1 An Introduction to Lifespan Development2M01_FELD0073.docx

1 An Introduction to Lifespan Development
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1
What if for your entire life, the image that others held of you
was colored by the way in which
you were conceived?
In some ways, that’s what it has been like for Louise Brown,
who was the world’s first “test
tube baby,” born by in vitro fertilization (IVF), a procedure in
which fertilization of a mother’s
egg by a father’s sperm takes place outside of the mother’s
body.
Louise was a preschooler when her parents told her about how
she was conceived, and
throughout her childhood she was bombarded with questions. It
became routine to explain to
her classmates that she in fact was not born in a laboratory.
As a child, Louise sometimes felt completely alone. “I thought
it was something peculiar to
me,” she recalled. But as she grew older, her isolation declined

as more and more children were
born in the same manner.
In fact, today Louise is hardly isolated. More than 5 million
babies have been born using
the procedure, which has become almost routine. And at the age
of 28, Louise became a mother
herself, giving birth to a baby boy name Cameron—conceived,
by the way, in the old-fashioned
way (Falco, 2012; ICMRT, 2012).
P r o l o g u e : New Conceptions
Learning Objectives
LO 1-1 What is lifespan
development?
LO 1-2 What are some
of the basic influences on
human development?
LO 1-3 What are the
key issues in the field of
development?
LO 1-4 Which theoretical
perspectives have guided
lifespan development?
LO 1-5 What role do
theories and hypotheses
play in the study of
development?
LO 1-6 How are

developmental research
studies conducted?
LO 1-7 What are some
of the ethical issues
regarding psychological
research?
C h a P t e r o v e r v i e w
An Orientation to Lifespan
Development
Characterizing Lifespan Development:
The Scope of the Field
Cohort and Other Influences on
Development: Developing with Others in a
Social World
Key Issues and Questions: Determining
the Nature—and Nurture—of Lifespan
Development
Continuous Change versus Discontinuous
Change
Critical and Sensitive Periods: Gauging the
Impact of Environmental Events
Lifespan Approaches versus a Focus on
Particular Periods
The Relative Influence of Nature and
Nurture on Development

Theoretical Perspectives on Lifespan
Development
The Psychodynamic Perspective: Focusing
on the Inner Person
The Behavioral Perspective: Focusing on
Observable Behavior
The Cognitive Perspective: Examining the
Roots of Understanding
The Humanistic Perspective: Concentrating
on the Unique Qualities of Human
Beings
The Contextual Perspective: Taking a Broad
Approach to Development
Evolutionary Perspectives: Our Ancestors’
Contributions to Behavior
Why “Which Approach Is Right?” Is the
Wrong Question
Research Methods
Theories and Hypotheses: Posing
Developmental Questions
Choosing a Research Strategy: Answering
Questions
Correlational Studies
Experiments: Determining Cause

and Effect
Theoretical and Applied Research:
Complementary Approaches
Measuring Developmental Change
Ethics and Research
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4 PA RT 1 ▸ Beginnings
Louise Brown’s conception may
have been novel, but her devel-
opment, from infancy, through
childhood and adolescence, and
to her marriage and the birth of
her baby, has followed a predict-
able pattern. The specifics of our
development vary: some encoun-
ter economic deprivation or live
in war-torn territories; others
contend with genetic or family
issues like divorce and step-parents. The broad strokes of the
development, however, which
were set in motion in that test tube 28 years ago are remarkably
similar for all of us. Michael
Phelps, Bill Gates, the Queen of England, and each and every
one of us, is traversing the terri-
tory known as lifespan development.
Louise Brown’s conception in the lab is just one of the brave
new worlds of the twenty-first

century. Issues ranging from cloning to the consequences of
poverty on development, to the
prevention of AIDS raise significant developmental concerns
that affect human development.
Underlying these are even more fundamental issues: How do we
develop physically? How
does our understanding of the world grow and change
throughout our lives? And how do our
personalities and our social relationships develop as we move
from birth through the entire
span of our lives?
Each of these questions, and many others we’ll encounter
throughout this book, are cen-
tral to the field of lifespan development. As a field, lifespan
development encompasses not only
a broad span of time—from before birth to death—but also a
wide range of areas of develop-
ment. Consider, for example, the range of interests that
different specialists in lifespan develop-
ment focus on when considering the life of Louise Brown:
• Lifespan development researchers who investigate
behavior at the level of biological pro-
cesses might determine if Louise’s functioning prior to birth
was affected by her conception
outside the womb.
• Specialists in lifespan development who study genetics
might examine how the genetic
endowment from Louise’s parents affects her later behavior.
• For lifespan development specialists who investigate the
ways thinking changes over the
course of life, Louise’s life might be examined in terms of how
her understanding of the

nature of her conception changed as she grew older.
• Other researchers in lifespan development, who focus on
physical growth, might consider
whether her growth rate differed from children conceived more
traditionally.
• Lifespan development experts who specialize in the social
world and social relationships
might look at the ways that Louise interacted with others and
the kinds of friendships she
developed.
Although their interests take many forms, these specialists in
lifespan development share
one concern: understanding the growth and change that occur
during the course of life. Taking
many differing approaches, developmentalists study how both
the biological inheritance from
our parents and the environment in which we live jointly affect
our behavior.
Some developmentalists focus on explaining how our genetic
background can determine
not only how we look but also how we behave and relate to
others in a consistent manner—that
is, matters of personality. They explore ways to identify how
much of our potential as human
beings is provided—or limited—by heredity. Other lifespan
development specialists look to
Louise Brown and son.
LO O k I N G A H E A D
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C h A P T e R 1 ▸ An Introduction to Lifespan Development 5
the environment, exploring ways in which our lives are shaped
by the world that we encounter.
They investigate the extent to which we are shaped by our early
environments, and how our
current circumstances influence our behavior in both subtle and
evident ways.
Whether they focus on heredity or environment, all
developmental specialists acknowl-
edge that neither heredity nor environment alone can account
for the full range of human
development and change. Instead, our understanding of people’s
development requires that
we look at the joint effects of the interaction of heredity and
environment, attempting to grasp
how both, in the end, underlie human behavior.
In this chapter, we orient ourselves to the field of lifespan
development. We begin with
a discussion of the scope of the discipline, illustrating the wide
array of topics it covers and
the full range of ages it examines. We also survey the key issues
and controversies of the field
and consider the broad perspectives that developmentalists take.
Finally, we discuss the ways
developmentalists use research to ask and answer questions.
An Orientation to Lifespan Development
LO 1-1 What is lifespan development?
LO 1-2 What are some of the basic influences on human

development?
Have you ever wondered how it is possible that an infant tightly
grips your finger with tiny,
perfectly formed hands? Or marveled at how a preschooler
methodically draws a picture? Or
at the way an adolescent can make involved decisions about
whom to invite to a party or the
ethics of downloading music files? Or the way a middle-aged
politician can deliver a long,
flawless speech from memory? Or wondered what it is that
makes a grandfather at 80 so simi-
lar to the father he was when he was 40?
If you’ve ever wondered about such things, you are asking the
kinds of questions that
scientists in the field of lifespan development pose. Lifespan
development is the field of study
that examines patterns of growth, change, and stability in
behavior that occur throughout the
entire life span.
Although the definition of the field seems straightforward, the
simplicity is somewhat
misleading. In order to understand what development is actually
about, we need to look un-
derneath the various parts of the definition.
In its study of growth, change, and stability, lifespan
development takes
a scientific approach. Like members of other scientific
disciplines, researchers
in lifespan development test their assumptions about the nature
and course
of human development by applying scientific methods. As we’ll
see later

in the chapter, they develop theories about development, and
they use me-
thodical, scientific techniques to validate the accuracy of their
assumptions
systematically.
Lifespan development focuses on human development. Although
there
are developmentalists who study the course of development in
nonhuman
species, the vast majority examines growth and change in
people. Some seek
to understand universal principles of development, whereas
others focus on
how cultural, racial, and ethnic differences affect the course of
development.
Still others aim to understand the unique aspects of individuals,
looking at the
traits and characteristics that differentiate one person from
another. Regardless
of approach, however, all developmentalists view development
as a continuing
process throughout the life span.
As developmental specialists focus on the ways people change
and grow
during their lives, they also consider stability in people’s lives.
They ask in
which areas, and in what periods, people show change and
growth, and when
and how their behavior reveals consistency and continuity with
prior behavior.
How people grow and change over the course of their lives
is the focus of lifespan development.

lifespan development the field of study
that examines patterns of growth, change, and
stability in behavior that occur throughout the
entire life span.
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Finally, developmentalists assume that the process of
development persists through-
out every part of people’s lives, beginning with the moment of
conception and continuing
until death. Developmental specialists assume that in some ways
people continue to grow
and change right up to the end of their lives, while in other
respects their behavior remains
stable. At the same time, developmentalists believe that no
particular, single period of life
governs all development. Instead, they believe that every period
of life contains the potential
for both growth and decline in abilities, and that individuals
maintain the capacity for sub-
stantial growth and change throughout their lives.
Characterizing Lifespan Development:
The Scope of the Field
Clearly, the definition of lifespan development is broad and the
scope of the field is extensive.
Consequently, lifespan development specialists cover several
quite diverse areas, and a typical
developmentalist will choose to specialize in both a topical area
and an age range.

TOPICAL AReAs IN LIfesPAN DeveLOPMeNT. Some
developmentalists focus on
physical development, examining the ways in which the body’s
makeup—the brain, nervous
system, muscles, and senses, and the need for food, drink, and
sleep—helps determine behav-
ior. For example, one specialist in physical development might
examine the effects of malnu-
trition on the pace of growth in children, while another might
look at how athletes’ physical
performance declines during adulthood (Fell & Williams, 2008).
Other developmental specialists examine cognitive
development, seeking to understand
how growth and change in intellectual capabilities influence a
person’s behavior. Cognitive
developmentalists examine learning, memory, problem-solving
skills, and intelligence. For
example, specialists in cognitive development might want to see
how problem-solving skills
change over the course of life, or whether cultural differences
exist in the way people explain
their academic successes and failures. They would also be
interested in how a person who
experiences significant or traumatic events early in life would
remember them later in life
(Alibali, Phillips, & Fischer, 2009; Dumka et al., 2009; Penido
et al., 2012).
Finally, some developmental specialists focus on personality
and social development.
Personality development is the study of stability and change in
the enduring characteristics
that differentiate one person from another over the life span.
Social development is the way
in which individuals’ interactions with others and their social

relationships grow, change, and
remain stable over the course of life. A developmentalist
interested in personality develop-
ment might ask whether there are stable, enduring personality
traits throughout the life span,
whereas a specialist in social development might examine the
effects of racism or poverty or
divorce on development (Evans, Boxhill, & Pinkava, 2008;
Lansford, 2009). These four ma-
jor topic areas—physical, cognitive, social, and personality
development—are summarized in
Table 1-1.
Age RANges AND INDIvIDuAL DIffeReNCes. In addition to
choosing to spe-
cialize in a particular topical area, developmentalists also
typically look at a particular age
range. The life span is usually divided into broad age ranges:
the prenatal period (the pe-
riod from conception to birth); infancy and toddlerhood (birth to
age 3); the preschool
period (ages 3 to 6); middle childhood (ages 6 to 12);
adolescence (ages 12 to 20); young
adulthood (ages 20 to 40); middle adulthood (ages 40 to 65);
and late adulthood (age 65 to
death).
It’s important to keep in mind that these broad periods—which
are largely accepted by
lifespan developmentalists—are social constructions. A social
construction is a shared notion
of reality, one that is widely accepted but is a function of
society and culture at a given time.
Consequently, the age ranges within a period—and even the
periods themselves—are in many

physical development development involv-
ing the body’s physical makeup, including the
brain, nervous system, muscles, and senses,
and the need for food, drink, and sleep.
cognitive development development in-
volving the ways that growth and change in
intellectual capabilities influence a person’s
behavior.
personality development development in-
volving the ways that the enduring characteris-
tics that differentiate one person from another
change over the life span.
social development the way in which in-
dividuals’ interactions with others and their
social relationships grow, change, and remain
stable over the course of life.
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ways arbitrary and often culturally derived. For example, later
in the book we’ll discuss how
the concept of childhood as a special period did not even exist
during the seventeenth cen-
tury; at that time, children were seen simply as miniature adults.
Furthermore, while some
periods have a clear-cut boundary (infancy begins with birth,
the preschool period ends with
entry into public school, and adolescence starts with sexual
maturity), others don’t.

For instance, consider the period of young adulthood, which at
least in Western cultures
is typically assumed to begin at age 20. That age, however, is
notable only because it marks
the end of the teenage period. In fact, for many people, such as
those enrolled in higher edu-
cation, the age change from 19 to 20 has little special
significance, coming as it does in the
middle of the college years. For them, more substantial changes
may occur when they leave
college and enter the workforce, which is more likely to happen
around age 22. Furthermore,
in some non-Western cultures, adulthood may be considered to
start much earlier, when chil-
dren whose educational opportunities are limited begin full-time
work.
In fact, some developmentalists have proposed entirely new
developmental periods. For
instance, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett argues that adolescence
extends into emerging adulthood,
a period beginning in the late teenage years and continuing into
the mid-twenties. During
emerging adulthood, people are no longer adolescents, but they
haven’t fully taken on the
responsibilities of adulthood. Instead, they are still trying out
different identities and engage
in self-focused exploration (Schwartz, Côté, & Arnett, 2005;
Lamborn & Groh, 2009; Arnett,
2010, 2011; de Dios, 2012).
In short, there are substantial individual differences in the
timing of events in people’s
lives. In part, this is a biological fact of life: People mature at
different rates and reach develop-

mental milestones at different points. However, environmental
factors also play a significant
role in determining the age at which a particular event is likely
to occur. For example, the typi-
cal age of marriage varies substantially from one culture to
another, depending in part on the
functions that marriage plays in a given culture.
TAbLe 1-1 Approaches to Lifespan Development
Orientation Defining Characteristics examples of Question
Asked*
Physical development Emphasizes how brain,
nervous system, muscles,
sensory capabilities, needs
for food, drink, and sleep
affect behavior
• What determines the sex of a child? (2)
• What are the long-term results of premature birth? (3)
• What are the benefits of breast milk? (4)
• What are the consequences of early or late sexual maturation?
(1)
• What leads to obesity in adulthood? (13)
• How do adults cope with stress? (15)
• What are the outward and internal signs of aging? (17)
• How do we define death? (19)
Cognitive development Emphasizes intellectual
abilities, including learning,
memory, problem solving,
and intelligence
• What are the earliest memories that can be recalled from
infancy? (5)

• What are the intellectual consequences of watching
television? (7)
• Do spatial reasoning skills relate to music practice? (7)
• Are there benefits to bilingualism? (9)
• How does an adolescent’s egocentrism affect his or her
view of the
world? (11)
• Are there ethnic and racial differences in intelligence? (9)
• How does creativity relate to intelligence? (13)
• Does intelligence decline in late adulthood? (17)
Personality and social
development
Emphasizes enduring
characteristics that
differentiate one person
from another, and how
interactions with others and
social relationships grow
and change over the lifetime
• Do newborns respond differently to their mothers than to
others? (3)
• What is the best procedure for disciplining children? (8)
• When does a sense of gender identity develop? (8)
• How can we promote cross-race friendships? (10)
• What are the causes of adolescent suicide? (12)
• How do we choose a romantic partner? (14)
• Do the effects of parental divorce last into old age? (18)
• Do people withdraw from others in late adulthood? (18)
• What are the emotions involved in confronting death? (19)
*Numbers in parentheses indicate in which chapter the question
is addressed.

