* All the following abstractions are excerpted from <Psychology and Life>, Richard J. Gerrig & Philip G. Zimbardo, 19th edition
Chapter 10 — Human Development Across The Life Span.
— Studying Development
Researchers collect normative, longitudinal, and cross-sectional data to document change.
— Physical Development across the Life Span
Environmental factors can affect physical development while a child is still in the womb.
Newborns and infants possess a remarkable range of capabilities: They are prewired for survival.
Through puberty, adolescents achieve sexual maturity.
Some physical changes in late adulthood are consequences of disuse, not inevitable deterioration.
— Cognitive Development across the Life Span
Piaget's key ideas about cognitive development include development of schemes, assimilation, accommodation, and the four-stage theory of discontinuous development. The four stages are sensorimotor, pre operational, concrete operational, and formal operational.
Many of Piaget's theories are now being altered by ingenious research paradigms that reveal infants and young children to be more competent than Piaget had thought.
Researchers suggest that children develop foundational theories that change over time.
Cross-cultural research has questioned the universality of cognitive developmental theories.
Age-related declines in cognitive functioning are typically evident in only some abilities.
— Acquiring Language
Many researchers believe that humans have an inborn language-making capacity. Even so, interactions with adult speakers is an essential part of the language acquisition process.
Like scientists, children develop hypotheses about the meanings and grammar of their language. These hypotheses are often constrained by innate principles.
— Social Development across the Life Span
Social development takes place in a particular cultural context.
Erik Erikson conceptualized the life span as a series of crises with which individuals must cope.
Children begin the process of social development with different temperaments.
Socialization begins with an infant's attachment to a caregiver.
Failure to make this attachment leads to numerous physical and psychological problems.
Adolescents must develop a personal identity by forming comfortable social relationships with parents and peers.
The central concerns of adulthood are organized around the needs of intimacy and generatively.
People become less socially active as they grow older because they selectively maintain only those relationships that matter most to them emotionally.
People assess their lives, in part, by their ability to contribute positively to the lives of others.
— Sex and Gender Differences
Research has revealed biologically based sex differences between the brains of men and women.
Children's gender stereotypes are most rigid between ages 5 and 7.
Beginning at birth, parents and peers help bring about the socialization of gender roles.
— Moral Development
Kohlberg defined stages of moral development.
Subsequent research has evaluated gender and cultural differences in moral reasoning.
— Learning to Age Successfully
Successful cognitive aging can be defined as people optimizing their functioning in select domains that are of highest priority to them and compensating for losses by using substitute behaviors.