virtually all aspects of behavior.