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It is important to keep in mind, then, that when developmental
specialists discuss age ranges,
they are talking about averages—the times when people, on
average, reach particular milestones.
Some people will reach the milestone earlier, some later, and
many will reach it around the time of
the average. Such variation becomes noteworthy only when
children show substantial deviation
from the average. For example, parents whose child begins to
speak at a much later age than aver-
age might decide to have their son or daughter evaluated by a
speech therapist.
The LINKs beTweeN TOPICs AND Ages. Each of the broad
topical areas of lifes-
pan development—physical, cognitive, social, and personality
development—plays a role
throughout the life span. Consequently, some developmental
experts focus on physical devel-
opment during the prenatal period, and others during
adolescence. Some might specialize in
social development during the preschool years, while others
look at social relationships in late
adulthood. And still others might take a broader approach,
looking at cognitive development
through every period of life.
In this book, we’ll take a comprehensive approach, proceeding
chronologically from the

prenatal period through late adulthood and death. Within each
period, we’ll look at different
topical areas: physical, cognitive, social, and personality.
Furthermore, we’ll also be consider-
ing the impact of culture on development, as we discuss next.
This wedding of two children in India is an
example of how environmental factors can
play a significant role in determining the age
when a particular event is likely to occur.
Developmental Diversity anD your life
How Culture, Ethnicity, and Race Influence Development
Mayan mothers in Central America are certain that almost con-
stant contact between themselves and their infant children is
nec-
essary for good parenting, and they are physically upset if
contact
is not possible. They are shocked when they see a North
American
mother lay her infant down, and they attribute the baby’s crying
to the poor parenting of the North American. (Morelli et al.,
1992)
***
What are we to make of the two views of parenting expressed in
this passage? Is one right and the other wrong? Probably not, if
we take into consideration the cultural context in which the
mothers
are operating. Different cultures and subcultures have their own
views
of appropriate and inappropriate childrearing, just as they have
different
developmental goals for children (Feldman & Masalha, 2007;

Huijbregts
et al., 2009; Chen & Tianying Zheng, 2012).
It has become clear that in order to understand development,
devel-
opmentalists must take into consideration broad cultural factors,
such
as an orientation toward individualism or collectivism. They
must also
consider finer ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, and gender
differences if
they are to achieve an understanding of how people change and
grow
throughout the life span. If developmentalists succeed in doing
so, not
only can they achieve a better understanding of human
development,
but they may be able to derive more precise applications for
improving
the human social condition.
Efforts to understand how diversity affects development have
been hindered by difficulties in finding an appropriate
vocabulary. For
example, members of the research community—as well as
society
at large—have sometimes used terms such as race and ethnic
group
in inappropriate ways. Race is a biological concept, which
should be
employed to refer to classifications based on physical and
structural
characteristics of species. In contrast, ethnic group and
ethnicity are
broader terms, referring to cultural background, nationality,

religion, and
language.
The concept of race has proven especially problematic.
Although
it formally refers to biological factors, race has taken on
substantially
more meanings—many of them inappropriate—that range from
skin
color to religion to culture. Moreover, the concept of race is
exceed-
ingly imprecise; depending on how it is defined, there are
between 3
and 300 races, and no race is genetically distinct. The fact that
99.9 per-
cent of humans’ genetic makeup is identical in all humans
makes the
question of race seem comparatively insignificant (Bamshad &
Olson,
2003; Helms, Jernigan, & Mascher, 2005; Smedley & Smedley,
2005).
In addition, there is little agreement about which names best
reflect
different races and ethnic groups. Should the term African
American—
which has geographical and cultural implications—be preferred
over
black, which focuses primarily on skin color? Is Native
American
preferable to Indian? Is Hispanic more appropriate than Latino?
And
how can researchers accurately categorize people with
multiethnic
backgrounds? The choice of category has important implications
for

the validity and usefulness of research. The choice even has
political
implications. For example, the decision to permit people to
identify
themselves as “multiracial” on U.S. government forms and in
the U.S.
Census initially was highly controversial (Perlmann & Waters,
2002).
In order to fully understand development, then, we need to take
the complex issues associated with human diversity into
account. It is
only by looking for similarities and differences among various
ethnic,
cultural, and racial groups that developmental researchers can
distin-
guish principles of development that are universal from
principles that
are culturally determined. In the years ahead, then, it is likely
that lifes-
pan development will move from a discipline that focuses
primarily on
North American and European development to one that
encompasses
development around the globe (Fowers & Davidov, 2006;
Matsumoto &
Yoo, 2006; Kloep et al., 2009).
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Cohort and Other Influences on Development:
Developing with Others in a Social World

Bob, born in 1947, is a baby boomer; he was born soon after the
end of World War II, when
an enormous bulge in the birth rate occurred as soldiers
returned to the United States from
overseas. He was an adolescent at the height of the civil rights
movement and the beginning
of protests against the Vietnam War. His mother, Leah, was
born in 1922; she is part of the
generation that passed its childhood and teenage years in the
shadow of the Great Depression.
Bob’s son, Jon, was born in 1975. Now building a career after
graduating from college and
starting his own family, he is a member of what has been called
Generation X. Jon’s younger
sister, Sarah, who was born in 1982, is part of the next
generation, which sociologists have
called the Millennial Generation.
These people are in part products of the social times in which
they live. Each belongs to
a particular cohort, a group of people born at around the same
time in the same place. Such
major social events as wars, economic upturns and depressions,
famines, and epidemics (like
the one due to the AIDS virus) work similar influences on
members of a particular cohort
(Mitchell, 2002; Dittmann, 2005).
Cohort effects provide an example of history-graded influences,
which are biological and
environmental influences associated with a particular historical
moment. For instance, peo-
ple who lived in New York City during the 9/11 terrorist attack
on the World Trade Center
experienced shared biological and environmental challenges due
to the attack (Bonanno

et al., 2006; Laugharne, Janca, & Widiger, 2007; Park, Riley, &
Snyder, 2012). In contrast,
age-graded influences are biological and environmental
influences that are similar for indi-
viduals in a particular age group, regardless of when or where
they are raised. For example,
biological events such as puberty and menopause are universal
events that occur at rela-
tively the same time throughout all societies. Similarly, a
sociocultural event such as entry
into formal education can be considered an age-graded influence
because it occurs in most
cultures around age six.
Development is also affected by sociocultural-graded
influences, the social and cultural
factors present at a particular time for a particular individual,
depending on such variables as
ethnicity, social class, and subcultural membership. For
example, sociocultural-graded influ-
ences will be considerably different for children who are white
and affluent than for children
who are members of a minority group and living in poverty
(Rose et al., 2003).
Finally, non-normative life events are specific, atypical events
that occur in a person’s life
at a time when such events do not happen to most people. For
example, a child whose parents
die in an automobile accident when she is six years old has
experienced a significant non-
normative life event.
key Issues and Questions: Determining
the Nature—and Nurture—of Lifespan
Development

LO 1-3 What are the key issues in the field of development?
Lifespan development is a decades-long journey. Though there
are some shared markers along
the way—such as learning to speak, going to school, and finding
a job—there are, as we have just
seen, many individual routes with twists and turns along the
way that also influence this journey.
For developmentalists working in the field, the range and
variation in lifespan devel-
opment raises a number of issues and questions. What are the
best ways to think about the
enormous changes that a person undergoes from before birth to
death? How important is
chronological age? Is there a clear timetable for development?
How can one begin to find
common threads and patterns?
From an educator’s
perspective:
How would a student’s
cohort membership affect
his or her readiness for school?
For example, what would be
the benefits and drawbacks of
coming from a cohort in which
Internet use was routine,
compared with earlier cohorts
prior to the appearance of
the Internet?

cohort a group of people born at around the
same time in the same place.
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These questions have been debated since lifespan development
first became established as
a separate field in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, though a fascination with
the nature and course of human development can be traced back
to the ancient Egyptians and
Greeks. We will look at some of these issues, which are
summarized in Table 1-2.
Continuous Change versus Discontinuous Change
One of the primary issues challenging developmentalists is
whether development proceeds in
a continuous or discontinuous fashion. In continuous change,
development is gradual, with
achievements at one level building on those of previous levels.
Continuous change is quanti-
tative in nature; the basic underlying developmental processes
that drive change remain the
same over the course of the life span. Continuous change, then,
produces changes that are a
matter of degree, not of kind. Changes in height prior to
adulthood, for example, are continu-
ous. Similarly, as we’ll see later in the chapter, some theorists
suggest that changes in people’s
thinking capabilities are also continuous, showing gradual
quantitative improvements rather

than developing entirely new cognitive processing capabilities.
In contrast, one can view development as being made up of
primarily discontinuous
change, occurring in distinct stages. Each stage or change
brings about behavior that is assumed
to be qualitatively different from behavior at earlier stages.
Consider the example of cognitive
development again. We’ll see later in the chapter that some
cognitive developmentalists suggest
that as we develop our thinking changes in fundamental ways,
and that such development is not
just a matter of quantitative change but of qualitative change.
Most developmentalists agree that taking an either/or position
on the continuous–
discontinuous issue is inappropriate. While many types of
developmental change are continu-
ous, others are clearly discontinuous.
Critical and Sensitive Periods: Gauging the Impact
of Environmental Events
If a woman comes down with a case of rubella (German
measles) in the first 20 weeks of preg-
nancy, the consequences for the child she is carrying are likely
to be devastating: They include
continuous change gradual development
in which achievements at one level build on
those of previous levels.
discontinuous change development that
occurs in distinct steps or stages, with each
stage bringing about behavior that is assumed
to be qualitatively different from behavior at
earlier stages.

TAbLe 1-2 Major Issues in Lifespan Development
Continuous Change Discontinuous Change
• Change is gradual. • Change occurs in distinct steps or
stages.
• Achievements at one level build on previous level. •
Behavior and processes are qualitatively different at
different stages.
• Underlying developmental processes remain the same
over the lifespan.
Critical Periods Sensitive Periods
• Certain environmental stimuli are necessary for normal
development.
• People are susceptible to certain environmental stimuli,
but
consequences of absent stimuli are reversible.
• Emphasized by early developmentalists. • Current
emphasis in lifespan development.
Lifespan Approach Focus on Particular Periods
• Current theories emphasize growth and change
throughout life, relatedness of different periods.
• Infancy and adolescence emphasized by early
developmentalists as
most important periods.

Nature (Genetic Factors) Nurture (Environmental Factors)
• Emphasis is on discovering inherited genetic traits and
abilities.
• Emphasis is on environmental influences that affect a
person’s
development.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 10 19/01/13 10:52 AM
C h A P T e R 1 ▸ An Introduction to Lifespan Development
11
the potential for blindness, deafness, and heart defects.
However, if she comes down with the
exact same strain of rubella in the thirtieth week of pregnancy,
damage to the child is unlikely.
The differing outcomes of the disease in the two periods
demonstrate the concept of criti-
cal periods. A critical period is a specific time during
development when a particular event
has its greatest consequences. Critical periods occur when the
presence of certain kinds of
environmental stimuli is necessary for development to proceed
normally (Uylings, 2006).
Although early specialists in lifespan development placed great
emphasis on the impor-
tance of critical periods, more recent thinking suggests that in
many realms individuals are
more malleable than was first thought, particularly in the
domain of personality and social

development. For instance, rather than suffering permanent
damage from a lack of certain
kinds of early social experiences, there is increasing evidence
that people can use later experi-
ences to their benefit, to help them overcome earlier deficits.
Consequently, developmentalists are now more likely to speak
of sensitive periods rather
than critical periods. In a sensitive period, organisms are
particularly susceptible to certain
kinds of stimuli in their environment. A sensitive period
represents the optimal period for par-
ticular capacities to emerge, and children are particularly
sensitive to environmental influences.
It is important to understand the difference between the
concepts of critical periods
and sensitive periods. In critical periods, it is assumed that the
absence of certain kinds
of environmental influences is likely to produce permanent,
irreversible consequences
for the developing individual. In contrast, although the absence
of particular environ-
mental influences during a sensitive period may hinder
development, it is possible for
later experiences to overcome the earlier deficits. In other
words, the concept of sensitive
period recognizes the plasticity of developing humans (Konig,
2005; Armstrong, et al.,
2006; Hooks & Chen, 2008).
Lifespan Approaches versus a Focus
on Particular Periods
On which part of the life span should developmentalists focus
their attention? For early
developmentalists, the answers tended to be infancy and

adolescence. Most attention was
clearly concentrated on those two periods, largely to the
exclusion of other parts of the lifespan.
Today, the story is different. Developmentalists now believe
that the entire lifespan is
important, for several reasons. One is the discovery that
developmental growth and change
continue during every part of life—as we’ll discuss throughout
this book.
Furthermore, an important part of every person’s environment is
the presence of other
people around him or her, the person’s social environment. To
fully understand the social
influences on people of a given age, we need to understand the
people who are in large measure
providing those influences. For instance, to understand
development in infants, we need to
unravel the effects of their parents’ ages on their social
environments. A fifteen-year-old first-
time mother will provide parental influences of a very different
sort from those provided by
an experienced thirty-seven-year-old mother. Consequently,
infant development is in part an
outgrowth consequence of adult development.
In addition, as lifespan developmentalist Paul Baltes points out,
development across the
life span involves both gains and losses. With age, certain
capabilities become more refined
and sophisticated, while others involve loss of skill and
capacity. For example, vocabulary tends
to grow throughout childhood and continues this growth through
most of adulthood. At the
same time, certain physical abilities, like reaction time, improve

until early and middle adult-
hood, when they begin to decline (Baltes, Staudinger, &
Lindenberger, 1999; Baltes, 2003).
People also shift in how they invest their resources (in terms of
motivation, energy, and
time) at different points during the life span. Early in life, more
of one’s personal resources are
devoted to activities involving growth, such as studying or
learning new skills. As one grows
older, more resources are devoted to dealing with the losses
people face during late adulthood
(Staudinger & Leipold, 2003).
critical period a specific time during develop-
ment when a particular event has its greatest
consequences and the presence of certain
kinds of environmental stimuli is necessary for
development to proceed normally.
sensitive period a point in development
when organisms are particularly suscep-
tible to certain kinds of stimuli in their
environments, but the absence of those
stimuli does not always produce irreversible
consequences.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 11 19/01/13 10:52 AM
The Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture
on Development
One of the enduring questions of development involves how

much of people’s behavior is
due to their genetically determined nature and how much is due
to nurture, the influences
of the physical and social environment in which a child is
raised. This issue, which has
deep philosophical and historical roots, has dominated much
work in lifespan development
(Wexler, 2006).
In this context, nature refers to traits, abilities, and capacities
that are inherited from one’s
parents. It encompasses any factor that is produced by the
predetermined unfolding of genetic
information—a process known as maturation. These genetic,
inherited influences are at work
as we move from the one-cell organism that is created at the
moment of conception to the bil-
lions of cells that make up a fully formed human. Nature
influences whether our eyes are blue
or brown, whether we have thick hair throughout life or
eventually go bald, and how good we
are at athletics. Nature allows our brains to develop in such a
way that we can read the words
on this page.
In contrast, nurture refers to the environmental influences that
shape behavior. Some of
these influences may be biological, such as the impact of a
pregnant mother’s use of cocaine
on her unborn child or the amount and kind of food available to
children. Other environmen-
tal influences are more social, such as the ways parents
discipline their children and the effects
of peer pressure on an adolescent. Finally, some influences are
a result of larger, societal-level
factors, such as the socioeconomic circumstances in which

people find themselves.
The LATeR ACTION Of NATuRe AND NuRTuRe. If our traits
and behavior were
determined solely by either nature or nurture, there would
probably be little debate regarding
the issue. However, for most critical behaviors this is hardly the
case. Take, for instance, one of
the most controversial areas: intelligence. As we’ll consider in
detail in Chapter 9, the question
of whether intelligence is determined primarily by inherited,
genetic factors—nature—or is
shaped by environmental factors—nurture—has caused lively
and often bitter arguments that
have spilled out of the scientific arena and into the realm of
politics and social policy.
Consider the implications of the issue: If the extent of one’s
intelligence is primarily
determined by heredity and consequently is largely fixed at
birth, then efforts to improve
intellectual performance later in life may be doomed to failure.
In contrast, if intelligence
is primarily a result of environmental factors, such as the
amount and quality of schooling
and stimulation to which one is exposed, then we would expect
that an improvement in
social conditions could bring about an increase in intelligence.
The extent of social policy affected by ideas about the origins
of intelligence illustrates the
significance of issues that involve the nature–nurture question.
As we address this question
in relation to several topical areas throughout this book, we
should keep in mind that devel-
opmentalists reject the notion that behavior is the result solely

of either nature or nurture.
Instead, the question is one of degree—and the specifics of that,
too, are hotly debated.
Furthermore, the interaction of genetic and environmental
factors is complex, in part
because certain genetically determined traits have not only a
direct influence on children’s
behavior, but an indirect influence in shaping children’s
environments as well. For example, a
child who is consistently cranky and who cries a great deal—a
trait that may be produced by
genetic factors—may influence his or her environment by
making his or her parents so highly
responsive to the insistent crying that they rush to comfort the
child whenever he or she cries.
Their responsivity to the child’s genetically determined
behavior consequently becomes an
environmental influence on his or her subsequent development
(Bradley & Corwyn, 2008;
Stright, Gallagher, & Kelley, 2008; Barnes & Boutwell, 2012).
Similarly, although our genetic background orients us toward
particular behaviors, those
behaviors will not necessarily occur in the absence of an
appropriate environment. People
with similar genetic backgrounds (such as identical twins) may
behave in very different ways;
maturation the predetermined unfolding of
genetic information.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 12 19/01/13 10:52 AM

