Chapter 4: Human

Development
CLASS 11 PSYCHOLOGY
MEANING OF DEVELOPMENT

 Development is the pattern of progressive, orderly, and predictable changes that begin at
conception and continue throughout life.
 Development mostly involves changes — both growth and decline, as observed during old
age.
 Development is influenced by an interplay of biological, cognitive, and socio-emotional
processes.
 Development due to genes inherited from parents, such as in height and weight, brain, heart,
and lungs development, etc. all point towards the role of biological processes.
 The role of cognitive processes in development relate to mental activities associated with the
processes of knowing, and experiencing, such as thought, perception, attention, problem
solving, etc.
 Socio-emotional processes that influence development refer to changes in an individual’s
interactions with other people, changes in emotions, and in personality.
 Biological, cognitive, and socio-emotional processes are interwoven. These processes
influence changes in the development of the individual as a whole throughout the human life-
span.
Life-Span Perspective on
Development:

 Development is lifelong.
 The various processes of human development, i.e. biological, cognitive, and
socio-emotional are interwoven in the development of a person throughout
the life-span.
 Development is multi-directional. For example, the experiences of adults may
make them wiser and guide their decisions. However, with an increase in age,
one’s performance is likely to decrease on tasks requiring speed, such as
running.
 Development is highly plastic, i.e. within person, modifiability is found in
psychological development, though plasticity varies among individuals. This
means skills and abilities can be improved or developed throughout the life-
span.
 Development is influenced by historical conditions. For example, the
experiences of 20-year olds who lived through the freedom struggle in India
would be very different from the experiences of 20 year olds of today.
 Development is the concern of a number of disciplines. Different disciplines like
psychology, anthropology, sociology, and neuro-sciences study human
development, each trying to provide answers to development throughout the
life-span.
 An individual responds and acts on contexts, which include what was inherited,
the physical environment, social, historical, and cultural contexts. For example,
the life events in everyone’s life are not the same, such as, death of a parent,
accident, earthquake, etc., affect the course of one’s life as also the positive
influences such as winning an award or getting a good job. People keep on
changing with changing contexts.
FACTORS INFLUENCING DEVELOPMENT

 We all are homo sapiens. What causes us to be different from each other
but at the same time more like each other?
 The answer lies in the interaction of heredity and environment.
 Our genetic codes are alike in one important way; they contain the
human genetic code.
 The combinations of 80,000 or more genes –accounting for a variety of
characteristics and behaviours.
 It is also not possible to possess all the characteristics made available to us
by our genetic structure.
 The actual genetic material or a person’s genetic heritage is known as
genotype.
 Phenotype is the way an individual’s genotype is expressed in observable
and measurable characteristics.
 The result of the interaction between the person’s inherited traits and the
environment.
 Genes provide a distinct blueprint and timetable for the development of
an individual.
 But genes do not exist in isolation and development occurs within the
context of an individual’s environment. This is what makes each one of us
a unique person.
 Parents provide the genes for the child’s development.
 They also play an important role in determining the type of environment
their children will encounter.
 Sandra Scarr (1992) believes that the environment parents provide for their
children depends to some extent on their own genetic predisposition.
 ENVIRONMENT: Provide Opportunties
 GENES: Set the limit
 Individuals chose environment based on their genotype.
 CONTEXT OF DEVELOPMENT

 Urie Bronfenbrenner’s contextual view of

development emphasises the role of environmental
factors in the development of an individual.
 The microsystem is the immediate
environment/setting in which the individual lives. It is
in these settings where the child directly interacts
with social agents – the family, peers, teachers, and
neighbourhood.
 The mesosystem consists of relations between these
contexts. For instance, how a child’s parents relate to
the teachers.
 The exosystem includes events in social settings
where the child does not participate directly, but
they influence the childs’ experiences in the
immediate context.
 Macrosystem includes the culture in which the
individual lives.
 Chronosystem involves events in the individual’s life
course, and socio-historical circumstances of the
time such as, divorce of parents or parents’
economic setback, and their effect on the child.
 Durganand Sinha (1977) has presented an ecological model for
understanding the development of children in Indian context.
 Ecology of the child could be viewed in terms of two concentric layers.

Upper Layer
• Visible (Home, School etc)

Surrounding Layer
• Caste, geographical environment,
general facilities etc.
OVERVIEW OF DEVELOPMENTAL
STAGES

 Prenatal Stage: The period from conception to birth is known as the

prenatal period. Typically, it lasts for about 40 weeks.
 Both genetic and environmental factors affect our development during
different periods of prenatal stage.
 Prenatal development is also affected by maternal characteristics, which
include mother’s age, nutrition, and emotional state.
 Another source of threat to prenatal development is teratogens -
environmental agents that cause deviations in normal development that
can lead to serious abnormalities or death.
 INFANCY: Birth to one Year
 Neural connections among brain cells develop at a rapid speed.
 The activities needed to sustain life functions are present in the newborn —
it breathes, sucks, swallows, and discharges the bodily wastes. The
newborns in their first week of life are able to indicate what direction a
sound is coming from, can distinguish their mother’s voice from the voices
of other women, and can imitate simple gestures like tongue protrusion
and mouth opening.
 Motor Development: The newborn’s movements are governed by reflexes — which are
automatic, built-in responses to stimuli.
 As the brain is developing, physical development also progresses. As the infant grows, the
muscles and nervous system mature which lead to the development of finer skills.
 Basic physical (motor) skills include grasping and reaching for objects, sitting, crawling,
walking and running.
 Sensory Abilities : Recognises the voice of mother, vision is estimated to be lower than the
adult vision. By 6 months it improves and by about the first year, vision is almost the same as
that of an adult (20/20).
 Full colour vision develops by 3 months of age.
 As the infant develops, proficiency at localizing sound improves. Newborns respond to touch
and they can even feel pain. Both smell and taste capacities are also present in the
newborn.
Some Major Reflexes in the Newborn
 Cognitive Development: experiences the world through senses and interactions with objects — through
looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping.
 Sensorimotor
 “out of sight is out of mind”
 The basis of verbal communication seems to be present in infants. Vocalisation begins with the infant’s
babbling, sometime between 3 to 6 months of age.
 Socio-emotional Development : An infant starts preferring familiar faces and responds to parent’s presence
by cooing and gurgling. They become more mobile by 6 to 8 months of age and start showing a preference
for their mother’s company.
 The close emotional bond of affection that develop between infants and their parents (caregivers) is called
attachment.
 In a classic study by Harlow and Harlow (1962), demonstrates that providing nourishment or feeding was not
crucial for attachment and contact-comfort is important.
 According to Erik Erikson (1968), the first year of life is the key time for the development of attachment. It
represents the stage of developing trust or mistrust.
CHILDHOOD

