Module 1: INTRODUCTION TO LIFE SPAN DEVELOPMENT

Development refers to the pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and

continues through the human life span.

IMPORTANCE OF LIFE SPAN DEVELOPMENT

Lifespan development is a field of study that explores the growth, changes, and continuity in

human behavior from conception to death. Understanding lifespan development is crucial for

several reasons:

1. Individual Development and Well-being:

• Lifespan development helps individuals understand and navigate the various

stages of life, providing insights into physical, cognitive, emotional, and social

changes that occur over time.

• It fosters self-awareness and personal growth by helping individuals anticipate

and cope with challenges at different life stages.

2. Parenting and Education:

• Parents and educators benefit from understanding the typical developmental

milestones and challenges associated with different age groups. This

knowledge enables them to provide appropriate support, guidance, and

education tailored to the needs of the individual child.

3. Social Policy and Programs:

• Policymakers use lifespan development research to inform decisions related to

healthcare, education, and social services. Understanding the needs of

programs that promote overall well-being.

4. Healthcare and Medicine:

• Lifespan development contributes to the field of medicine by providing

insights into the physical and mental health changes that occur at different

ages. This understanding is crucial for developing preventive measures,

treatments, and healthcare interventions.

5. Career Development:

• Professionals in fields such as counseling, psychology, and human resources

benefit from knowledge of lifespan development when working with clients or

employees. Understanding how individuals develop and change throughout

their lives can inform career guidance, training, and workplace interventions.

6. Cultural Understanding:

• Lifespan development research helps in recognizing the influence of cultural

factors on human development. Cultural context plays a significant role in

shaping beliefs, values, and practices related to various life stages.

7. Relationships and Interpersonal Dynamics:

• Knowledge of lifespan development is essential for building and maintaining

healthy relationships. Understanding the developmental needs and challenges

of oneself and others contributes to effective communication and empathy.

• Lifespan development research provides a foundation for scientific inquiry

into human behavior. It contributes to the advancement of knowledge in fields

such as psychology, sociology, and neuroscience.

In summary, lifespan development is important for fostering individual well-being, guiding

societal policies, improving healthcare practices, enhancing educational strategies, and

promoting overall understanding of the human experience across the lifespan.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The maximum span of human life is approximately 120 years. The upper boundary has not

changed since the beginning of recorded history. However in other ways the lifespan has

varied in striking ways over the centuries.

Child development- Childhood was not always thought of as a special age. For example, in

medieval Europe, laws generally did not distinguish between childhood offenses and adult

offenses. Children were treated as miniature adults.

Ideas about children have also varied. In the west three influential philosophical views about

the nature of children are based on the ideas of sin, tabula rasa, and innate goodness. These

conflicting views formed the historical, backdrop for the study of childhood and child rearing

practices. Today, we conceive of childhood as a highly eventful and unique period of life that

lays an important foundation for the adult years and is highly differentiated from them.

Adult development- For much of human history, many families could not expect that their

children would even survive into adulthood. Life expectancy- the number of years an average

person is expected live when born in a particular year- was only 20 in ancient Greece. It took
5000 years of human history to extend human life expectancy by 25 years. In contrast. In the

20th century alone, life expectancy in US increased by 30 years. Improvements in sanitation,

nutrition, and medical knowledge led to this amazing increase.

As the older population continues to increase in the twenty-first century, an increasing

number of older adults will be without either spouse or children. Their needs for social

relationships, networks and support is increasing at the same time as their supply is

dwindling.

Although interest in children has a long and rich history, interests in adults began to develop

seriously in the latter half of the twentieth century. The traditional approach emphasizes

extreme change from birth to adolescence, little or no change in adulthood, and decline in old

age. In contrast, the life span approach emphasizes that developmental changes occurs during

adulthood as well as during childhood.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LIFE SPAN PERSPECTIVE

According to life-span development expert Paul Baltes (1939–2006), the life-span

perspective views development as lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional,

plastic,multidisciplinary, and contextual, and as a process that involvesgrowth, maintenance,

and regulation of loss (Baltes, 1987, 2003;Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006). In

Baltes’ view, it is important to understand that development is constructed through biological,

sociocultural, and individual factors working together.

1. Development Is Lifelong

In the life-span perspective, early adulthood is not the endpoint of development;

rather, no age period dominates development. Researchers increasingly study the

experiences and psychological orientations of adults at different points in their lives.

Whatever your age, your body, your mind, your emotions, and your relationships are

changing and affecting each other. Development consists of biological, cognitive, and

socioemotional dimensions. Even within a dimension, there are many components—

for example, attention, memory, abstract thinking, speed of processing information,

and social intelligence are just a few of the components of the

cognitive dimension.