13
and people with highly dissimilar genetic backgrounds can
behave quite similarly to one
another in certain areas (Coll, Bearer, & Lerner, 2004; Kato &
Pedersen, 2005).
In sum, the question of how much of a given behavior is due to
nature, and how much
to nurture, is a challenging one. Ultimately, we should consider
the two sides of the nature–
nurture issue as opposite ends of a continuum, with particular
behaviors falling somewhere
between the two ends. We can say something similar about the
other controversies that we
have considered. For instance, continuous versus discontinuous
development is not an either/
or proposition; some forms of development fall toward the
continuous end of the continuum,
whereas others lie closer to the discontinuous end. In short, few
statements about develop-
ment involve either/or absolutes (Rutter, 2006; Deater-Deckard
& Cahill, 2007).
Theoretical Perspectives on Lifespan
Development
LO 1-4 Which theoretical perspectives have
guided lifespan development?
LO 1-5 What role do theories and hypotheses
play in the study of development?
In Europe, there was no concept of “childhood” until the
seventeenth century. Instead, children were simply thought
of as miniature adults. They were assumed to be subject to

the same needs and desires as adults, to have the same vices
and virtues as adults, and to warrant no more privileges
than adults. They were dressed the same as adults, and their
work hours were the same as adults. Children also received
the same punishments for misdeeds. If they stole, they were
hanged; if they did well, they could achieve prosperity, at
least so far as their station in life or social class would allow.
This view of childhood seems wrong-headed now, but at the
time it was what passed for life span development. From this
Society’s view of childhood, and what is appropriate to ask of
children, has
changed through the ages. These children worked full-time in
mines in the
early 1900s.
Review and Apply
Review
◼ Lifespan development, a scientific approach to understanding
human growth and change
throughout life, encompasses physical, cognitive, social, and
personality development.
◼ Culture and ethnicity also play an important role in
development, both broad culture and
aspects of culture, such as race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic
status.
◼ Membership in a cohort, based on age and place of birth,
subjects people to influences
based on historical events (history-graded influences). People
are also subject to
age-graded influences, sociocultural-graded influences, and

non-normative life events.
◼ Four important issues in lifespan development are continuity
versus discontinuity in
development, the importance of critical periods, whether to
focus on certain periods
or on the entire life span, and the nature–nurture controversy.
Applying Lifespan Development
◼ What are some examples of the ways culture (either broad
culture or aspects of culture)
affects human development?
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 13 19/01/13 10:52 AM
perspective, there were no differences due to age; except for
size, people were assumed to be
virtually unchanging, at least on a psychological level,
throughout most of the life span (Ariès,
1962; Acocella, 2003; Hutton, 2004; Wines, 2006).
Although, looking back over several centuries, it is easy to
reject the medieval view of
childhood, it is less clear how to formulate a contemporary
substitute. Should our view of
development focus on the biological aspects of change, growth,
and stability over the life
span? The cognitive or social aspects? Or some other factors?
People who study lifespan development approach the field from
a number of different

perspectives. Each general perspective encompasses one or
more theories—broad, orga-
nized explanations and predictions concerning phenomena of
interest. A theory provides a
framework for understanding the relationships among a
seemingly unorganized set of facts
or principles.
We all develop theories about development, based on our
experience, folklore, and arti-
cles in magazines and newspapers. However, theories in
lifespan development are different.
Whereas our own personal theories are built on unverified
observations that are developed
haphazardly, developmentalists’ theories are more formal, based
on a systematic integration
of prior findings and theorizing. These theories allow
developmentalists to summarize and
organize prior observations, and they also permit them to move
beyond existing observa-
tions to draw deductions that may not be immediately apparent.
In addition, these theories
are then subject to rigorous testing in the form of research. By
contrast, the developmental
theories of individuals are not subject to such testing and may
never be questioned at all
(Thomas, 2001).
We will consider six major theoretical perspectives used in
lifespan development: the
psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, contextual,
and evolutionary perspectives.
Each emphasizes somewhat different aspects of development
and steers developmentalists in
particular directions. Furthermore, each perspective continues
to evolve and change, as befits

a growing and dynamic discipline.
The Psychodynamic Perspective: Focusing
on the Inner Person
When Marisol was six months old, she was involved in a bloody
automobile accident—or
so her parents tell her, since she has no conscious recollection
of it. Now, however, at age 24,
she is having difficulty maintaining relationships, and her
therapist is seeking to determine
whether her current problems are a result of the earlier accident.
Looking for such a link might seem a bit far-fetched, but to
proponents of the psycho-
dynamic perspective, it is not so improbable. Advocates of the
psychodynamic perspective
believe that much of behavior is motivated by inner forces,
memories, and conflicts of which a
person has little awareness or control. The inner forces, which
may stem from one’s childhood,
continually influence behavior throughout the life span.
fReuD ’s PsyChOANALyTIC TheORy. The psychodynamic
perspective is most
closely associated with a single person and theory: Sigmund
Freud and his psychoanalytic
theory. Freud, who lived from 1856 to 1939, was a Viennese
physician whose revolutionary
ideas ultimately had a profound effect not only on the fields of
psychology and psychiatry, but
on Western thought in general (Masling & Bornstein, 1996;
Greenberg, 2012).
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory suggests that unconscious forces
act to determine person-
ality and behavior. To Freud, the unconscious is a part of the

personality about which a person
is unaware. It contains infantile wishes, desires, demands, and
needs that, because of their dis-
turbing nature, are hidden from conscious awareness. Freud
suggested that the unconscious is
responsible for a good part of our everyday behavior.
According to Freud, everyone’s personality has three aspects:
id, ego, and superego. The
id is the raw, unorganized, inborn part of personality that is
present at birth. It represents
theories explanations and predictions con-
cerning phenomena of interest, providing a
framework for understanding the relation-
ships among an organized set of facts or
principles.
psychodynamic perspective the approach
stating that behavior is motivated by inner
forces, memories, and conflicts that are gen-
erally beyond people’s awareness and control.
Sigmund Freud.
psychoanalytic theory the theory proposed
by Freud that suggests that unconscious
forces act to determine personality and
behavior.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 14 19/01/13 10:52 AM
15

primitive drives related to hunger, sex, aggression, and
irrational impulses. The id operates
according to the pleasure principle, in which the goal is to
maximize satisfaction and reduce
tension.
The ego is the part of personality that is rational and
reasonable. The ego acts as a buffer
between the real world outside of us and the primitive id. The
ego operates on the reality prin-
ciple, in which instinctual energy is restrained in order to
maintain the safety of the individual
and help integrate the person into society.
Finally, Freud proposed that the superego represents a person’s
conscience, incorporat-
ing distinctions between right and wrong. It begins to develop
around age five or six and is
learned from an individual’s parents, teachers, and other
significant figures.
In addition to providing an account of the various parts of the
personality, Freud also
suggested the ways in which personality developed during
childhood. He argued that
psychosexual development occurs as children pass through a
series of stages in which plea-
sure, or gratification, is focused on a particular biological
function and body part. As illustrated
in Table 1-3 on page 16, he suggested that pleasure shifts from
the mouth (the oral stage) to the
anus (the anal stage) and eventually to the genitals (the phallic
stage and the genital stage).
According to Freud, if children are unable to gratify themselves

sufficiently during a par-
ticular stage, or conversely, if they receive too much
gratification, fixation may occur. Fixa-
tion is behavior reflecting an earlier stage of development due
to an unresolved conflict. For
instance, fixation at the oral stage might produce an adult who
is unusually absorbed in oral
activities—eating, talking, or chewing gum. Freud also argued
that fixation is represented
through symbolic sorts of oral activities, such as the use of
“biting” sarcasm.
eRIKsON’s PsyChOsOCIAL TheORy. Psychoanalyst Erik
Erikson, who lived from
1902 to 1994, provided an alternative psychodynamic view in
his theory of psychosocial
development, which emphasizes our social interaction with
other people. In Erikson’s view,
both society and culture challenge and shape us. Psychosocial
development encompasses
changes in our interactions with and understandings of one
another as well as in our know-
ledge and understanding of ourselves as members of society
(Erikson, 1963; Côtè, 2005;
Dunkel, Kim, Papini, 2012).
Erikson’s theory suggests that developmental change occurs
throughout our lives in eight
distinct stages (see Table 1-3 on page 16). The stages emerge in
a fixed pattern and are similar
for all people. Erikson argued that each stage presents a crisis
or conflict that the individual
must resolve. Although no crisis is ever fully resolved, making
life increasingly complicated,
the individual must at least address the crisis of each stage
sufficiently to deal with demands

made during the next stage of development.
Unlike Freud, who regarded development as relatively complete
by adolescence,
Erikson suggested that growth and change continue throughout
the life span. For instance,
as we’ll discuss further in Chapter 16, Erikson suggested that
during middle adulthood,
people pass through the generativity versus stagnation stage, in
which their contributions to
family, community, and society can produce either positive
feelings about the continuity of
life or a sense of stagnation and disappointment about what they
are passing on to future
generations (de St. Aubin, McAdams, & Kim, 2004).
AssessINg The PsyChODyNAMIC PeRsPeCTIve. It is hard for
us to grasp the
full significance of psychodynamic theories represented by
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and
Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development. Freud’s
introduction of the notion that uncon-
scious influences affect behavior was a monumental
accomplishment, and that it seems at all
reasonable to us shows how extensively the idea of the
unconscious has pervaded thinking in
Western cultures. In fact, work by contemporary researchers
studying memory and learning
suggests that we carry with us memories—of which we are not
consciously aware—that have
a significant impact on our behavior. The example of Marisol,
who was in a car accident when
she was a baby, shows one application of psychodynamically
based thinking and research.
psychosexual development according to

Freud, a series of stages that children pass
through in which pleasure, or gratification,
focuses on a particular biological function and
body part.
psychosocial development the approach
that encompasses changes in our interactions
with and understandings of one another, as
well as in our knowledge and understanding of
ourselves as members of society.
Erik Erikson.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 15 19/01/13 10:53 AM
Some of the most basic principles of Freud’s psychoanalytic
theory have been called
into question, however, because they have not been validated by
subsequent research. In
particular, the notion that people pass through stages in
childhood that determine their
adult personalities has little definitive research support. In
addition, because much of
Freud’s theory was based on a limited population of upper-
middle-class Austrians living
during a strict, puritanical era, its application to broad,
multicultural populations is ques-
tionable. Finally, because Freud’s theory focuses primarily on
male development, it has
been criticized as sexist and may be interpreted as devaluing
women. For such reasons,
many developmentalists question Freud’s theory (Guterl, 2002;

Messer & McWilliams,
2003; Schachter, 2005).
Erikson’s view that development continues throughout the life
span is highly important—
and has received considerable support. However, the theory also
has its drawbacks. Like
TAbLe 1-3 Freud’s and Erikson’s Theories
Approximate
Age
freud’s stages
of Psychosexual
Development
Major Characteristics
of freud’s stages
erikson’s stages
of Psychosocial
Development
Positive and Negative Outcomes
of erikson’s stages
Birth to 12–18
months
Oral Interest in oral gratification
from sucking, eating,
mouthing, biting
Trust vs. mistrust Positive: Feelings of trust from
environmental support

Negative: Fear and concern regarding
others
12–18 months
to 3 years
Anal Gratification from expelling
and withholding feces;
coming to terms with
society’s controls relating to
toilet training
Autonomy vs. shame and
doubt
Positive: Self-sufficiency if exploration
is encouraged
Negative: Doubts about self, lack of
independence
3 to 5–6 years Phallic Interest in the genitals;
coming to terms with
Oedipal conflict, leading to
identification with same-sex
parent
Initiative vs. guilt Positive: Discovery of ways to initiate
actions
Negative: Guilt from actions and
thoughts
5–6 years to
adolescence

Latency Sexual concerns largely
unimportant
Industry vs. inferiority Positive: Development of sense of
competence
Negative: Feelings of inferiority, no
sense of mastery
Adolescence
to adulthood
(Freud)
Adolescence
(Erikson)
Genital Reemergence of sexual
interests and establishment
of mature sexual relationships
Identity vs. role diffusion Positive: Awareness of uniqueness of
self, knowledge of role to be followed
Negative: Inability to identify
appropriate roles in life
Early adulthood
(Erikson)
Intimacy vs. isolation Positive: Development of loving,
sexual relationships and close
friendships
Negative: Fear of relationships with
others
Middle
adulthood
(Erikson)

Generativity vs.
stagnation
Positive: Sense of contribution to
continuity of life
Negative: Trivialization of one’s
activities
Late adulthood
(Erikson)
Ego-integrity vs. despair Positive: Sense of unity in life’s
accomplishments
Negative: Regret over lost
opportunities of life
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 16 19/01/13 10:53 AM
17
Freud’s theory, it focuses more on men’s than women’s
development. It is also vague in
some respects, making it difficult for researchers to test
rigorously. And, as is the case
with psychodynamic theories in general, it is difficult to make
definitive predictions
about a given individual’s behavior using the theory. In sum,
then, the psychodynamic
perspective provides good descriptions of past behavior, but
imprecise predictions of fu-
ture behavior (Whitbourne et al., 1992; Zauszniewski & Martin,

1999; de St. Aubin &
McAdams, 2004).
The Behavioral Perspective: Focusing
on Observable Behavior
When Elissa Sheehan was three, a large brown dog bit her, and
she needed dozens of stitches
and several operations. From the time she was bitten, she broke
into a sweat whenever she saw
a dog, and in fact never enjoyed being around any pet.
To a lifespan development specialist using the behavioral
perspective, the explanation for
Elissa’s behavior is straightforward: She has a learned fear of
dogs. Rather than looking inside
the organism at unconscious processes, the behavioral
perspective suggests that the keys to
understanding development are observable behavior and outside
stimuli in the environment.
If we know the stimuli, we can predict the behavior. In this
respect, the behavioral perspective
reflects the view that nurture is more important to development
than nature.
Behavioral theories reject the notion that people universally
pass through a series of
stages. Instead, people are assumed to be affected by the
environmental stimuli to which they
happen to be exposed. Developmental patterns, then, are
personal, reflecting a particular set
of environmental stimuli, and behavior is the result of
continuing exposure to specific factors
in the environment. Furthermore, developmental change is
viewed in quantitative, rather than
qualitative, terms. For instance, behavioral theories hold that
advances in problem-solving

capabilities as children age are largely a result of greater mental
capacities, rather than changes
in the kind of thinking that children are able to bring to bear on
a problem.
CLAssICAL CONDITIONINg: sTIMuLus subsTITuTION.
Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own
specified world to bring them up
in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to
become any type of spe-
cialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief,
and yes, even beggar-man and
thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities.
(Watson, 1925)
With these words, John B. Watson, one of the first American
psychologists to advocate
a behavioral approach, summed up the behavioral perspective.
Watson, who lived from
1878 to 1958, believed strongly that we could gain a full
understanding of development
by carefully studying the stimuli that composed the
environment. In fact, he argued that
by effectively controlling a person’s environment, it was
possible to produce virtually any
behavior.
As we’ll consider further in Chapter 5, classical conditioning
occurs when an organism
learns to respond in a particular way to a neutral stimulus that
normally does not evoke that
type of response. For instance, if a dog is repeatedly exposed to
the pairing of the sound of
a bell and the presentation of meat, it may learn to react to the
bell alone in the same way it

reacts to the meat—by salivating and wagging its tail with
excitement. Dogs don’t typically
respond to bells in this way; the behavior is a result of
conditioning, a form of learning in
which the response associated with one stimulus (food) comes
to be connected to another—in
this case, the bell.
The same process of classical conditioning explains how we
learn emotional responses. In
the case of dog-bite victim Elissa Sheehan, for instance, Watson
would say that one stimulus
has been substituted for another: Elissa’s unpleasant experience
with a particular dog (the ini-
tial stimulus) has been transferred to other dogs and to pets in
general.
behavioral perspective the approach
suggesting that the keys to understanding
development are observable behavior and
outside stimuli in the environment.
John B. Watson.
classical conditioning a type of learning
in which an organism responds in a particular
way to a neutral stimulus that normally does
not bring about that type of response.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 17 19/01/13 10:53 AM
OPeRANT CONDITIONINg. In addition to classical

conditioning, other types of learning
also derive from the behavioral perspective. The learning
approach that probably has had the
greatest influence is operant conditioning. Operant conditioning
is a form of learning in which
a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened by its
association with positive or negative
consequences. It differs from classical conditioning in that the
response being conditioned is
voluntary and purposeful rather than automatic (such as
salivating).
In operant conditioning, formulated and championed by
psychologist B. F. Skinner
(1904–1990), individuals learn to act deliberately on their
environments in order to bring
about desired consequences (Skinner, 1975). In a sense, then,
people operate on their environ-
ments to bring about a desired state of affairs.
Whether or not children and adults will seek to repeat a
behavior depends on whether
it is followed by reinforcement. Reinforcement is the process by
which a stimulus is pro-
vided that increases the probability that a preceding behavior
will be repeated. Hence,
a student is apt to work harder in school if he or she receives
good grades; workers are
likely to labor harder at their jobs if their efforts are tied to pay
increases; and people are
more apt to buy lottery tickets if they are reinforced by winning
occasionally. In addition,
punishment, the introduction of an unpleasant or a painful
stimulus or the removal of a
desirable stimulus, will decrease the probability that a
preceding behavior will occur in

the future.
Behavior that is reinforced, then, is more likely to be repeated
in the future, while
behavior that receives no reinforcement or is punished is likely
to be discontinued, or in the
language of operant conditioning, extinguished. Principles of
operant conditioning are used
in behavior modification, a formal technique for promoting the
frequency of desirable
behaviors and decreasing the incidence of unwanted ones.
Behavior modification has been
used in a variety of situations, ranging from teaching severely
retarded people the rudiments
of language to helping people stick to diets (Hoek & Gendall,
2006; Matson & LoVullo, 2008;
Wupperman et al., 2012).
sOCIAL-COgNITIve LeARNINg TheORy: LeARNINg
ThROugh IMITATION.
A five-year-old boy seriously injures his 22-month-old cousin
while imitating a violent
wrestling move he had seen on television. Although the infant
sustained spinal cord
injuries, he improved and was discharged five weeks after his
hospital admission (Reuters
Health eLine, 2002).
Cause and effect? We can’t know for sure, but it certainly
seems possible, especially look-
ing at the situation from the perspective of social-cognitive
learning theory. According to
developmental psychologist Albert Bandura and colleagues, a
significant amount of learning
is explained by social-cognitive learning theory, an approach
that emphasizes learning by

observing the behavior of another person, called a model
(Bandura, 1994, 2002).
According to social-cognitive learning theory, behavior is
learned primarily through
observation and not through trial and error, as it is with operant
conditioning. We don’t need
to experience the consequences of a behavior ourselves to learn
it. Social-cognitive learning
theory holds that when we see the behavior of a model being
rewarded, we are likely to imi-
tate that behavior. For instance, in one classic experiment,
children who were afraid of dogs
were exposed to a model, nicknamed the “Fearless Peer,” who
was seen playing happily with
a dog (Bandura, Grusec, & Menlove, 1967). After exposure, the
children who previously had
been afraid were more likely to approach a strange dog than
children who had not seen the
model.
Bandura suggests that social-cognitive learning proceeds in four
steps (Bandura, 1986).
First, an observer must pay attention and perceive the most
critical features of a model’s
behavior. Second, the observer must successfully recall the
behavior. Third, the observer must
reproduce the behavior accurately. Finally, the observer must be
motivated to learn and carry
out the behavior.
On the reality show Survivor, contestants
often must learn new survival skills in order
to be successful. What form of learning is
being demonstrated on this show?

