The document discusses several key aspects of human development from a scientific perspective. It addresses the study of continuity and change over time, the multidimensional nature of development, contexts like environment and culture that influence growth. Critical periods, nature vs nurture debate, stages of development and capacities of newborns like vision, hearing, memory are examined. The complex interplay of biological and environmental factors that shape human growth is emphasized.

1. Dr. Reem Al-Sabah
Faculty of Medicine
Psychology 220

2. Science of Human Development
 The study of human development:
 Seeks to understand how and why people
change and remain the same over time.
 Is a science
 Studies all kinds of people
 Studies change over time

3. Continuity and Discontinuity
 Continuity refers to characteristics that are stable
over time
(e.g., biological sex)
 Discontinuity refers to characteristics unlike those
than came before
(e.g., speaking a new language, quitting a drug)

4. Five Characteristics of Development
 Multidirectional
 Multicontextual
 Multicultural
 Multidisciplinary
 Plasticity
PHOTODISC

5. What is “plasticity”?
 Plasticity refers to the fact that human traits can be
molded into different forms, and yet people maintain
a durability of identity.
 It means that some aspects of development have the
capacity for change, others may not.

6. More About Change Over Time
 Butterfly effect
 Sometimes a small event may culminate in a major
event (e.g., one alcoholic drink at the wrong time
during pregnancy).
 No effect
 Sometimes what seems to be a large event has
little long-term impact (e.g., children in war-torn
Bosnia).

7. The Complex Patterns of
Developmental Growth

8. Contexts of Development
 HISTORICAL
 In what ways do you differ from your
grandparents? Great grandparents?
 Cohort: group of people of the same age
 Social constructions create “shoulds” (e.g., ages
one “should” marry)

9. Contexts of Development
 SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS (SES)
 A combination of income and other factors
(parental education, occupation, etc.).
 The impact of SES depends on many factors.

10. Contexts of Development
 CULTURE
 Includes values,
technologies, customs of
a group of people.
 In what ways does culture
influence development?
PHOTODISC

11. Ecological Model of Human Development

12. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model of
Human Development
1. Microsystem: the relationships and interactions a
child has with his/her immediate surroundings.
2. Mesosystem: the connection between the structures
of the child’s microsystem.
3. Exosystem: the larger social system in which the child
does not function directly .
4. Macrosystem: cultural values, customs, and laws.
5. Chronosystem: the dimension of time as it relates to a
child’s environments.

13. Three Domains of Development
 Biosocial = brain and body
 Cognitive = thought processes, perceptual abilities,
language
 Psychosocial = emotions, personality, interpersonal
relationships

15. Nature-Nurture Debate
 What is more important in the course of human
development, genes or social environment?
 Question: How much of any characteristic, behavior,
or pattern of development is the result of genes, and
how much is the result of experiences?
 Both nature and nurture are always involved, to
varying degrees.

16.  John Locke- 17th century British Philosopher
 “tabula rasa” or blank slate.
 Babies' experiences get written on it.
 All knowledge comes to us through our senses.
 There is no built-in knowledge.
 Charles Darwin
 Theory of evolution emphasis on heredity and
biological basis of human development.

17.  John Watson, B. F. Skinner (Behaviorists)
 Human nature is completely malleable.
 You can train a child into being any kind of adult
regardless of his heredity.
 Interactionist approach
 both nature and nurture interact continuously
to guide development.

18. Maturation
 An innately determined (genetically programmed)
sequence of growth and change that is relatively
independent of external events
 Interaction of genes and environment
(e.g., fetal development, motor development and speech
development)
 Note: the environment affects the rate at which children
acquire the skills, not the ultimate skill level

19. Stages of development
 What do we mean by Stages?
 behavior organized around a dominant theme.
 all children go through the same stages in the
same order.
 the order of the stages does not vary, but
environmental factors may speed up or slow down
development.

20.  Critical Period
 crucial time periods in a person’s life when specific
events must occur if development is to proceed
normally.
example: fetal development, 6-7 weeks after
conception is important for development of sex
organs.
 It is the time of greatest vulnerability.
 Each body structure has it’s own critical period.
 Teratogens: substances/conditions that increase risk
of prenatal abnormalities

21. Critical Periods in Human Development

22.  Sensitive Period
 Psychological development.
 Periods that are optimal for a particular kind of
development.
 E.g., language acquisition, attachment.

23. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
 A cluster of birth defects including abnormal facial
characteristics, slow physical growth, and retarded mental
development, caused by the mother’s drinking alcohol
when pregnant

24. Capacities of the Newborn
 Methods of studying infant perception:
 Preferential looking behavior
 An infant’s tendency to look at some objects
more than others.
 Habituation method
 While infants look directly at novel objects, they
soon become bored with the same object- that
is they habituate.

25. Vision
 Least mature sense at birth.
 Poor visual acuity, limited ability to change
focus, and very near-sighted.
 Binocular vision:
the ability to coordinate the two eyes to see one
image
 Facial preference- an inborn, unlearned
preference for faces.

26.  Perceiving Depth
 Begins at 3 months, fully developed at 6 months.
 The “visual cliff” experiment
 infants generally respond to cues for depth by the
time they are able to crawl (6-8 months).

27. Hearing
 Acute at birth
 Newborn infants can detect the difference
between very similar sounds (e.g. “pa” and
“ba”) better than adults.
 can distinguish human voice from other
kinds of sounds.

28. Taste and Smell
 Preference for sweet-tasting liquids over liquids
that are salty, bitter, sour or bland

29. Motor Skills
 Motor skill: any ability to move a part of the body
The sequence of motor skills:
 Proximal-distal (from near to far). Development
proceeds from center of body to extremities.
 Cephalo-caudal (from head to tail). Development
proceeds from the head down.

30. Reflexes
 Reflex:
An involuntary response to a particular stimulus
Three sets of reflexes are critical for survival:
1. Reflexes that maintain oxygen supply
2. Reflexes that maintain constant body temperature
3. Reflexes that manage feeding

31. Learning and Memory
 What’s your prediction: Can infants remember
anything? For how long? What about a 1 or 2 year
old?
 What is your earliest memory?

32. Memory
 Even very young infants (3 months) can remember IF:
 Experimental conditions are “real life”
 Motivation is high
 Special measures aid memory retrieval (repetition
and reminders)
 Example: Rovee-Collier’s mobile experiment

33. Mobiles and
Memories
MICHAEL NEWMAN / PHOTOEDIT

34. Learning and Memory
 Important research findings for newborns
 Good memory by the time they are 3 months old
 Preference for human voices over other sounds
 Preference of heartbeat sounds
 Preference of mother’s voice over other women’s
voices
 Preference of familiar stories over unfamiliar stories

35.  The entire package of early sensation seems
organized for two goals:
1. Social Interaction: to respond to familiar
caregivers
2. Comfort: to be soothed amid the disturbance
of infant life.
The most important experiences are perceived
with all the senses at once (e.g., breast milk).