3. Development Is Multidirectional

Both growth and decline characterize development. Throughout life, some dimensions

or components of a dimension expand and others shrink. For example,

when one language (such as English) is acquired early in development,

the capacity for acquiring second and third languages (such as Spanish

and Chinese) decreases later in development, especially after early childhood

(Levelt, 1989).

4. Development Is Plastic

Developmentalists debate how much plasticity people have in various dimensions at

different points in their development. Plasticity means the capacity for change. For

example, can you still improve your intellectual skills when you are in your seventies

or eighties? Or might these intellectual skills be fixed by the time you are in your

thirties so that further improvement is impossible? Researchers have found that the

cognitive skills of older adults can be improved through training and developing

better strategies. However, possibly we possess less capacity for change when we

become old.
5. Development is Contextual

All development occurs within a context, or setting. Contexts include families,

schools, peer groups, churches, cities, neighborhoods, university laboratories,

countries, and so on. Each of these settings is influenced by historical, economic,

social, and cultural factors.

Contexts, like individuals, change. Thus, individuals are changing beings in a

changing world. As a result of these changes, contexts exert three types of influences

1. Normative age-graded influences are similar for individuals in a particular age

group. These influences include biological processes such as puberty and

menopause. They also include sociocultural, environmental processes such as

beginning formal education (usually at about age 6 in most cultures) and

retirement (which takes place in the fifties and sixties in most cultures).

2. Normative history-graded influences are common to people of a particular

generation because of historical circumstances. Examples of normative history-

graded influences include economic, political, and social upheavals such as the

Great Depression in the 1930s, World War II in the 1940s, the civil rights and

women’s rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the terrorist attacks

of 9/11/2001, as well as the integration of computers and cell phones

into everyday life during the 1990s. Long-term changes in the genetic and cultural

makeup of a population (due to immigration or changes in fertility rates) are also

part of normative historical change.

3. Nonnormative life events are unusual occurrences that have a major impact

on the individual’s life. These events do not happen to all people, and when they

do occur they can influence people in different ways. Examples include the death

of a parent when a child is young, pregnancy in early adolescence, a fi re that

6. Developmental Science is multidisciplinary

Because of the complexity of human development, the expertise necessary to

understand it comes from many disciplines. The knowledge gained through the study

of life-span development sheds light on questions in many other disciplines.

Psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, neuroscientists, and medical researchers

all share an interest in unlocking the mysteries of development through the life span.

7. Development involves growth, maintenance and regulation

Baltes and his colleagues (2006) assert that the mastery of life often involves conflicts

and competition among three goals of human development: growth, maintenance,

and regulation of loss. As individuals age into middle and late adulthood, the

maintenance and regulation of loss in their capacities takes center stage away from

growth. Thus, a 75-year-old man might aim not to improve his memory or his golf

swing but to maintain his independence and his ability to play golf at all.

8. Development Is a Co-Construction of Biology, Culture, and the Individual

Development is a co-construction of biological, cultural, and individual factors

working together. For example, the brain shapes culture, but it is also shaped by

culture and the experiences that individuals have or pursue. In terms of individual

factors, we can go beyond what our genetic inheritance and environment give us. We

can author a unique developmental path by actively choosing from the environment

the things that optimize our lives.

Development is the product of several processes-biological, cognitive and socio-

emotional.

Biological Processes

Biological processes produce changes in an individual’s physical nature. Genes inherited

from parents, the development of the brain, height and weight gains, changes in motor skills,

nutrition, exercise, the hormonal changes of puberty, and cardiovascular decline are all

examples of biological processes that affect development.

Cognitive Processes

Cognitive processes refer to changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence, and language.

Putting together a two-word sentence, memorizing a poem, imagining what it would be like

to be a movie star, and solving a crossword puzzle all reflect the role of cognitive processes

in development.

Socioemotional Processes

Socioemotional processes involve changes in the individual’s relationships with other

people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality. An infant’s smile in response to a

parent’s touch, a toddler’s aggressive attack on a playmate, a school-age child’s development

of assertiveness, an adolescent’s joy at the senior prom, and the affection of an elderly couple

all reflect the role of socioemotional processes in development.

Connecting Biological, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes Biological,

cognitive, and socioemotional processes are inextricably intertwined. Consider a baby

smiling in response to a parent’s touch. This response depends on biological processes (the

physical nature of touch and responsiveness to it), cognitive processes (the ability to
understand intentional acts), and socioemotional processes (the act of smiling that often

reflects a positive emotional feeling and helps to connect us in positive ways with other

human beings.