From a social worker’s
perspective:
How do the concepts of
social learning and modeling
relate to the mass media,
and how might exposure
to mass media influence a
child’s family life?
operant conditioning a form of learning in
which a voluntary response is strengthened or
weakened by its association with positive or
negative consequences.
behavior modification a formal technique
for promoting the frequency of desirable
behaviors and decreasing the incidence of
unwanted ones.
social-cognitive learning theory learning
by observing the behavior of another person,
called a model.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 18 19/01/13 10:53 AM
19
AssessINg The behAvIORAL PeRsPeCTIve. Research using the
behavioral per-
spective has made significant contributions, ranging from

techniques for educating children
with severe mental retardation to identifying procedures for
curbing aggression. At the same
time, some controversies surround the behavioral perspective.
For example, although they are
part of the same general behavioral perspective, classical and
operant conditioning and social
learning theory diverge in some basic ways. Both classical and
operant conditioning present
learning in terms of external stimuli and responses, in which the
only important factors are
the observable features of the environment. In such an analysis,
people and other organisms
are like inanimate “black boxes,” nothing that occurs inside the
box is understood—nor much
cared about, for that matter.
To social learning theorists, such an analysis is an
oversimplification. They argue that
what makes people different from rats and pigeons is the
occurrence of mental activity, in the
form of thoughts and expectations. A full understanding of
people’s development, they main-
tain, cannot occur without moving beyond external stimuli and
responses.
In many ways, social learning theory has come to predominate
in recent decades over
classical and operant conditioning theories. In fact, another
perspective that focuses explicitly
on internal mental activity has become enormously influential.
This is the cognitive approach,
which we consider next.
The Cognitive Perspective: Examining
the Roots of Understanding

When three-year-old Jake is asked why it sometimes rains, he
answers “so the flowers can
grow.” When his 11-year-old sister Lila is asked the same
question, she responds “because of
evaporation from the surface of the earth.” And when their
cousin Ajima, who is studying
meteorology in graduate school, considers the same question,
her extended answer includes a
discussion of cumulo-nimbus clouds, the Coriolis effect, and
synoptic charts.
To a developmental theorist using the cognitive perspective, the
difference in the sophis-
tication of the answers is evidence of a different degree of
knowledge and understanding, or
cognition. The cognitive perspective focuses on the processes
that allow people to know,
understand, and think about the world.
The cognitive perspective emphasizes how people internally
represent and think about
the world. By using this perspective, developmental researchers
hope to understand how
children and adults process information and how their ways of
thinking and understanding
affect their behavior. They also seek to learn how cognitive
abilities change as people develop,
the degree to which cognitive development represents
quantitative and qualitative growth in
intellectual abilities, and how different cognitive abilities are
related to one another.
PIAgeT’s TheORy Of COgNITIve DeveLOPMeNT. No single
person has had a
greater impact on the study of cognitive development than Jean
Piaget. A Swiss psychologist

who lived from 1896 to 1980, Piaget proposed that all people
pass in a fixed sequence through
a series of universal stages of cognitive development. He
suggested that not only does the
quantity of information increase in each stage, but the quality of
knowledge and understand-
ing changes as well. His focus was on the change in cognition
that occurs as children move
from one stage to the next (Piaget, 1952, 1962, 1983).
Although we’ll consider Piaget’s theory in detail beginning in
Chapter 5, we can get a
broad sense of it now. Piaget suggested that human thinking is
arranged into schemes, that
is, organized mental patterns that represent behaviors and
actions. In infants, such schemes
represent concrete behavior—a scheme for sucking, for
reaching, and for each separate behav-
ior. In older children, the schemes become more sophisticated
and abstract, such as the set of
skills involved in riding a bike or playing an interactive video
game. Schemes are like intel-
lectual computer software programs that direct and determine
how data from the world are
looked at and handled (Parker, 2005).
cognitive perspective the approach that
focuses on the processes that allow people to
know, understand, and think about the world.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 19 19/01/13 10:53 AM

Piaget suggests that the growth in children’s understanding of
the world can be explained
by the two basic principles of assimilation and accommodation.
Assimilation is the pro-
cess in which people understand an experience in terms of their
current stage of cognitive
development and way of thinking. Assimilation occurs when
people use their current ways of
thinking about and understanding the world to perceive and
understand a new experience. In
contrast, accommodation refers to changes in existing ways of
thinking in response to encoun-
ters with new stimuli or events. Assimilation and
accommodation work in tandem to bring
about cognitive development.
Assessing Piaget’s Theory. Piaget has profoundly influenced
our understanding of cog-
nitive development and is one of the towering figures in
lifespan development. He provided
masterful descriptions of how intellectual growth proceeds
during childhood—descriptions
that have stood the test of literally thousands of investigations.
By and large, then, Piaget’s
broad view of the sequence of cognitive development is
accurate.
However, the specifics of the theory, particularly in terms of
change in cognitive capa-
bilities over time, have been called into question. For instance,
some cognitive skills clearly
emerge earlier than Piaget suggested. Furthermore, the
universality of Piaget’s stages has been
disputed. A growing amount of evidence suggests that the
emergence of particular cogni-
tive skills occurs according to a different timetable in non-

Western cultures. And in every
culture, some people never seem to reach Piaget’s highest level
of cognitive sophistication: for-
mal, logical thought (McDonald & Stuart-Hamilton, 2003;
Genovese, 2006; De Jesus-Zayas,
Buigas, & Denney, 2012).
Ultimately, the greatest criticism leveled at the Piagetian
perspective is that cognitive
development is not necessarily as discontinuous as Piaget’s
stage theory suggests. Remem-
ber that Piaget argued that growth proceeds in four distinct
stages in which the quality of
cogni tion differs from one stage to the next. However, many
developmental researchers argue
that growth is considerably more continuous. These critics have
suggested an alternative per-
spective, known as the information processing approach, which
focuses on the processes that
underlie learning, memory, and thinking throughout the life
span.
INfORMATION PROCessINg APPROAChes. Information
processing approaches
have become an important alternative to Piagetian approaches.
Information processing
approaches to cognitive development seek to identify the ways
individuals take in, use, and
store information.
Information processing approaches grew out of developments in
the electronic process-
ing of information, particularly as carried out by computers.
They assume that even complex
behavior such as learning, remembering, categorizing, and
thinking can be broken down into

a series of individual, specific steps.
Like computers, children are assumed by information processing
approaches to have lim-
ited capacity for processing information. As they develop,
however, they employ increasingly
sophisticated strategies that allow them to process information
more efficiently.
In stark contrast to Piaget’s view that thinking undergoes
qualitative advances as children
age, information processing approaches assume that
development is marked more by quanti-
tative advances. Our capacity to handle information changes
with age, as does our processing
speed and efficiency. Furthermore, information processing
approaches suggest that as we age,
we are better able to control the nature of processing and that
we can change the strategies we
use to process information.
An information processing approach that builds on Piaget’s
research is known as neo-
Piagetian theory. In contrast to Piaget’s original work, which
viewed cognition as a single sys-
tem of increasingly sophisticated general cognitive abilities,
neo-Piagetian theory considers
cognition as being made up of different types of individual
skills. Using the terminology of
information processing approaches, neo-Piagetian theory
suggests that cognitive development
proceeds quickly in certain areas and more slowly in others. For
example, reading ability and
information processing approaches mod-
els that seek to identify the ways individuals

take in, use, and store information.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 20 19/01/13 10:53 AM
21
the skills needed to recall stories may progress sooner than the
sorts of abstract computational
abilities used in algebra or trigonometry. Furthermore, neo-
Piagetian theorists believe that
experience plays a greater role in advancing cognitive
development than traditional Piagetian
approaches claim (Case, Demetriou, & Platsidou, 2001; Yan &
Fischer, 2002; Loewen, 2006).
Assessing Information Processing Approaches. As we’ll see in
future chapters,
information processing approaches have become a central part
of our understanding of devel-
opment. At the same time, they do not offer a complete
explanation for behavior. For example,
information processing approaches have paid little attention to
behavior such as creativity, in
which the most profound ideas often are developed in a
seemingly nonlogical, nonlinear man-
ner. In addition, they do not take into account the social context
in which development takes
place. That’s one of the reasons that theories emphasizing the
social and cultural aspects of
development have become increasingly popular—as we’ll
discuss next.
COgNITIve NeuROsCIeNCe APPROAChes. One of the most

recent additions
to the array of approaches taken by lifespan developmentalists,
cognitive neuroscience
approaches look at cognitive development through the lens of
brain processes. Like other
cognitive perspectives, cognitive neuroscience approaches
consider internal, mental pro-
cesses, but they focus specifically on the neurological activity
that underlies thinking, prob-
lem solving, and other cognitive behavior.
Cognitive neuroscientists seek to identify actual locations and
functions within the brain
that are related to different types of cognitive activity, rather
than simply assuming that there
are hypothetical or theoretical cognitive structures related to
thinking. For example, using
sophisticated brain scanning techniques, cognitive
neuroscientists have demonstrated that
thinking about the meaning of a word activates different areas
of the brain than thinking
about how the word sounds when spoken.
The work of cognitive neuroscientists is also providing clues to
the cause of autism,
a major developmental disability that can produce profound
language deficits and self-
injurious behavior in young children. For example,
neuroscientists have found that the
brains of children with the disorder show explosive, dramatic
growth in the first year of
life, making their heads significantly larger than those of
children without the disorder
(see Figure 1-1). By identifying children with the disorder very
early in their lives, health-
care providers can provide crucial early intervention

(Akshoomoff, 2006; Nadel & Poss,
2007; Lewis & Elman, 2008).
Cognitive neuroscience approaches are also on the forefront of
cutting-edge research that
has identified specific genes associated with disorders ranging
from physical problems such as
breast cancer to psychological disorders such as schizophrenia.
Identifying the genes that make
one vulnerable to such disorders is the first step in genetic
engineering in which gene therapy
can reduce or even prevent the disorder from occurring (Strobel
et al., 2007; Ranganath,
Minzenberg, & Ragland, 2008; Rodnitzky, 2012).
AssessINg COgNITIve NeuROsCIeNCe APPROAChes.
Cognitive neuro-
science approaches represent a new frontier in child and
adolescent development. Using
sophisticated measurement techniques that many of them
developed only in the last few years,
cognitive neuroscientists are able to peer into the inner
functioning of the brain. Advances in
our understanding of genetics also has opened a new window
into both normal and abnormal
development and has suggested a variety of treatments for
abnormalities.
Critics of the cognitive neuroscience approach have suggested
that it sometimes provides
a better description than explanation of developmental
phenomena. For instance, finding that
children with autism have larger brains than those without the
disorder does not explain why
their brains became larger—that’s a question that remains to be
answered. Still, such work

not only offers important clues to appropriate treatments, but
ultimately it can lead to a full
understanding of a range of developmental phenomena.
cognitive neuroscience approaches
approaches that examine cognitive develop-
ment through the lens of brain processes.
Figure 1-1 brain size Matters
Neuroscientists have found evidence that
the brains of children with autism are
somewhat larger than those of children
without the disorder. This finding might
help identify cases of autism early, allow-
ing for more effective intervention and
treatment.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 21 19/01/13 10:53 AM
The Humanistic Perspective: Concentrating
on the Unique Qualities of Human Beings
The unique qualities of humans are the central focus of the
humanistic perspective, the fourth
of the major theories used by lifespan developmentalists.
Rejecting the notion that our behav-
ior is largely determined by unconscious processes, by learning
from our environment, or by
rational cognitive processing, the humanistic perspective
contends that people have a natural
capacity to make decisions about their lives and to control their
behavior. According to this
approach, each individual has the ability and motivation to

reach more advanced levels of ma-
turity, and people naturally seek to reach their full potential.
The humanistic perspective emphasizes free will, the ability of
humans to make choices
and come to decisions about their lives. Instead of relying on
societal standards, then, peo-
ple are assumed to be motivated to make their own decisions
about what they do with their
lives.
Carl Rogers, one of the major proponents of the humanistic
perspective, suggested that
all people have a need for positive regard that results from an
underlying wish to be loved and
respected. Because it is other people who provide this positive
regard, we become dependent
on them. Consequently, our view of ourselves and our self-
worth is a reflection of how we
think others view us (Rogers, 1971; Motschnig & Nykl, 2003).
Rogers, along with another
key figure in the humanistic perspective, Abraham Maslow,
suggests that self-actualization is
a primary goal in life. Self-actualization is a state of self-
fulfillment in which people achieve
their highest potential in their own unique way. Although the
concept initially was deemed to
apply to only a few select, famous people, such as Eleanor
Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and
Albert Einstein, later theorists expanded the concept to apply to
any person who realizes his
or her own potential and possibilities (Maslow, 1970; Jones &
Crandall, 1991; Sheldon, Joiner,
& Pettit, 2003; Machiodi, 2012).
AssessINg The huMANIsTIC PeRsPeCTIve. Despite its

emphasis on impor-
tant and unique human qualities, the humanistic perspective has
not had a major impact
on the field of lifespan development. Its lack of influence is
primarily due to its inability
to identify any sort of broad developmental change that is the
result of increasing age
or experience. Still, some of the concepts drawn from the
humanistic perspective, such
as self-actualization, have helped describe important aspects of
human behavior and are
widely discussed in areas ranging from health care to business
(Laas, 2006; Zalenski &
Raspa, 2006; Elkins, 2009).
The Contextual Perspective: Taking a Broad
Approach to Development
Although lifespan developmentalists often consider the course
of development separately
in terms of physical, cognitive, personality, and social factors,
such a categorization has one
serious drawback: In the real world, none of these broad
influences occurs in isolation from
any other. Instead, there is a constant, ongoing interaction
between the different types of
influence.
The contextual perspective considers the relationship between
individuals and their
physical, cognitive, personality, and social worlds. It suggests
that a person’s unique develop-
ment cannot be properly viewed without seeing how that person
is enmeshed within a rich
social and cultural context. We’ll consider two major theories
that fall under this category,
Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological approach and Vygotsky’s

sociocultural theory.
The bIOeCOLOgICAL APPROACh TO DeveLOPMeNT. In
acknowledging the
problem with traditional approaches to lifespan development,
psychologist Urie Bronfen-
brenner (1989, 2000, 2002) has proposed an alternative
perspective, called the bioecological
humanistic perspective the theory con-
tending that people have a natural capacity to
make decisions about their lives and control
their behavior.
contextual perspective the theory that
considers the relationship between individuals
and their physical, cognitive, personality, and
social worlds.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 22 19/01/13 10:53 AM
23
approach. The bioecological approach suggests that five levels
of the environment simultane-
ously influence individuals. Bronfenbrenner notes that we
cannot fully understand develop-
ment without considering how a person is influenced by each of
these levels (illustrated in
Figure 1-2).
• The microsystem is the everyday, immediate environment
in which children lead their daily

lives. Homes, caregivers, friends, and teachers all are influences
that are part of the micro-
system. But the child is not just a passive recipient of these
influences. Instead, children
actively help construct the microsystem, shaping the immediate
world in which they live.
The microsystem is the level at which most traditional work in
child development has been
directed.
• The mesosystem provides connections between the various
aspects of the microsystem.
Like links in a chain, the mesosystem binds children to parents,
students to teachers, em-
ployees to bosses, friends to friends. It acknowledges the direct
and indirect influences that
bind us to one another, such as those that affect a mother or
father who has a bad day at the
office and then is short-tempered with her or his son or daughter
at home.
• The exosystem represents broader influences,
encompassing societal institutions such as
local government, the community, schools, places of worship,
and the local media. Each
of these larger institutions of society can have an immediate,
and major, impact on per-
sonal development, and each affects how the microsystem and
mesosystem operate. For
example, the quality of a school will affect a child’s cognitive
development and potentially
can have long-term consequences.
• The macrosystem represents the larger cultural influences
on an individual. Society in gen-
eral, types of governments, religious and political value

systems, and other broad, encom-
passing factors are parts of the macrosystem. For example, the
value a culture or society
places on education or the family will affect the values of the
people who live in that society.
bioecological perspective the perspective
suggesting that different levels of the environ-
ment simultaneously influence individuals.
Figure 1-2 bronfenbrenner’s Approach
to Development
Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological approach
to development offers five levels of the environ-
ment that simultaneously influence individuals:
the macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem,
and microsystem.
The Individual:
Sex
Age
Health
etc.
Friends
of family
Neighbors
Family
Church
group
Neighborhood

play area
School
Health
services
Peers
Mass
media
Legal
services
Social welfare
services
Chronosystem
(patterning of
environmental events
and transitions over the
life course; sociohistorical
conditions)
(s
o
ci
o
h
is
to
ri

ca
l
co
n
d
it
io
n
s
a
n
d
ti
m
e
s
in
ce
li
fe
e
ve
n
ts

)
T
im
e
Exosystem
Microsystem
Mesosystem
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 23 19/01/13 10:53 AM
Children are part of both a broader culture (such as Western
culture) and are influenced
by their membership in a particular subculture (for instance,
being part of the Mexican
American subculture).
• Finally, the chronosystem underlies each of the previous
systems. It involves the way the
passage of time, including historical events (such as the
terrorist attacks in September of
2001) and more gradual historical changes (such as changes in
the number of women who
work outside of the home), affect children’s development.
The bioecological approach emphasizes the interconnectedness
of the influences on devel-

opment. Because the various levels are related to one another, a
change in one part of the
system affects other parts of the system. For instance, a parent’s
loss of a job (involving the
mesosystem) has an impact on a child’s microsystem.
Conversely, changes on one environmental level may make little
difference if other lev-
els are not also changed. For instance, improving the school
environment may have a negli-
gible effect on academic performance if children receive little
support for academic success
at home. Similarly, the bioecological approach illustrates that
the influences among different
family members are multidirectional. Parents don’t just
influence their child’s behavior—the
child also influences the parents’ behavior.
Finally, the bioecological approach stresses the importance of
broad cultural factors that
affect development. Researchers in lifespan development
increasingly look at how member-
ship in cultural and subcultural groups influences behavior.
Consider, for instance, whether you agree that children should
be taught that their class-
mates’ assistance is indispensable to getting good grades in
school, or that they should defi-
nitely plan to continue their fathers’ businesses, or that children
should follow their parents’
advice in determining their career plans. If you have been raised
in the most widespread
North American culture, you would likely disagree with all
three statements, since they violate
the premises of individualism, the dominant Western philosophy
that emphasizes personal

identity, uniqueness, freedom, and the worth of the individual.
On the other hand, if you were raised in a traditional Asian
culture, your agreement with
the three statements would be considerably more likely. The
reason? The statements reflect the
value orientation known as collectivism—the notion that the
well-being of the group is more
important than that of the individual. People raised in
collectivistic cultures tend to empha-
size the welfare of the groups to which they belong, sometimes
even at the expense of their
own personal well-being.
The bioecological approach to develop-
ment focuses on the vast differences
in environments in which children
develop.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 24 19/01/13 10:53 AM
25
The individualism–collectivism spectrum is one of several di-
mensions along which cultures differ, and it illustrates
differences in
the cultural contexts in which people operate. Such broad
cultural
values play an important role in shaping the ways people view
the
world and behave (Leung, 2005; Garcia & Saewyc, 2007; Yu &
Stiff-
man, 2007).

