… Could you tell me how to grow, or is it unconveyed, like melody or witchcraft?

--- Emily Dickinson (1862)

Basic Questions about Child Development

1. How do nature and nurture together shape development? 2. How do children shape their own development? 3. In what ways is development continuous, and in what

ways is it discontinuous?4. How does change occur? 5. How does the sociocultural context influence

development?6. How do children become so different from each other?7. How can research promote children’s well-being?

Why Study Development Reason #1: Raising Children

• Knowledge of child development can help parents and teachers meet challenges of

rearing and educating children

Reason #2: Social Policies

• Knowledge of child development permits informed decisions about social-policy questions that affect children– For example, psychological research on

children’s responses to leading interview questions can help courts obtain more accurate testimonies from preschool children

Reason #3: Understanding Human Nature

• Child-development research provides important insights into questions regarding human nature (such as existence of innate concepts and relationship between early and later experiences)

– Recent investigations of development among children adopted from inadequate orphanages

in Romania supports principle that timing of experiences often influences their effects

Periods of Development • Prenatal Period -from conception to birth • Infancy - from birth to 18/24 months • Early Childhood - end of infancy to about 5

or 6 years • Middle and Late Childhood - from 6 to 11

years • Adolescence – 12- early adulthood• Early Adulthood• Middle Adulthood• Late Adulthood

Is Development...• Continuous?

– Infants and children respond to world same as adults, but more simply.

– Development is gradual change.

• Discontinuous?– Infants and children have

unique ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

– Development in stages.

Is Development Time-sensitive?

• Sensitive period– period of development during

which certain behaviors are easily learned

• Critical period– period of development during

which certain experience is needed for future normal development. Without such experience, later development may be impaired

Konrad Lorenz - Imprinting

Nature or Nurture?Nature• Genetic

factors/heredity • Stability

– Individuals who are high or low in characteristic will remain so at later ages.

Nurture• Environmental

factors • Plasticity

– Change is possible and likely if new experiences support it.

Nature and Nurture

• Developmentalists now recognize that every characteristic we possess is created through the joint workings of nature and nurture

– Accordingly, they ask how nature and nurture work together to shape development

Concept of childhood

• Ancient Rome through middle ages (1450 AD)– Childhood ends at 6 years

• After the Renaissance and Enlightenment– Childhood was recognized as a unique period

• After 17th and 18th centuries, – John Locke: a tabula rasa ( “blank slate”)– Jean Jacques Rousseau: innately good

Historical Foundations: Research-Based Approach

• Social reform movements established a legacy of research conducted for benefit of children/provided some of earliest descriptions of adverse effects that harsh environments have on child development

• Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution inspired research in child development in order to gain insights into nature of human species

• Psychoanalytic Perspective – Children move through stages, confronting conflicts

between biological drives and social expectations. Resolution determines psychological adjustment.

• Freud's Theory– Personality development is determined by how parents

manage their child's early sexual and aggressive drives.

Key Theories• Cognitive-Developmental Theories

– Piaget, Information-processing theories• Psychodynamic Theories

– Freud, Erikson, Jung, Adler, Kohlberg• Behaviorist Theories

– Watson, Skinner, Pavlov, Jones• Social Cognitive Learning Theories

– Bandura, Piaget, • SocioCultural Theories

– Vygotsky• Nativist Theories

– Chomsky,Darwin

Uri Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model

• Microsystem – Innermost level of the environment and includes bi-

directional influences in the person's immediate environment

• Mesosystem– Connections among microsystems that foster development

• Exosystem– Contexts not directly linked to children that affect their

microsystem and mesosystem experiences• Macrosystem

– Outermost layer that includes a culture's laws, values, and customs

one of founders of Head Start.

How do children become so different from each other?

• Individual differences among children arise very quickly in development

• Children’s genes, their treatment by other people, their subjective reactions to other people’s treatment of them, and their choice of environments all contribute to differences among children, even those within same family