Periods of Development

The interplay of biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes produces the periods

of the human life span. A developmental period refers to a time frame in a person’s life that is

characterized by certain features. For the purposes of organization and understanding, we

commonly describe development in terms of these periods. The most widely used classifi

cation of developmental periods involves the eight-period sequence.

1.The prenatal period is the time from conception to birth. It involves tremendous growth—

from a single cell to an organism complete with brain and behavioral capabilities—and takes

place in approximately a nine-month period.

2.Infancy is the developmental period from birth to 18 or 24 months. Infancy is

a time of extreme dependence upon adults. During this period, many psychological

activities—language, symbolic thought, sensorimotor coordination, and social learning,

are just beginning.

3.Early childhood is the developmental period from the end of infancy to age 5 or 6. This

period is sometimes called the “preschool years.” During this time, young children learn to

become more self-sufficient and to care for themselves, develop school readiness skills
(following instructions, identifying letters), and spend many hours in play with peers. First

grade typically marks the end of earlychildhood.

4. Middle and late childhood is the developmental period from about 6 to 11 years

of age, approximately corresponding to the elementary school years. During this period, the

fundamental skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic are mastered. The child is formally

exposed to the larger world and its culture. Achievement becomes a more central theme of the

child’s world, and self-control increases.

5.Adolescence is the developmental period of transition from childhood to early adulthood,

entered at approximately 10 to 12 years of age and ending at 18 to 21 years of age.

Adolescence begins with rapid physical changes—dramatic gains in height and weight,

changes in body contour, and the development of sexual characteristics suchas enlargement

of the breasts, growth of pubic and facial hair, and deepening of the voice. At this point in

development, the pursuit of independence and an identity are prominent. Thought is more

logical, abstract, and idealistic. More time is spent outside the family.

6.Early adulthood is the developmental period that begins in the early 20s and lasts through

the 30s. It is a time of establishing personal and economic independence, career development,

and for many, selecting a mate, learning to live with someone in an intimate way, starting a

family, and rearing children.

7.Middle adulthood is the developmental period from approximately 40 years of age to about

60. It is a time of expanding personal and social involvement and responsibility; of assisting
the next generation in becoming competent, mature individuals; and of reaching and

maintaining satisfaction in a career.

8.Late adulthood is the developmental period that begins in the 60s or 70s and

lasts until death. It is a time of life review, retirement, and adjustment to new social

roles involving decreasing strength and health. Late adulthood has the longest span of any

period of development, and as noted earlier, the number of people in this age group has been

increasing dramatically.

As a result, life-span developmentalists have been paying more attention

to differences within late adulthood (Scheibe, Freund, & Baltes, 2007). Paul

Baltes and Jacqui Smith (2003) argue that a major change takes place in older

adults’ lives as they become the “oldest-old,” on average at about 85 years of age.

Conceptions of Age

Chronological age is the number of years that have elapsed since birth. But time is a crude

index of experience, and it does not cause anything. Chronological age, moreover, is not the

only way of measuring age. Just as there are different domains of development, there are

different ways of thinking about age.

Age has been conceptualized not just as chronological age but also as biological age,

psychological age, and social age.

Biological age is a person’s age in terms of biological health. Determining biological age

involves knowing the functional capacities of a person’s vital organs .One person’s vital

capacities may be better or worse than those of others of comparable age. The younger the
person’s biological age, the longer the person is expected to live, regardless of chronological

age.

Psychological age is an individual’s adaptive capacities compared with those of other

individuals of the same chronological age. Thus, older adults who continue to learn, are fl

exible, are motivated, have positive personality traits, control their emotions, and think

clearly are engaging in more adaptive behaviors than their chronological age-mates who do

not continue to learn, are rigid, are unmotivated, do not control their emotions, and do not

think clearly.

Social age refers to social roles and expectations related to a person’s age. Consider the role

of “mother” and the behaviors that accompany the role. In predicting an adult woman’s

behavior, it may be more important to know that she is the mother of a 3-year-old child than

to know whether she is 20 or 30 years old.

Developmental Issues

The three issues about the nature of development are

Nature and Nurture

The nature-nurture issue involves the extent to which development is influenced by nature

and by nurture. Nature refers to an organism’s biological inheritance, nurture to its

environmental experiences.

According to those who emphasize the role of nature, the human grows in an orderly way. An

evolutionary and genetic foundation produces commonalities in growth and development .We

walk before we talk, speak one word before twovwords, grow rapidly in infancy and less so

in early childhood, experience a rush of sex hormones in puberty, reach the peak of our

physical strength in late adolescence and early adulthood, and then physically decline.
Proponents of the importance of nature acknowledge that extreme environments—those that

are psychologically barren or hostile—can depress development. However, they believe that

basic growth tendencies are genetically programmed into humans.