Assessing the Bioecological Approach. Although Bronfen-
brenner considers biological influences as an important
component of
the bioecological approach, ecological influences are central to
the the-
ory. Some critics argue that the perspective pays insufficient
attention
to biological factors. Still, the bioecological approach is of
considerable
importance to child development, suggesting as it does the
multiple
levels at which the environment affects children’s development.
vygOTsKy’s sOCIOCuLTuRAL TheORy. To Russian
developmentalist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, a full
understanding of
development was impossible without taking into account the
culture in which people develop.
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory emphasizes how cognitive
development proceeds as a result
of social interactions between members of a culture (Vygotsky,
1926/1997, 1979; Beilin, 1996;
Winsler, 2003; Edwards, 2005; Göncü, 2012).
Vygotsky, who lived a brief life from 1896 to 1934, argued that
children’s understand-
ing of the world is acquired through their problem-solving
interactions with adults and other
children. As children play and cooperate with others, they learn
what is important in their
society and, at the same time, advance cognitively in their
understanding of the world. Con-
sequently, to understand the course of development, we must
consider what is meaningful to
members of a given culture.

More than most other theories, sociocultural theory emphasizes
that development is a
reciprocal transaction between the people in a child’s
environment and the child. Vygotsky
believed that people and settings influence the child, who in
turn influences the people and
settings. This pattern continues in an endless loop, with
children being both recipients of
socialization influences and sources of influence. For example,
a child raised with his or her
extended family nearby will grow up with a different sense of
family life than a child whose
relatives live a considerable distance away. Those relatives, too,
are affected by that situation
and that child, depending on how close and frequent their
contact is with the child.
Assessing Vygotsky’s Theory. Sociocultural theory has become
increasingly in-
fluential, despite Vygotsky’s death almost eight decades ago.
The reason is the growing
acknowledgment of the central importance of cultural factors in
development. Children
do not develop in a cultural vacuum. Instead, their attention is
directed by society to cer-
tain areas, and as a consequence, they develop particular kinds
of skills that are an out-
come of their cultural environment. Vygotsky was one of the
first developmentalists to
recognize and acknowledge the importance of culture, and—as
today’s society becomes
increasingly multicultural—sociocultural theory is helping us to
understand the rich and
varied influences that shape development (Fowers & Davidov,
2006; Koshmanova, 2007;

Rogan, 2007).
Sociocultural theory is not without its critics, however. Some
suggest that Vygotsky’s
strong emphasis on the role of culture and social experience led
him to ignore the effects of
biological factors on development. In addition, his perspective
seems to minimize the role
that individuals can play in shaping their own environment. As
we can see from the emphasis
of the humanistic perspective—described on page 22—each
individual can play a central role
in determining the course of his or her own development.
According to Vygotsky, children can develop
cognitively in their understanding of the
world, and learn what is important in
society, through play and cooperation with
others.
sociocultural theory the approach that em-
phasizes how cognitive development proceeds
as a result of social interactions between
members of a culture.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 25 19/01/13 10:53 AM
Evolutionary Perspectives: Our Ancestors’
Contributions to Behavior
One increasingly influential approach is the evolutionary
perspective, the sixth and final de-
velopmental perspective that we will consider. The evolutionary

perspective seeks to identify
behavior that is the result of our genetic inheritance from our
ancestors (Buss & Kern, 2003;
Bjorklund, 2005; Goetz & Shackelford, 2006). Watch the Video
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Evolutionary approaches have grown out of the groundbreaking
work of Charles Darwin.

In 1859, Darwin argued in his book On the Origin of Species
that a process of natural selection
creates traits in a species that are adaptive to its environment.
Using Darwin’s arguments, evolu-
tionary approaches contend that our genetic inheritance
determines not only such physical traits
as skin and eye color, but certain personality traits and social
behaviors as well. For instance,
some evolutionary developmentalists suggest that behaviors
such as shyness and jealousy are
produced in part by genetic causes, presumably because they
helped increase the survival rates
of humans’ ancient relatives (Easton, Schipper, & Shackelford,
2007; Buss, 2003, 2009, 2012).
The evolutionary perspective draws heavily on the field of
ethology, which examines the
ways in which our biological makeup influences our behavior. A
primary proponent of ethol-
ogy was Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989), who discovered that
newborn geese are genetically pre-
programmed to become attached to the first moving object they
see after birth. His work,
which demonstrated the importance of biological determinants
in influencing behavior pat-
terns, ultimately led developmentalists to consider the ways in
which human behavior might
reflect inborn genetic patterns.
As we’ll consider further in Chapter 2, the evolutionary
perspective encompasses one
of the fastest growing areas within the field of lifespan
development: behavioral genetics. Be-
havioral genetics studies the effects of heredity on behavior.
Behavioral geneticists seek to un-
derstand how we might inherit certain behavioral traits and how

the environment influences
whether we actually display such traits. It also considers how
genetic factors may produce psy-
chological disorders such as schizophrenia (Li, 2003; Bjorklund
& Ellis, 2005; Rembis, 2009).
AssessINg The evOLuTIONARy PeRsPeCTIve. There is little
argument among
lifespan developmentalists that Darwin’s evolutionary theory
provides an accurate description
of basic genetic processes, and the evolutionary perspective is
increasingly visible in the field
of lifespan development. However, applications of the
evolutionary perspective have been
subjected to considerable criticism.
evolutionary perspective the theory that
seeks to identify behavior that is a result of our
genetic inheritance from our ancestors.
Konrad Lorenz, seen here with geese who
from their birth have followed him, consid-
ered the ways in which behavior reflects
inborn genetic patterns.
Watch the Video on MyDevelopmentLab

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Psychologist: Evolutionary Psychology” in
to learn more about
the evolutionary perspective.
“Thinking Like a
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 26 19/01/13 10:53 AM
27
Some developmentalists are concerned that because of its focus
on genetic and biological
aspects of behavior, the evolutionary perspective pays
insufficient attention to the environ-
mental and social factors involved in producing children’s and
adults’ behavior. Other critics
argue that there is no good way to experimentally test theories
derived from the evolution-
ary approach because they all happened so long ago. For

example, it is one thing to say that
jealousy helped individuals to survive more effectively and
another thing to prove it. Still,
the evolutionary approach has stimulated a significant amount
of research on how our bio-
logical inheritance at least partially influences our traits and
behaviors (Angus & Reeve, 2003;
Bjorklund, 2006; Baptista et al., 2008).
“Which Approach Is Right?” Is the Wrong Question
We have considered the six major perspectives used in lifespan
development—psychodynamic,
behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, contextual, and evolutionary.
These perspectives are summa-
rized in Table 1-4 and will be applied to the case of a young
adult who is overweight. It would be
natural to wonder which of the six provides the most accurate
account of human development.
For several reasons, this question is not entirely appropriate.
For one thing, each per-
spective emphasizes somewhat different aspects of
development. For instance, the psychody-
namic approach emphasizes emotions, motivational conflicts,
and unconscious determinants
of behavior. In contrast, behavioral perspectives emphasize
overt behavior, paying far more
attention to what people do than to what goes on inside their
heads, which is deemed largely
irrelevant. The cognitive and humanistic perspectives take quite
the opposite tack, looking
more at what people think than at what they do. Finally, the
evolutionary perspective focuses
on how inherited biological factors underlie development.
TAbLe 1-4 Major Perspectives on Lifespan Development

Perspective Key Ideas About human behavior
and Development
Major Proponents example
Psychodynamic Behavior throughout life is motivated by
inner, unconscious forces, stemming from
childhood, over which we have little control.
Sigmund Freud, Erik
Erikson
This view might suggest that a young adult
who is overweight has a fixation in the oral
stage of development.
Behavioral Development can be understood through
studying observable behavior and
environmental stimuli.
John B. Watson, B. F.
Skinner, Albert Bandura
In this perspective, a young adult who is
overweight might be seen as not being
rewarded for good nutritional and exercise
habits.
Cognitive Emphasis on how changes or growth in the
ways people know, understand, and think
about the world affect behavior.
Jean Piaget This view might suggest that a young adult
who is overweight hasn’t learned effective
ways to stay at a healthy weight and doesn’t

value good nutrition.
Humanistic Behavior is chosen through free will and
motivated by our natural capacity to strive
to reach our full potential.
Carl Rogers, Abraham
Maslow
In this view, a young adult who is overweight
may eventually choose to seek an optimal
weight as part of an overall pattern of
individual growth.
Contextual Development should be viewed in terms of
the interrelationship of a person’s physical,
cognitive, personality, and social worlds.
Urie Bronfenbrenner,
Lev Vygotsky
In this perspective, being overweight is
caused by a number of interrelated factors in
that person’s physical, cognitive, personality,
and social worlds.
Evolutionary Behavior is the result of genetic inheritance
from our ancestors; traits and behavior that
are adaptive for promoting the survival of
our species have been inherited through
natural selection.
Influenced by early
work of Charles
Darwin, Konrad Lorenz

This view might suggest that a young adult
might have a genetic tendency toward
obesity because extra fat helped his or her
ancestors to survive in times of famine.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 27 19/01/13 10:53 AM
For example, a developmentalist using the psychodynamic
approach might consider
how the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and
Pentagon might affect chil-
dren, unconsciously, for their entire life span. A cognitive
approach might focus on how
children perceived and came to interpret and understand
terrorism, while a contextual
approach might consider what personality and social factors led
the perpetrators to adopt
terrorist tactics.
Clearly, each perspective is based on its own premises and
focuses on different aspects of
development. Furthermore, the same developmental
phenomenon can be looked at from a
number of perspectives simultaneously. In fact, some lifespan
developmentalists use an eclec-
tic approach, drawing on several perspectives simultaneously.
We can think of the different perspectives as analogous to a set
of maps of the same gen-
eral geographical area. One map may contain detailed
depictions of roads; another map may
show geographical features; another may show political

subdivisions, such as cities, towns,
and counties; and still another may highlight particular points
of interest, such as scenic areas
and historical landmarks. Each of the maps is accurate, but each
provides a different point of
view and way of thinking. Although no one map is “complete,”
by considering them together,
we can come to a fuller understanding of the area.
The various theoretical perspectives provide different ways of
looking at development.
Considering them together paints a fuller portrait of the myriad
ways human beings change
and grow over the course of their lives. However, not all
theories and claims derived from the
various perspectives are accurate. How do we choose among
competing explanations? The
answer is research, which we consider in the final part of this
chapter.
The diversity of America is reflected
in these children’s faces. The various
perspectives on development all
seek to improve the human condition
by explaining the course of human
development over life spans.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 28 19/01/13 10:53 AM
29
Review and Apply

Review
◼ The psychodynamic perspective looks primarily at the
influence of internal, unconscious
forces on development.
◼ The behavioral perspective focuses on external, observable
behaviors as the key to
development.
◼ The cognitive perspective focuses on mental activity.
◼ The humanistic perspective concentrates on the theory that
each individual has the ability
and motivation to reach more advanced levels of maturity and
that people naturally seek to
reach their full potential.
◼ The contextual perspective focuses on the relationship
between individuals and the social
context in which they lead their lives.
◼ Finally, the evolutionary perspective seeks to identify
behavior that is a result of our genetic
inheritance from our ancestors.
◼ What examples of human behavior have you seen that seem to
have been inherited from our
ancestors because they helped individuals survive and adapt
more effectively? Why do you
think they are inherited?
Research Methods
LO 1-6 How are developmental research studies conducted?

LO 1-7 What are some of the ethical issues regarding
psychological
research?
The Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote of an experiment
conducted by Psamtik, the King of
Egypt in the seventh century b.c. Psamtik was eager to prove a
cherished Egyptian belief,
that his people were the oldest race on earth. To test this notion,
he developed a hypothesis:
If a child was never exposed to the language of his elders, he
would instinctively adopt the
primal language of humanity—the original language of the first
people. Psamtik was certain
this would be Egyptian.
For his experiment, Psamtik entrusted two Egyptian infants to
the care of a herdsman
in an isolated area. They were to be well looked after, but not
allowed to leave their cottage.
And they were never to hear anyone speak a single word.
When Herodotus investigated the story, he learned that
Psamtik’s sought to learn what
the first word the children would say. Herodotus claims the
experiment worked, but not as
Psamtik had hoped. One day, when the children were two years
old, they greeted the herds-
man with the word “Becos!” The herdsman didn’t know this
word but when the children
continued to use it, he contacted Psamtik. The king sent for the
children who repeated the
strange word to him. Psamtik did some research. Becos, it
turned out, was “bread” in Phry-
gian. Psamtik had to conclude the Phrygians had preceded the

Egyptians.
With the perspective of several thousand years, we can easily
see the shortcomings—both sci-
entific and ethical—in Psamtik’s approach. Yet his procedure
represents an improvement over
mere speculation, and as such is sometimes seen as the first
developmental experiment in
recorded history (Hunt, 1993).
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 29 19/01/13 10:53 AM
Theories and Hypotheses: Posing Developmental
Questions
Questions such as those raised by Psamtik drive the study of
development. In fact, develo-
mentalists are still studying how children learn language. Others
are trying to find answers to
such questions as, What are the effects of malnutrition on later
intellectual performance? How
do infants form relationships with their parents, and does
participation in day care disrupt
such relationships? Why are adolescents particularly susceptible
to peer pressure? Can men-
tally challenging activities reduce the declines in intellectual
abilities related to aging? Do any
mental faculties improve with age?
To answer such questions, developmentalists, like all
psychologists and other scientists,
rely on the scientific method. The scientific method is the
process of posing and answer-

ing questions using careful, controlled techniques that include
systematic, orderly observation
and the collection of data. The scientific method involves three
major steps: (1) identifying
questions of interest, (2) formulating an explanation, and (3)
carrying out research that either
lends support to the explanation or refutes it.
The scientific method involves the formulation of theories, the
broad explanations, and
predictions about phenomena of interest that scientists create.
For instance, many people the-
orize that a crucial bonding period between parent and child
takes place immediately after
birth, which is a necessary ingredient in forming a lasting
parent–child relationship. Without
such a bonding period, they assume, the parent–child
relationship will be forever compro-
mised (Furnham & Weir, 1996).
Developmental researchers use theories to form hypotheses. A
hypothesis is a predic-
tion stated in a way that permits it to be tested. For instance,
someone who subscribes to
the general theory that bonding is a crucial ingredient in the
parent–child relationship might
derive the more specific hypothesis that adopted children whose
adoptive parents never had
the chance to bond with them immediately after birth may
ultimately have less secure re-
lationships with their adoptive parents. Others might derive
other hypotheses, such as that
effective bonding occurs only if it lasts for a certain length of
time, or that bonding affects the
mother–child relationship, but not the father–child relationship.
(In case you’re wondering:

As we’ll discuss in Chapter 3, these particular hypotheses have
not been upheld; there are no
long-term reactions to the separation of parent and child
immediately after birth, even if the
separation lasts several days.)
Choosing a Research Strategy: Answering Questions
Once researchers have formed a hypothesis, they must develop a
research strategy for testing
its validity. There are two major categories of research:
correlational research and experimen-
tal research. Correlational research seeks to identify whether an
association or relationship
between two factors exists. As we’ll see, correlational research
cannot be used to determine
whether one factor causes changes in the other. For instance,
correlational research could tell
us if there is an association between the number of minutes a
mother and her newborn child
are together immediately after birth and the quality of the
mother–child relationship when
the child reaches two years of age. Such correlational research
indicates whether the two fac-
tors are associated or related to one another, but not whether the
initial contact caused the
relationship to develop in a particular way (Schutt, 2001).
In contrast, experimental research is designed to discover causal
relationships between
various factors. In experimental research, researchers
deliberately introduce a change in a
carefully structured situation in order to see the consequences
of that change. For instance,
a researcher conducting an experiment might vary the number of
minutes that mothers and
children interact immediately following birth, in an attempt to

see whether the amount of
bonding time affects the mother–child relationship.
Because experimental research is able to answer questions of
causality, it is funda-
mental to finding answers to various developmental hypotheses.
However, some research
scientific method the process of posing and
answering questions using careful, controlled
techniques that include systematic, orderly
observation and the collection of data.
hypothesis a prediction stated in a way that
permits it to be tested.
correlational research research that seeks
to identify whether an association or relation-
ship between two factors exists.
experimental research research designed to
discover causal relationships between various
factors.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 30 19/01/13 10:53 AM
31
questions cannot be answered through experiments, for either
tech-
nical or ethical reasons (for example, it would be unethical to
design
an experiment in which a group of infants was offered no

chance to
bond with a caregiver at all). In fact, a great deal of pioneering
devel-
opmental research—such as that conducted by Piaget and
Vygotsky—
employed correlational techniques. Consequently, correlational
research remains an important tool in the developmental
researcher’s
toolbox.
Correlational Studies
As we’ve noted, correlational research examines the
relationship between
two variables to determine whether they are associated, or
correlated. For
instance, researchers interested in the relationship between
televised ag-
gression and subsequent behavior have found that children who
watch
a good deal of aggression on television—murders, crime shows,
shootings, and the like—tend to
be more aggressive than those who watch only a little. In other
words, as we’ll discuss in greater
detail in Chapter 15, viewing of aggression and actual
aggression are strongly associated, or cor-
related, with one another (Center for Communication & Social
Policy, 1998; Singer & Singer, 2000;
Feshbach & Tangney, 2008).
But does this mean we can conclude that the viewing of
televised aggression causes the
more aggressive behavior of the viewers? Not at all. Consider
some of the other possibilities: It
might be that being aggressive in the first place makes children
more likely to choose to watch
violent programs. In such a case, then, it is the aggressive

tendency that causes the viewing
behavior, and not the other way around.
Or consider another possibility. Suppose that children who are
raised in poverty are more
likely to behave aggressively and to watch higher levels of
aggressive television than those
raised in more affluent settings. In this case, it is a third
variable—low socioeconomic status—
that causes both the aggressive behavior and the television
viewing. The various possibilities
are illustrated in Figure 1-3.
In experimental research, one uses con-
trolled conditions to attempt to discover
causal relationships between various
factors.
Figure 1-3 finding a Correlation
Finding a correlation between two factors
does not imply that one factor causes the
other factor to vary. For instance, suppose
a study found that viewing television shows
with high levels of aggression is correlated
with actual aggression in children. The
correlation may reflect at least three pos-
sibilities: (a) watching television programs
containing high levels of aggression causes
aggression in viewers; (b) children who
behave aggressively choose to watch TV
programs with high levels of aggression;
or (c) some third factor, such as a child’s
socioeconomic status, leads both to high
viewer aggression and to choosing to
watch television programs with high levels
of aggression. What other factors, besides

socioeconomic status, might be plausible
third factors?
High viewer
aggression
Choosing to watch
television programs
with high
aggressive content
High viewer
aggression
Choosing to watch
television programs
with high
aggressive content
Possible Cause Potential Result
High viewer
aggression
Low
socioeconomic
status
Choosing to watch
television programs
with high
aggressive content

a
b
c
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 31 19/01/13 10:53 AM
In short, finding that two variables are correlated proves
nothing about causality.
Although the variables may be linked causally, this is not
necessarily the case.
Correlational studies do provide important information,
however. For instance, as we’ll
see in later chapters, we know from correlational studies that
the closer the genetic link
between two people, the more highly associated is their
intelligence. We have learned that the
more parents speak to their young children, the more extensive
are the children’s vocabularies.
And we know from correlational studies that the better the
nutrition that infants receive, the
fewer the cognitive and social problems they experience later
(Hart, 2004; Colom, Lluis-Font,
& Andrès-Pueyo, 2005; Robb, Richert, & Wartella, 2009).
The CORReLATION COeffICIeNT. The strength and direction
of a relationship be-
tween two factors is represented by a mathematical score, called
a correlation coefficient, that

ranges from +1.0 to -1.0. A positive correlation indicates that as
the value of one factor in-
creases, it can be predicted that the value of the other will also
increase. For instance, if we
find that the more money people make in their first job after
college, the higher their scores
on a survey of job satisfaction, and that people who make less
money have lower scores when
surveyed about their job satisfaction, we have found a positive
correlation. (Higher values of
the factor “salary” are associated with higher values of the
factor “job satisfaction,” and lower
values of “salary” are associated with lower values of “job
satisfaction.”) The correlation coeffi-
cient, then, would be indicated by a positive number, and the
stronger the association between
salary and job satisfaction, the closer the number would be to
+1.0.
In contrast, a correlation coefficient with a negative value
informs us that as the value of
one factor increases, the value of the other factor declines. For
example, suppose we found
that the greater the number of hours adolescents spend using
instant messaging on their
computers, the worse their academic performance is. Such a
finding would result in a nega-
tive correlation, ranging between 0 and -1. More instant
messaging is associated with lower
performance, and less instant messaging is associated with
better performance. The stronger
the association between instant messaging and school
performance, the closer the correlation
coefficient will be to -1.0.
Finally, it is possible that two factors are unrelated to one

another. For example, it is un-
likely that we would find a correlation between school
performance and shoe size. In this case,
the lack of a relationship would be indicated by a correlation
coefficient close to 0.
It is important to reiterate what we noted earlier: Even if the
correlation coefficient in-
volving two variables is very strong, there is no way we can
know whether one factor causes
another factor to vary. It simply means that the two factors are
associated with one another in
a predictable way.
TyPes Of CORReLATIONAL sTuDIes. There are several types
of correlational stud-
ies. Naturalistic observation is the observation of a naturally
occurring behavior without
intervention in the situation. For instance, an investigator who
wishes to learn how often pre-
school children share toys with one another might observe a
classroom over a 3-week period,
recording how often the preschoolers spontaneously share with
one another. The key point
about naturalistic observation is that the investigator simply
observes the children, without
interfering with the situation whatsoever (e.g., Prezbindowski &
Lederberg, 2003; Fanger,
Frankel, & Hazen, 2012).
Though naturalistic observation has the advantage of identifying
what children do in
their “natural habitat,” there is an important drawback to the
method: Researchers are unable
to exert control over factors of interest. For instance, in some
cases researchers might find so

few naturally occurring instances of the behavior of interest that
they are unable to draw any
conclusions at all. In addition, children who know they are
being watched may modify their
behavior as a result of the observation. Consequently, their
behavior may not be representa-
tive of how they would behave if they were not being watched.
naturalistic observation a type of correla-
tional study in which some naturally occurring
behavior is observed without intervention in
the situation.
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33
Ethnography and Qualitative Research. Increasingly,
naturalistic observation emp loys
ethnography a method borrowed from the field of anthropology
and used to investigate cultural
questions. In ethnography, a researcher’s goal is to understand a
culture’s values and attitudes
through careful, extended examination. Typically, researchers
using ethnography act as partici-
pant observers, living for a period of weeks, months, or even
years in another culture. By carefully
observing everyday life and conducting in-depth interviews,
researchers are able to obtain a deep
understanding of the nature of life within another culture
(Dyson, 2003).
Ethnographic studies are an example of a broader category of

research known as qualita-
tive research. In qualitative research, researchers choose
particular settings of interest and seek
to carefully describe, in narrative fashion, what is occurring,
and why. Qualitative research
can be used to generate hypotheses that can later be tested using
more objective, quantitative
methods.
Although ethnographic and qualitative studies provide a fine-
grained view of behavior
in particular settings, they suffer from several drawbacks. As
mentioned, the presence of a
participant observer may influence the behavior of the
individuals being studied. Further-
more, because only a small number of individuals are studied, it
may be hard to generalize
the findings to other settings. Finally, ethnographers carrying
out cross-cultural research may
misinterpret and misconceive what they are observing,
particularly in cultures that are very
different from their own (Polkinghorne, 2005).
Case studies involve extensive, in-depth interviews with a
particular individual or small
group of individuals. They often are used not just to learn about
the individual being in-
terviewed, but to derive broader principles or draw tentative
conclusions that might apply
to others. For example, case studies have been conducted on
children who display unusual
genius and on children who have spent their early years in the
wild, apparently without
human contact. These case studies have provided important
information to researchers and
have suggested hypotheses for future investigation (Goldsmith,

2000; Cohen & Cashon,
2003; Wilson, 2003).
Using diaries, participants are asked to keep a record of their
behavior on a regular ba-
sis. For example, a group of adolescents may be asked to record
each time they interact with
friends for more than 5 minutes, thereby providing a way to
track their social behavior.
Surveys represent another sort of correlational research. In
survey research, a group of
people chosen to represent some larger population are asked
questions about their attitudes,
behavior, or thinking on a given topic. For instance, surveys
have been conducted about par-
ents’ use of punishment on their children and on attitudes
toward breastfeeding. From the
responses, inferences are drawn regarding the larger population
represented by the individu-
als being surveyed.
Naturalistic observation is utilized to exam-
ine a situation in its natural habitat without
interference of any sort. What are some
disadvantages of naturalistic observation?
case study study that involves extensive,
in-depth interviews with a particular individual
or small group of individuals.
survey research a type of study where a
group of people chosen to represent some
larger population are asked questions about
their attitudes, behavior, or thinking on a given
topic.

M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 33 19/01/13 10:53 AM
PsyChOPhysIOLOgICAL MeThODs. Some developmental
researchers, particularly
those using a cognitive neuroscience approach, make use of
psychophysiological methods.
Psychophysiological methods focus on the relationship between
physiological processes
and behavior. For instance, a researcher might examine the
relationship between blood flow
within the brain and problem-solving capabilities. Similarly,
some studies use infants’ heart
rate as a measure of their interest in stimuli to which they are
exposed (Santesso, Schmidt, &
Trainor, 2007; Field, Diego, & Hernandez-Reif, 2009; Mazoyer
et al., 2009).
Among the most frequently used psychophysiological measures
are the following:
• Electroencephalogram (EEG). The EEG reports electrical
activity within the brain re-
corded by electrodes placed on the outside of the skull. That
brain activity is transformed
into a pictorial representation of the brain, permitting the
representation of brain wave
patterns and diagnosis of disorders such as epilepsy and
learning disabilities.
• Computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan. In a CAT
scan, a computer constructs an

image of the brain by combining thousands of individual X-rays
taken at slightly differ-
ent angles. Although it does not show brain activity, it does
illuminate the structure of the
brain.
• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. An
fMRI provides a detailed, three-
dimensional computer-generated image of brain activity by
aiming a powerful magnetic
field at the brain. It offers one of the best ways of learning
about the operation of the brain,
down to the level of individual nerves.
Experiments: Determining Cause and Effect
In an experiment, an investigator or experimenter typically
devises two different conditions
(or treatments) and then studies and compares the outcomes of
the participants exposed to
those two different conditions in order to see how behavior is
affected. One group, the treat-
ment or experimental group, is exposed to the treatment
variable being studied; the other, the
control group, is not.
Although the terminology may seem daunting at first, there is
an underlying logic that
helps sort it out. Think in terms of a medical experiment in
which the aim is to test the ef-
fectiveness of a new drug. In testing the drug, we wish to see if
the drug successfully treats the
disease. Consequently, the group that receives the drug would
be called the treatment group.
In comparison, another group of participants would not receive
the drug treatment. Instead,
they would be part of the no-treatment control group.

Similarly, suppose you want to see if exposure to movie
violence makes viewers more ag-
gressive. You might take a group of adolescents and show them
a series of movies that contain
a great deal of violent imagery. You would then measure their
subsequent aggression. This
group would constitute the treatment group. For the control
group you might take a second
group of adolescents, show them movies that contain no
aggressive imagery, and then mea-
sure their subsequent aggression. By comparing the amount of
aggression displayed by mem-
bers of the treatment and control groups, you would be able to
determine whether exposure
to violent imagery produces aggression in viewers. And this is
just what a group of researchers
in Belgium found: Running an experiment of this very sort,
psychologist Jacques-Philippe
Leyens and colleagues (Leyens et al., 1975) found that the level
of aggression rose significantly
for the adolescents who had seen the movies containing
violence.
The central feature of this experiment—and all experiments—is
the comparison of the
consequences of different treatments. The use of both treatment
and control groups allows re-
searchers to rule out the possibility that something other than
the experimental manipulation
produced the results found in the experiment. For instance, if a
control group was not used,
experimenters could not be certain that some other factor, such
as the time of day the movies
were shown, the need to sit still during the movie, or even the
mere passage of time, produced

the changes that were observed. By using a control group, then,
experimenters can draw ac-
curate conclusions about causes and effects.
psychophysiological methods research
that focuses on the relationship between
physiological processes and behavior.
experiment a process in which an investiga-
tor, called an experimenter, devises two dif-
ferent experiences for participants and then
studies and compares the outcomes.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 34 19/01/13 10:53 AM
35
INDePeNDeNT AND DePeNDeNT vARIAbLes. The
independent variable is the
variable that researchers manipulate in the experiment (in our
example, it is the type of movie
participants saw—violent or nonviolent). In contrast, the
dependent variable is the variable
that researchers measure in an experiment and expect to change
as a result of the experimen-
tal manipulation. In our example, the degree of aggressive
behavior shown by the participants
after viewing violent or nonviolent films is the dependent
variable. (One way to remember the
difference: A hypothesis predicts how a dependent variable
depends on the manipulation of
the independent variable.) In an experiment studying the effects
of taking a drug, for instance,

manipulating whether participants receive or don’t receive a
drug is the independent variable.
Measurement of the effectiveness of the drug or no-drug
treatment is the dependent variable.
Every experiment has an independent and dependent variable.
Experimenters need to make sure their studies are not
influenced by factors other than
those they are manipulating. For this reason, they take great
care to make sure that the par-
ticipants in both the treatment and control groups are not aware
of the purpose of the experi-
ment (which could affect their responses or behavior) and that
the experimenters do not have
any influence over who is chosen for the control and treatment
groups. The procedure that is
used is known as random assignment. In random assignment,
participants are assigned to dif-
ferent experimental groups or “conditions” on the basis of
chance and chance alone. By using
this technique, the laws of statistics ensure that personal
characteristics that might affect the
outcome of the experiment are divided proportionally among the
participants in the different
groups, making groups equivalent. Equivalent groups achieved
by random assignment allow
an experimenter to draw conclusions with confidence.
Figure 1-4 illustrates the Belgian experiment on adolescents
exposed to films containing
violent or nonviolent imagery and its effects on subsequent
aggressive behavior. As you can
see, it contains each of the elements of an experiment:
• An independent variable (the assignment to a film
condition)

• A dependent variable (measurement of the adolescents’
aggressive behavior)
independent variable the variable that
researchers manipulate in an experiment.
dependent variable the variable that
researchers measure in an experiment
and expect to change as a result of the
experimental manipulation.
Figure 1-4 elements of An experiment
In this experiment, researchers randomly assigned a group of
adolescents to one of two conditions: viewing a film that
contained vio-
lent imagery, or viewing a film that lacked violent imagery
(manipulation of the independent variable). Participants were
observed later
to determine how much aggression they showed (the dependent
variable). Analysis of the findings showed that adolescents
exposed
to aggressive imagery showed more aggression later.
(Based on an experiment by Leyens et al., 1975.)
(a) Identify participants (b) Randomly assign
participants to a
condition
(c) Manipulate the
independent variable
Observe �lm with
aggressive imagery
Group 1:

Treatment
group
Group 2:
Control
group
Observe �lm with no
aggressive imagery
(d) Measure the
dependent variable
(aggression displayed
by participants)
(e) Compare the results
of the two groups
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 35 19/01/13 10:53 AM
• Random assignment to condition (viewing a film with
aggressive imagery versus a film
with nonaggressive imagery)
• A hypothesis that predicts the effect the independent
variable will have on the depen-
dent variable (that viewing a film with aggressive imagery will
produce subsequent
aggression)
Given the advantage of experimental research—that it provides
a means of determin-

ing causality—why aren’t experiments always used? The answer
is that there are some
situations that a researcher, no matter how ingenious, simply
cannot control. And there
are some situations in which control would be unethical, even if
it were possible. For in-
stance, no researcher would be able to assign different groups of
infants to parents of high
and low socioeconomic status in order to learn the effects of
such status on subsequent
development. Similarly, we cannot control what a group of
children watch on television
throughout their childhood years in order to learn if childhood
exposure to televised ag-
gression leads to aggressive behavior later in life.
Consequently, in situations in which ex-
periments are logistically or ethically impossible,
developmentalists employ correlational
research.
Furthermore, it’s also important to keep in mind that a single
experiment is insuffi-
cient to answer a research question definitively. Before
complete confidence can be placed
in a conclusion, research must be replicated, or repeated,
sometimes using other procedures
and techniques with other participants. Sometimes
developmentalists use a procedure called
meta-analysis, which permits combining the results of many
studies into one overall conclu-
sion (Peterson & Brown, 2005). Watch the Video on
MyDevelopmentLab