By contrast, other psychologists emphasize the importance of nurture, or environmental

experiences, in development. Experiences run the gamut from the individual’s biological

environment (nutrition, medical care, drugs, and physical accidents) to the social environment

(family, peers, schools, community, media, and culture).

Stability and Change

The stability-change issue involves the degree to which early traits and characteristics persist

throughout life or change.

Many developmentalists who emphasize stability in development argue that stability is the

result of heredity and possibly early experiences in life. For example, many argue that if an

individual is shy throughout life, this stability is due to heredity and possibly early

experiences in which the infant or young child encountered considerable stress when

interacting with people.

Developmentalists who emphasize change take the more optimistic view that later

experiences can produce change. In the life-span perspective, plasticity, the potential for

change, exists throughout the life span.

Continuity and Discontinuity

The continuity-discontinuity issue focuses on the degree to which development

involves either gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).

process. Those who emphasize nature often describe development as a series of distinct

stages. For example, a child’s first word, though seemingly an abrupt, discontinuous event, is

actually the result of weeks and months of growth and practice

Developmentalists who emphasize nature often describe development as a series of distinct

changes. In terms of discontinuity, as an insect grows from a caterpillar to a chrysalis to a

butterfly, it passes through a sequence of stages in which change is qualitatively rather than

quantitatively different. Similarly, at some point a child moves from not being able to think

abstractly about the world to being able to. This is a qualitative, discontinuous change in

development rather than a quantitative, continuous change.

CROSS-SECTIONAL AND LONGITUDINAL APPROACHES IN DEVELOPMENTAL

STUDY

Cross-Sectional Approach

The cross-sectional approach is a research strategy that simultaneously compares

individuals of different ages. A typical cross-sectional study might include three groups of

children: 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and 11-yearolds.

Another study might include a group of 15-year-olds, 25-year-olds, and 45-year-olds. The

groups can be compared with respect to a variety of dependent variables: IQ, memory, peer

relations, attachment to parents, hormonal changes, and so on.

All of this can be accomplished in a short time. In some studies, data are collected in a single

day. Even in large-scale cross-sectional studies with hundreds of subjects, data collection

does not usually take longer than several months to complete. The main advantage of the

cross-sectional study is that the researcher does not have to wait for the individuals to grow

up or become older. Despite its efficiency, though, the cross-sectional approach has its
drawbacks. It gives no information about how individuals change or about the stability of

their characteristics.

Longitudinal Approach

The longitudinal approach is a research strategy in which the same individuals are studied

over a period of time, usually several years or more. For example, in a longitudinal study of

life satisfaction, the same adults might be assessed periodically over a 70-year time span—at

the ages of 20, 35, 45, 65, and 90, for example.

Longitudinal studies provide a wealth of information about vital issues such as stability and

change in development and the importance of early experience for later development, but

they do have drawbacks. They are expensive and time consuming. The longer the study lasts,

the more participants drop out—they move, get sick, lose interest, and so forth. The

participants who remain may be dissimilar to those who drop out, biasing the outcome of the

study. Those individuals who remain in a longitudinal study over a number of years may be

more responsible and conformity-oriented.

Sequential Approach

The sequential approach is the combined cross-sectional, longitudinal design. In most

instances, this approach starts with a cross- sectional study that includes individuals of

different ages. A number of months after the initial assessment, the same individuals are

tested again- this is the longitudinal aspect of the design. At this later time, a new group of

participants is assessed at each age level. The new group at each level is added at the later
time to control for changes that might have taken place in the original group- some might

have dropped out of the study, or retesting might have improved their performance.

The sequential approach is complex, expensive and time consuming, but it does provide

information that is impossible to obtain from cross-sectional or longitudinal approaches

alone. The sequential approach has been especially helpful in examining cohort effects.

Cohort effect

A cohort is a group of people who are born at a similar point in history and share similar

experiences.

Cohort effects are important because they can powerfully affect the dependent measures in a

study ostensibly concerned with age. Researchers have shown it is especially important to be

aware of cohort effects when assessing adult intelligence. Individuals born at different points

in time—such as 1920, 1940, and 1960—have had varying opportunities for education.

Individuals born in earlier years had less access to education, and this fact may have a signifi

cant effect on how this cohort performs on intelligence tests.

Cross-sectional studies can show how different cohorts respond, but they can confuse age

changes and cohort effects. Longitudinal studies are effective in studying age changes but

only within one cohort. With sequential studies, age changes in one cohort can be examined

and compared with age changes in another cohort.