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ChOOsINg A ReseARCh seTTINg. Deciding where to conduct a
study may be as
important as determining what to do. In the Belgian experiment
on the influence of exposure
to media aggression, the researchers used a real-world setting—
a group home for boys who
had been convicted of juvenile delinquency. They chose this
sample, the group of participants
selected for the experiment, because it was useful to have
adolescents whose normal level of
aggression was relatively high and because they could

incorporate showing the films into the
everyday life of the home with minimal disruption.
Using a real-world setting like the one in the aggression
experiment is the hallmark of a
field study. A field study is a research investigation carried out
in a naturally occurring set-
ting. Field studies may be carried out in preschool classrooms,
at community playgrounds,
on school buses, or on street corners. Field studies capture
behavior in real-life settings, and
research participants may behave more naturally than they
would if they were brought into a
laboratory.
Field studies may be used in both correlational studies and
experiments. Field studies
typically employ naturalistic observation, the technique we
discussed earlier in which re-
searchers observe some naturally occurring behavior without
intervening or making changes
in the situation. For instance, a researcher might examine
behavior in a child-care center, view
the groupings of adolescents in high school corridors, or
observe elderly adults in a senior
center.
However, it often is difficult to run an experiment in real-world
settings, where it is hard
to exert control over the situation and environment.
Consequently, field studies are more typi-
cal of correlational designs than experimental designs, and most
developmental research ex-
periments are conducted in laboratory settings. A laboratory
study is a research investigation
conducted in a controlled setting explicitly designed to hold

events constant. The laboratory
may be a room or building designed for research, as in a
university’s psychology department.
Their ability to control the settings in laboratory studies enables
researchers to learn more
clearly how their treatments affect participants.
sample the group of participants chosen for
the experiment.
field study a research investigation carried
out in a naturally occurring setting.
laboratory study a research investigation
conducted in a controlled setting explicitly
designed to hold events constant.
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experiments are designed and conducted in
.
a video showing how
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 36 19/01/13 10:53 AM
37
Theoretical and Applied Research:
Complementary Approaches
Developmental researchers typically focus on one of two
approaches to research, carrying
out either theoretical research or applied research. Theoretical
research is designed specifi-
cally to test some developmental explanation and expand
scientific knowledge, while applied
research is meant to provide practical solutions to immediate
problems. For instance, if we
were interested in the processes of cognitive change during
childhood, we might carry out a
study of how many digits children of various ages can remember
after one exposure to multi-
digit numbers—a theoretical approach. Alternatively, we might
focus on how children learn
by examining ways in which elementary school instructors can
teach children to remember
information more easily. Such a study would represent applied

research, because the findings
are applied to a particular setting and problem.
There is not always a clear-cut distinction between theoretical
and applied research. For
instance, is a study that examines the effects of ear infections in
infancy on later hearing loss
theoretical or applied research? Because such a study may help
illuminate the basic processes
involved in hearing, it can be considered theoretical. But to the
extent that the study helps us
to understand how to prevent hearing loss in children and how
various medicines may ease
the consequences of the infection, it may be considered applied
research (Lerner, Fisher, &
Weinberg, 2000).
In short, even applied research can help advance our theoretical
understanding of a par-
ticular topical area, and theoretical research can provide
concrete solutions to a range of prac-
tical problems. In fact, as we discuss in the From Research to
Practice box on page 38, research
of both a theoretical and an applied nature has played a
significant role in shaping and resolv-
ing a variety of public policy questions.
Measuring Developmental Change
How people grow and change through their life spans is central
to the work of all develop-
mental researchers. Consequently, one of the thorniest research
issues they face concerns the
measurement of change and differences over age and time. To
solve this problem, research-
ers have developed three major research strategies: longitudinal
research, cross-sectional re-

search, and sequential research.
LONgITuDINAL sTuDIes: MeAsuRINg INDIvIDuAL ChANge.
If you were
interested in learning how a child’s moral development changes
between the ages of three and
five, the most direct approach would be to take a group of three-
year-olds and follow them
until they were five, testing them periodically.
Such a strategy illustrates longitudinal research. In longitudinal
research, the behavior
of one or more study participants is measured as they age.
Longitudinal research measures
change over time. By following many individuals over time,
researchers can understand the
general course of change across some period of life.
The granddaddy of longitudinal studies, which has become a
classic, is a study of gifted
children begun by Lewis Terman about 80 years ago. In the
study—which has yet to be
concluded—a group of 1,500 children with high IQs were
tested about every five years. Now
in their 80s, the participants—who call themselves “Termites”—
have provided information
on everything from intellectual accomplishment to personality
and longevity (Feldhusen,
2003; McCullough, Tsang, & Brion, 2003; Subotnik, 2006).
Longitudinal research has also provided great insight into
language development. For in-
stance, by tracing how children’s vocabularies increase on a
day-by-day basis, researchers have
been able to understand the processes that underlie the human
ability to become competent

theoretical research research designed
specifically to test some developmental expla-
nation and expand scientific knowledge.
applied research research meant to
provide practical solutions to immediate
problems.
longitudinal research research in which the
behavior of one or more participants in a study
is measured as they age.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 37 19/01/13 10:53 AM
in using language (Gershkoff-Stowe & Hahn, 2007; Oliver &
Plomin, 2007; Childers, 2009;
Fagan, 2009).
Longitudinal studies can provide a wealth of information about
change over time. How-
ever, they have several drawbacks. For one thing, they require a
tremendous investment of
time, because researchers must wait for participants to age.
Furthermore, participants often
drop out over the course of the research. Participants may drop
out of a study, move away, or
become ill or even die as the research proceeds.
Finally, participants who are observed or tested repeatedly may
become “test-wise” and per-
form better each time they are assessed as they become more

familiar with the procedure. Even
if the observations of participants in a study are not terribly
intrusive (such as simply recording,
over a lengthy period of time, increases in vocabulary among
infants and preschoolers), experi-
mental participants may be affected by the repeated presence of
an experimenter or observer.
Consequently, despite the benefits of longitudinal research,
particularly its ability to look
at change within individuals, developmental researchers often
turn to other methods in con-
ducting research. The alternative they choose most often is the
cross-sectional study.
from research to practice
Using Developmental Research to Improve Public Policy
Does the Head Start preschool program actually work?
Are there drawbacks to using infant day care?
What are some effective ways to bolster schoolgirls’ confi-
dence in their math and science aptitude?
Are children better off with a mother and a father than they are
with two mothers or two fathers?
Should children with developmental disabilities be schooled in
regular classrooms, or are they better off in special classrooms
with other children who are similarly disabled?
Each of these questions represents a national policy issue that
can be answered only by considering the results of relevant
research stud-
ies. By conducting controlled studies, developmental

researchers have
made a number of important contributions affecting education,
family
life, and health on a national scale. Consider, for instance, the
variety
of ways that public policy issues have been informed by various
types
of research findings (Brooks-Gunn, 2003; Maton et al., 2004;
Mervis,
2004; Aber et al., 2007):
• Research findings can provide policymakers a means of
determining
what questions to ask in the first place. For example, studies of
chil-
dren’s caregivers (some of which we’ll consider in Chapter 10)
have
led policymakers to question whether the benefits of infant day
care
are outweighed by possible deterioration in parent–child bonds.
Re-
search has also disconfirmed the widespread belief that
childhood
vaccinations are linked to autism, contributing invaluable
evidence
to the controversy over the risks and benefits of mandatory
child
immunization (Price et al., 2010).
• Research findings and the testimony of researchers are
often part of
the process by which laws are drafted. A good deal of
legislation has
been passed based on findings from developmental researchers.
For example, research revealed that children with
developmental

disabilities benefit from exposure to children without special
needs,
ultimately leading to passage of national legislation mandating
that
children with disabilities be placed in regular school classes as
often
as possible. Research showing that children raised by same-sex
couples fare just as well as children raised by a mother and
father
has undermined an often-used but baseless argument that same-
sex marriage is harmful to children (Gartrell & Bos, 2010).
• Policymakers and other professionals use research
findings to de-
termine how best to implement programs. Research has shaped
programs designed to reduce the incidence of unsafe sex among
teenagers, to increase the level of prenatal care for pregnant
moth-
ers, to encourage and support women in the pursuit of math and
science studies, and to promote flu shots for older adults. The
com-
mon thread among such programs is that many of the details of
the
programs are built on basic research findings.
• Research techniques are used to evaluate the effectiveness
of ex-
isting programs and policies. Once a public policy has been
imple-
mented, it is necessary to determine whether it has been
effective
and successful in accomplishing its goals. To do this,
researchers
employ formal evaluation techniques, developed from basic re-
search procedures. For instance, researchers have continually

scrutinized the Head Start preschool program, which has
received
massive federal funding, to ensure that it really does what it is
sup-
posed to do—improve children’s academic performance.
Similarly,
careful studies of DARE, a popular program meant to reduce
chil-
dren’s use of drugs, began to find that it was ineffective. Using
the
research findings of developmentalists, DARE instigated new
tech-
niques, and preliminary findings suggest that the revised
program is
more effective (Rhule, 2005; University of Akron, 2006).
By building on research findings, developmentalists have
worked
hand-in-hand with policymakers, and research has a substantial
impact
on public policies that can benefit us all.
◼ What are some policy issues affecting children and
adolescents
that are currently being debated nationally?
◼ Despite the existence of research data that might inform
policy
about development, politicians rarely discuss such data in their
speeches. Why do you think that is the case?
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 38 19/01/13 10:53 AM

39
CROss-seCTIONAL sTuDIes. Suppose again that you want to
consider
how children’s moral development, their sense of right and
wrong, changes
from ages three to five. Instead of using a longitudinal approach
and following
the same children over several years, we might conduct the
study by simul-
taneously looking at three groups of children: three-year-olds,
four-year-olds,
and five-year-olds, perhaps presenting each group with the same
problem, and
then seeing how they respond to it and explain their choices.
Such an approach typifies cross-sectional research. In cross-
sectional
research, people of different ages are compared at the same
point in time.
Cross-sectional studies provide information about differences in
development
between different age groups.
Cross-sectional research is considerably more economical in
terms of time
than longitudinal research: Participants are tested at just one
point in time. For
instance, Terman’s study conceivably might have been
completed 75 years ago if Terman had
simply looked at a group of gifted fifteen-year-olds, twenty-
year-olds, twenty-five-year-olds,
and so forth, all the way through a group of eighty-year-olds.
Because the participants would
not be periodically tested, there would be no chance that they
would become test-wise, and

problems of participant attrition would not occur. Why, then,
would anyone choose to use a
procedure other than cross-sectional research?
The answer is that cross-sectional research brings its own set of
difficulties. Recall that
every person belongs to a particular cohort, the group of people
born at around the same time
in the same place. If we find that people of different ages vary
along some dimension, it may
be due to differences in cohort membership, not age per se.
Consider a concrete example: If we find in a correlational study
that people who are
25 years old perform better on a test of intelligence than those
who are 75 years old, there
are several explanations. Although the finding may be due to
decreased intelligence in older
people, it may also be attributable to cohort differences. The
group of seventy-five-year-olds
may have had less formal education than the twenty-five-year-
olds because members of the
older cohort were less likely to finish high school and attend
college than members of the
younger one. Or perhaps the older group performed less well
because as infants they received
less adequate nutrition than members of the younger group. In
short, we cannot fully rule out
the possibility that the differences we find between people of
different age groups in cross-
sectional studies are due to cohort differences.
Cross-sectional studies also may suffer from selective dropout,
in which participants in
some age groups are more likely to quit participating in a study
than others. For example,

suppose a study of cognitive development in preschoolers
includes a lengthy assessment of
cognitive abilities. It is possible that young preschoolers would
find the task more difficult and
demanding than older preschoolers. As a result, the younger
children would be more likely
to discontinue participation in the study than the older
preschoolers. If the least competent
young preschoolers are the ones who drop out, then the
remaining sample of participants in
the study will consist of the more competent young
preschoolers—together with a broader
and more representative sample of older preschoolers. The
results of such a study would be
questionable (Miller, 1998).
Finally, cross-sectional studies have an additional, and more
basic, disadvantage: They
are unable to inform us about changes in individuals or groups.
If longitudinal studies are like
videos taken of a person at various ages, cross-sectional studies
are like snapshots of entirely
different groups. Although we can establish differences related
to age, we cannot fully deter-
mine whether such differences are related to change over time.

MyDevelopmentLab
MyDevelopmentLab
seQueNTIAL sTuDIes. Because both longitudinal and cross-
sectional studies have
drawbacks, researchers have turned to some compromise
techniques. Among the most fre-
quently employed are sequential studies, which are essentially a
combination of longitudinal
and cross-sectional studies.
Cross-sectional research allows researchers
to compare representatives of different age
groups at the same time.
cross-sectional research research in which
people of different ages are compared at the
same point in time.

MyDevelopmentLab
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longitudinal research studies in
.
cross-sectional and
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 39 19/01/13 10:53 AM
In sequential studies, researchers examine a number of different

age groups at several
points in time. For instance, an investigator interested in
children’s moral behavior might be-
gin a sequential study by examining the behavior of three
groups of children, who are three
years old, four years old, or five years old at the time the study
begins. (This is no different
from the way a cross-sectional study would be done.)
However, the study wouldn’t stop there but would continue for
the next several years.
During this period, each of the research participants would be
tested annually. Thus, the
three-year-olds would be tested at ages three, four, and five; the
four-year-olds at ages four,
five, and six; and the five-year-olds at ages five, six, and seven.
Such an approach combines
the advantages of longitudinal and cross-sectional research, and
it permits developmental re-
searchers to tease out the consequences of age change versus
age difference. The major research
techniques for studying development are summarized in Figure
1-5.
Ethics and Research
In the “study” conducted by Egyptian King Psamtik, two
children were removed from their
mothers and held in isolation in an effort to learn about the
roots of language. If you found
yourself thinking this was extraordinarily cruel, you are in good
company. Clearly, such an
experiment raises blatant ethical concerns, and nothing like it
would ever be done today.
In order to help researchers avoid ethical problems, the major
organizations of devel-

opmentalists, including the Society for Research in Child
Development and the American
Psychological Association, have developed comprehensive
ethical guidelines for researchers.
Among the basic principles that must be followed are those
involving freedom from harm,
informed consent, the use of deception, and maintenance of
participants’ privacy (American
Psychological Association, 2002; Fisher, 2003, 2004, 2005;
Toporek, Kwan, & Williams, 2012):
• Researchers must protect participants from physical and
psychological harm. Their wel-
fare, interests, and rights come before those of researchers. In
research, participants’ rights
always come first (Sieber, 2000; Fisher, 2004).
• Researchers must obtain informed consent from
participants before their involvement in
a study. If they are over the age of seven, participants must
voluntarily agree to be in a
study. For those under 18, their parents or guardians must also
provide consent.
The requirement for informed consent raises some difficult
issues. Suppose, for instance,
researchers want to study the psychological effects of abortion
on adolescents. Although
they may be able to obtain the consent of an adolescent who has
had an abortion, the re-
searchers may need to get her parents’ permission as well
because she is a minor. But if
the adolescent hasn’t told her parents about the abortion, the
mere request for permission
from the parents would violate her privacy—leading to a breach
of ethics.

• The use of deception in research must be justified and
cause no harm. Although decep-
tion to disguise the true purpose of an experiment is
permissible, any experiment that uses
deception must undergo careful scrutiny by an independent
panel before it is conducted.
Suppose, for example, we want to know the reaction of
participants to success and failure.
It is ethical to tell participants that they will be playing a game
when the true purpose is
actually to observe how they respond to doing well or poorly on
the task. However, such
a procedure is ethical only if it causes no harm to participants,
has been approved by a re-
view panel, and ultimately includes a full debriefing, or
explanation, for participants when
the study is over (Underwood, 2005).
• Participants’ privacy must be maintained. If participants
are videotaped during the course
of a study, for example, they must give their permission for the
videotapes to be viewed.
Furthermore, access to the tapes must be carefully restricted.
sequential studies research in which re-
searchers examine a number of different age
groups over several points in time.
Year Data Collected
2013 2014 2015
3A
g

e
o
f
E
x
p
e
ri
m
e
n
ta
l
P
a
rt
ic
ip
a
n
ts
(
y
e

a
rs
)
4
5
Longitudinal
Cross-sectional
Sequential+ +
Figure 1-5 Research Techniques
for studying Development
In a cross-sectional study, three-, four-,
and five-year-olds are compared at a
similar point in time (in the year 2013). In
longitudinal research, a set of participants
who are three years old in 2013 are stud-
ied when they are four years old (in 2014)
and when they are five years old (in 2015).
Finally, a sequential study combines cross-
sectional and longitudinal techniques; here,
a group of three-year-olds would be com-
pared initially in 2013 with four- and five-
year-olds, but would also be studied one
and two years later, when they themselves
were four and five years old. Although the
graph does not illustrate this, researchers
carrying out this sequential study might
also choose to retest the children who
were four and five in 2013 for the next two
years. What advantages do the three kinds

of studies offer?
From the
perspective of a
health-care provider:
Do you think there are some
special circumstances involving
adolescents, who are not
legally adults, that would justify
allowing them to participate
in a study without obtaining
their parents’ permission?
What might such
circumstances
involve?
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 40 19/01/13 10:53 AM
41
Review and Apply
Review
◼ Theories in development are systematically derived
explanations of facts or phenomena.
Theories suggest hypotheses, which are predictions that can be

tested.
◼ Correlational studies examine relationships between factors
without demonstrating causality.
Naturalistic observation, case studies, and survey research are
types of correlational studies.
◼ Experimental research seeks to discover cause-and-effect
relationships by the use of a treat-
ment group and a control group. By manipulating the
independent variable and observing
changes in the dependent variable, researchers find evidence of
causal links between variables.
◼ Research studies may be conducted in field settings, where
participants are subject to natural
conditions, or in laboratories, where conditions can be
controlled.
◼ Researchers measure age-related change through longitudinal
studies, cross-sectional stud-
ies, and sequential studies.
◼ Formulate a theory about one aspect of human development
and a hypothesis that relates to it.
are you an informeD consumer of Development?
Thinking Critically About “Expert” Advice
If you immediately comfort crying babies, you’ll spoil them.
If you let babies cry without comforting them, they’ll be un-
trusting and clingy as adults.
Spanking is one of the best ways to discipline your child.

Never hit your child.
If a marriage is unhappy, children are better off if their parents
divorce than if they stay together.
No matter how difficult a marriage is, parents should avoid di-
vorce for the sake of their children.
There is no lack of advice on the best way to raise a child or,
more generally, to lead one’s life. From best-sellers such as
Chicken Soup
for the Soul: On Being a Parent to magazine and newspaper
columns
that provide advice on every imaginable topic, each of us is
exposed to
tremendous amounts of information.
Yet not all advice is equally valid. The mere fact that something
is
in print or on television does not make it legitimate or accurate.
Fortu-
nately, some guidelines can help distinguish when
recommendations
and suggestions are reasonable and when they are not:
◼ Consider the source of the advice. Information from
established, re-
spected organizations such as the American Medical
Association,
the American Psychological Association, and the American
Acad-
emy of Pediatrics is likely to be the result of years of study, and
its
accuracy is probably high. If you don’t know the organization,
inves-
tigate further to find out more about its goals and philosophy.

◼ Evaluate the credentials of the person providing advice.
Information
coming from established, acknowledged researchers and experts
in
a field is likely to be more accurate than that coming from a
person
whose credentials are obscure. Consider where the author is em-
ployed and whether he or she has a particular political or
personal
agenda.
◼ Understand the difference between anecdotal evidence and
scientific
evidence. Anecdotal evidence is based on one or two instances
of a
phenomenon, haphazardly discovered or encountered; scientific
evi-
dence is based on careful, systematic procedures. If an aunt tells
you
that all her children slept through the night by two months of
age and
therefore so can your child, that is quite different from reading
a report
that 75 percent of children sleep through the night by nine
months. Of
course, even with such a report, it would be a good idea to find
out
how large the study was or how this number was arrived at.
◼ If advice is based on research findings, there should be a
clear,
transparent description of the studies on which the conclusion is
based. Who were the participants in the study? What were the
methods used? What do the results show? Think critically about
the

way in which the findings were obtained before accepting them.
◼ Do not overlook the cultural context of the information.
Although
an assertion may be valid in some contexts, it may not be true in
all
situations. For example, it is typically assumed that providing
infants
the freedom to move about and exercise their limbs facilitates
their
muscular development and mobility. Yet in some cultures,
infants
spend most of their time closely bound to their mothers—with
no
apparent long-term damage (Tronick, 1995).
◼ Don’t assume that because many people believe
something, it is
necessarily true. Scientific evaluation has often proved that
some
of the most basic presumptions about the effectiveness of
various
techniques are invalid.
In short, the key to evaluating information relating to human
devel-
opment is to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. No source
of infor-
mation is invariably, unfailingly accurate. By keeping a critical
eye on the
statements you encounter, you’ll be in a better position to
determine
the very real contributions made by developmentalists to
understand-
ing how humans develop over the course of their life spans.

M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 41 19/01/13 10:53 AM
Looking Back
LO 1-1 What is lifespan development?
• Lifespan development is a scientific approach to questions
about growth, change, and stability in the physical, cognitive,
social, and personality characteristics at all ages from con-
ception to death.
LO 1-2 What are some of the basic influences
on human development?
• Culture—both broad and narrow—is an important issue in
lifespan development. Many aspects of development are influ-
enced not only by broad cultural differences, but by ethnic, ra-
cial, and socioeconomic differences within a particular culture.
• Each individual is subject to normative history-graded
influ-
ences, normative age-graded influences, normative sociocul-
tural-graded influences, and non-normative life events.
LO 1-3 What are the key issues in the field
of development?
• Four key issues in lifespan development are (1) whether
developmental change is continuous or discontinuous;
(2) whether development is largely governed by critical pe-
riods during which certain influences or experiences must
occur for development to be normal; (3) whether to focus

on certain particularly important periods in human develop-
ment or on the entire life span; and (4) the nature–nurture
controversy, which focuses on the relative importance of ge-
netic versus environmental influences.
LO 1-4 Which theoretical perspectives have guided
lifespan development?
• Six major theoretical perspectives currently dominate
lifespan
development: the psychodynamic perspective (which focuses
on inner, largely unconscious forces); the behavioral
perspective
(which focuses on external, observable actions); the cognitive
perspective (which focuses on intellectual, cognitive processes);
the humanistic perspective (which focuses on the unique quali-
ties of human beings); the contextual perspective (which
focuses
on the relationship between individuals and their physical, cog-
nitive, personality, and social worlds); and the evolutionary per-
spective (which focuses on our genetic inheritance).
• The psychodynamic perspective is exemplified by the
psycho-
analytic theory of Freud and the psychosocial theory of Erik-
son. Freud focused attention on the unconscious and on stages
through which children must pass successfully to avoid harm-
ful fixations. Erikson identified eight distinct stages of develop-
ment, each characterized by a conflict, or crisis, to work out.
• The behavioral perspective typically concerns stimulus—
response learning, exemplified by classical conditioning,
the operant conditioning of Skinner, and Bandura’s social-
cognitive learning theory.
• Within the cognitive perspective, the most notable theorist

is
Piaget, who identified developmental stages through which
all children are assumed to pass. Each stage involves quali-
tative differences in thinking. In contrast, information pro-
cessing approaches attribute cognitive growth to quantitative
changes in mental processes and capacities, and cognitive
neuroscience approaches focus on biological brain processes.
• The humanistic perspective contends that people have a
natural
capacity to make decisions about their lives and control their
be-
havior. The humanistic perspective emphasizes free will and the
natural desire of humans to reach their full potential.
• The contextual perspective considers the relationship be-
tween individuals and their physical, cognitive, personality,
and social worlds. The bioecological approach stresses the in-
terrelatedness of developmental areas and the importance of
broad cultural factors in human development. Vygotsky’s so-
ciocultural theory emphasizes the central influence on cog-
nitive development exerted by social interactions between
members of a culture.
• The evolutionary perspective attributes behavior to
genetic
inheritance from our ancestors, contending that genes deter-
mine not only traits such as skin and eye color, but certain
personality traits and social behaviors as well.
LO 1-5 What role do theories and hypotheses play in
the study of development?
• Theories are broad explanations of facts or phenomena of
interest, based on a systematic integration of prior findings

and theories. Hypotheses are theory-based predictions that
can be tested. The process of posing and answering questions
systematically is called the scientific method.
• Researchers test hypotheses by correlational research (to
de-
termine whether two factors are associated) and experimen-
tal research (to discover cause-and-effect relationships).
LO 1-6 How are developmental research studies
conducted?
• Correlational studies use naturalistic observation, case
stud-
ies, and survey research to investigate whether certain char-
acteristics of interest are associated with other characteristics.
Correlational studies lead to no direct conclusions about
cause and effect.
• Typically, experimental research studies are conducted on
participants in a treatment group who receive the experi-
mental treatment and participants in a control group who
do not. Following the treatment, differences between the two
groups can help the experimenter to determine the effects of
the treatment. Experiments may be conducted in a labora-
tory or in a real-world setting.
• To measure change across human ages, researchers use
lon-
gitudinal studies of the same participants over time, cross-
sectional studies of different-age participants conducted at
one time, and sequential studies of different-age participants
at several points in time.
LO 1-7 What are some of the ethical issues regard-
ing psychological research?

• Ethical guidelines for research include the protection of
par-
ticipants from harm, informed consent of participants, limits
on the use of deception, and the maintenance of privacy.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 42 19/01/13 10:53 AM
43
Epilogue
As we’ve seen, the scope of lifespan development is broad,
touching
on a wide range of topics that address how people grow and
change
through the course of life. We’ve also found that there are a
variety
of techniques by which developmentalists seek to answer
questions
of interest.
Before proceeding to the next chapter, take a few minutes to
reconsider the prologue of this chapter—about Louise Brown,
the
first child to be born through in vitro fertilization. Based on
what
you now know about lifespan development, answer the
following
questions:
1. What are some of the potential benefits, and the costs, of the
type of conception—in vitro fertilization—that was carried out

for Louise’s parents?
2. What are some questions that developmentalists who study
either physical, cognitive, or personality and social develop-
ment might ask about the effects on Louise of being conceived
via in vitro fertilization?
3. Louise reported feeling lonely and isolated as a child. Why
do
you think this occurred, and what effects might it have on her
as an adult?
4. Louise’s own son was conceived in the traditional manner.
How do you think his development will differ from that of his
mother Louise, and why?
key Terms and Concepts
lifespan development (p. 5)
physical development (p. 6)
cognitive development (p. 6)
personality development (p. 6)
social development (p. 6)
cohort (p. 9)
continuous change (p. 10)
discontinuous change (p. 10)
critical period (p. 11)

sensitive period (p. 11)
maturation (p. 12)
theories (p. 14)
psychodynamic
perspective (p. 14)
psychoanalytic theory (p. 14)
psychosexual
development (p. 15)
psychosocial
development (p. 15)
behavioral perspective (p. 17)
classical conditioning (p. 17)
operant conditioning (p. 18)
behavior modification (p. 18)
social-cognitive learning
theory (p. 18)
cognitive perspective (p. 19)
information processing
approaches (p. 20)
cognitive neuroscience
approaches (p. 21)

humanistic perspective (p. 22)
contextual perspective (p. 22)
bioecological
perspective (p. 23)
sociocultural theory (p. 25)
evolutionary perspective (p. 26)
scientific method (p. 30)
hypothesis (p. 30)
correlational research (p. 30)
experimental research (p. 30)
naturalistic observation (p. 32)
case study (p. 33)
survey research (p. 33)
psychophysiological
methods (p. 34)
experiment (p. 34)
independent variable (p. 35)
dependent variable (p. 35)
sample (p. 36)

field study (p. 36)
laboratory study (p. 36)
theoretical research (p. 37)
applied research (p. 37)
longitudinal research (p. 37)
cross-sectional research (p. 39)
sequential studies (p. 40)
MyvirtualLife
what decisions would you make while raising a child?
what would the consequences of those decisions be?
Find out by accessing MyvirtualLife at
www.MyDevelopmentLab.com
and raising your own virtual child from birth to age 18.
M01_FELD0073_07_SE_C01.indd 43 19/01/13 10:53 AM
Please post one thread under each topic/question, and reply to
TWO classmates' threads.
Question:
Chapter 1 reviews four key debates in lifespan development:
Continuous vs. discontinuous change, the importance of critical
and sensitive periods of development, lifespan approaches vs. a
focus on particular periods, and the relative influence of nature
and nurture on development. Discuss your initial reaction to
these four issues and your view of their importance to our

understanding of development.
My answer:
Development involves all the changes in the mind-body and
behaviors of an individual take from their infantry to adulthood.
The term continuous development gave me the idea of the
changes that occur throughout one’s lifetime. Things like the
changes in the body size fall into this category in my view
whereas discontinuous changes include those changes that occur
in stages such as sexual development. Despite the demarcation
of the difference, I find the two are the same since the changes
both occur in a consistent incremental pattern. However, what
makes more sense is the classification of stages as critical and
sensitive ones. The classification takes into account the stages
where some stimuli are most impactful. For instance, peer
influence is most effective during the puberty and the absence
of a parent causes more damage or change when an individual is
still young.
The lifespan theory looks at one's life in entirety. It is able to
outline the changes that have occurred throughout a life span.
Focusing on particular stages of life makes the study more
focused and aligns the attention to detail. Utilizing these two
approaches enables one to be able to understand development as
a whole. By factoring in the two, one can easily observe the
impact of nature vs nurture, comparing the specific stages in
different individuals may bring out the entire characteristics of
development, the impacts of various nature and nurture
components.
My classmates' threads:
Classmate 1:
The fact that there are dichotomies in the field of the study of
human development highlights the complex nature of humans
and how we develop. Further, we learn that by looking at
development through different lenses, or from different
perspectives, we can get a clearer picture of that complexity.

When studying development of a specific trait, skill or ability,
an understanding of the nature of how humans arrive at that
stage (continuous vs discontinuous) can give us insight on the
cognitive and biological processes behind these changes.
Clearly identifying critical and sensitive periods can help us to
understand why development in one area may slow or halt in
certain individuals and what interventions can be done to
prevent delays as well as mitigate or possibly even eliminate
them. While it may make sense for some researchers to
specialize in particular periods of development, if the field
ignored the lifespan perspective we would overlook how
development changes over time and how resource investment
affects growth. Finally, the complex relationship of genetics
and environment in development requires that we view
development as being a combination of nature and nurture.
Classmate 2:
When reading about continuous vs. discontinuous development
my initial thought was that continuous development seems more
likely than discontinuous. However, in my opinion, continuous
development seems most prevalent in physiological
development whereas discontinuous development appears to be
more apparent in cognitive development. Similarly, I believe
that “critical periods” are most likely to occur during
physiological development such as the example given in the
textbook regarding rubella. However, I would think that
“sensitive periods” would be more prevalent in psychosocial
development. In regards to lifespan approaches, I believe that
the study of development is best spent on children and
adolescences. While later stages of life should not be ignored, I
believe the development during childhood influences
development in later life. I am and have been for quite some
time, a believer of nurture over nature. This is not to say that
nature does not play a role in development but I truly support
the notion that our environment shapes us, particularly in the
early stages of life.
Classmate 3:

My initial reaction to continuous vs discontinuous change is
that they are both just as valid. In some ways we develop
gradually, and in others our development is characterized by
distinct stages. I'm glad that they are giving both of these ideas
a seat at the table, because we experience both of them equally.
It's important that we understand them, because it is how we
change as people over time.
I was happy that the chapter discussed critical and sensitive
periods in pregnancy. I grew up being taught that if you smoke
or drink during your pregnancy, your baby is doomed for all
eternity. It's calming to hear that the babies of women who do
such things are not forever doomed. They actually have a
chance, which is so relieving to know. These ideas are crucial to
development, because many things can have an effect on a baby
during the prenatal period. I'm sure many women want to have
an idea as to what those things are before they get pregnant
themselves.
When reading about the lifespan development vs the focus on
particular periods, I was initially confused. I couldn't
understand how we could choose just one. I believe that both of
these are equally important, and that they should both be
studied equally. It's important to focus on how people develop
over time, but it's also important to take a closer look by
studying those periods in depth. In understanding our
development, we have to see how we change over time as a
whole, but also how we develop throughout the different stages
of life.
Nature vs nurture has been something I have known about long
before I even took psychology. It's an age old argument, and the
truth is they are both equally important. It shouldn't be nature
vs nurture, it should be nature AND nurture. It is in my opinion
one of the most important ideas when discussing development in
psychology. It's important that we understand them, because
this is the idea that is at the basis of development.
Classmate 4:
I truly believe that the key to really knowing someone is to be

able to understand them. The only way you can understand
someone, is to know why they are the way they are - what made
them the person that they are today? That being said, lifespan
development plays a major role in why every person is the way
they are.
Discontinuous change, to me, doesn’t make much sense. Our
entire lives are built upon the skills we build, the knowledge we
collect, our mannerisms and habits that we create, etc. The
thought that our behavior takes a 180 flip and does not relate
back to a previous stage in our lives doesn’t add up. Continuous
change - a low steady growth, building upon our previous stage
in life makes more sense. Overall, continuous change is so
important because it is a way to measure your growth, faults
and development. For example, if Jane has an issue when she is
40. Jane, or someone close to Jane, could go back and see which
stage in Jane’s life carved the path for the issue she discovered
about herself at age 40. Because that issue and whatever caused
it, was built upon throughout her life.
Both critical and sensitive periods are important to the
understanding of development and outlines why it is so critical
to have a strong and stable household when in infancy. I look at
critical as a period that could physically change someone
forever; sensitive may not be forever damaging physically, but
it is still life changing to a human’s personality or behavior
(mentally). For example, if Jane’s mother does drugs with her in
the womb (critical period), she is likely to sustain permanent
physical damages. If Jane’s mother refrained from doing drugs
while she was pregnant but was constantly doing them around
Jane in her infancy years, Jane may grow up to do drugs
(sensitive period).
Focus on particular periods are so critical because they can
concentrate on infancy and adolescence – the two stages that
play a key role in development. I completely agree that these
are the two most detrimental years of a persons life. However, I
can also see how a lifespan approach could be very impactful.
The entire life span is important, because there are life events

that happen that have the ability to change people. I don’t think
that it is just as important as focus periods though, which allows
you to narrow in on specific stages.
I look at the influence of nature and nurture to be the least
impactful on the scale of importance in regard to development.
Neither make extreme impacts, they simply have the power to
influence a person’s development when paired with other
lifespan development factors. I do think people are born with
more intelligence and some with less; however, I also believe
that people can build their intelligence through hard work
(although that may sound cliché). Genetics and the
environmental influences start as a starting point, not a
determinant.

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