 Speed/Pace is slow as compared to infancy in early childhood.

 The increasing maturation of the brain along with opportunities to experience
the world, contribute to development of children’s cognitive abilities.
 Physical Development: Early development follows two principles :
 (i) development proceeds cephalocaudally, i.e. from the cephalic or head region to
the caudal or tail region.
 (ii) growth proceeds from the centre of body and moves towards the extremities or
more distal regions — the proximodistal trend, i.e. children gain control over their
torso before their extremities.
 These changes are the result of a maturing nervous system and not because of
any limitation since even visually impaired children show the same sequence.
 Motor Development: Gross motor skills during the early childhood years
involve the use of arms and legs, and moving around with confidence and
more purposefully in the environment.
 Fine motor skills — finger dexterity and eye-hand coordination — improve
substantially during early childhood.
 During these years the child’s preference for left or right hand also
develops.
 Cognitive Development: The child’s ability to acquire the concept of object
permanence enables her/him to use mental symbols to represent objects.
 Preoperational thought(4-7 yrs): The child gains the ability to mentally represent
an object that is not physically present.
 Egocentrism (selffocus), i.e. children see the world only in terms of their own
selves and are not able to appreciate others’ point of view.
 Children because of egocentrism, engage in animism -thinking that all things
are living, like oneself.
 Intuitive thought
 Centration, i.e. focusing on a single characteristic or feature for understanding
an event.
 Concrete operational thought(7 and 11 years of age): intuitive thought is
replaced by logical thought.
 Mental actions that allow the child to do mentally what was done
physically before. Concrete operations are also mental actions that are
reversible.
 Concrete operations allow the child to focus on different characteristics
and not focus on one aspect of the object.
 This helps the child to appreciate that there are different ways of looking
at things, which also results in the decline of her/his egocentrism.
 Thinking becomes more flexible, and children can think about alternatives
when solving problems, or mentally retrace their steps if required.
 Socio-emotional Development : The important dimensions of children’s
socio emotional development are the self, gender and moral
development.
 During the early years of childhood, some important developments in the
self take place. The child due to socialisation has developed a sense of
who s/he is and whom s/he wants to be identified with.
 The developing sense of independence makes children do things in their
own way.
 According to Erikson, the way parents respond to their self-initiated
activities leads to developing a sense of initiative or sense of guilt.
 Self understanding in early childhood is limited to defining oneself through
physical characteristics: I am tall, she has black hair, I am a girl, etc.
 During middle and late childhood, the child is likely to define oneself
through internal characteristics such as, “I am smart and I am popular” or
“I feel proud when teachers assign me responsibility in school”.
 In addition to defining oneself through psychological characteristics,
children’s self descriptions also include social aspects of self, such as
references to social groups like being a member of school’s music club,
environment club, or any religious group.
 Children’s self understanding also includes social comparison.
 Moral Development: differentiate between the rightness or wrongness of
human acts.
 The young child, i.e. before 9 years of age, thinks in terms of external
authority.
 As the child grows, i.e. by early adolescence, s/he develops moral
reasoning through set of rules of others, such as parents or laws of the
society.
 These rules are accepted by the children as their own. These are
“internalised” in order to be virtuous and to win approval from others (not
to avoid punishment).
CHALLENGES OF ADOLESCENCE

 Latin word adolescere, meaning “to grow into maturity”.

 It is the transitional period in a person’s life between childhood and
adulthood.
 Adolescence is commonly defined as the stage of life that begins at the
onset of puberty, when sexual maturity, or the ability to reproduce is
attained.
 It has been regarded as a period of rapid change, both biologically and
psychologically.
 Though the physical changes that take place during this stage are
universal, the social and psychological dimensions of the adolescent’s
experiences depend on the cultural context
 Physical Development: Puberty or sexual maturity.
 Puberty is not a sudden event, but is part of a gradual process.
 The hormones released during puberty result in the development of primary and
secondary sexual characteristics.
 The primary sex characteristics include those directly related to reproduction and the
secondary sex characteristics include features or signs of achieving sexual maturity.
 Pubertal changes are reflected physically.
 In girls, rapid growth in height usually begins about two years before menarche, the
onset of menstruation.
 Growth spurt: 12-13 for boys and 10 to 11 for girls.
 Factors responsible for physical development:
 Genetics and environment.
 Physical development during adolescence is also accompanied by a number of
psychological changes.
 Show an increase in interest in members of the opposite sex and in sexual matters and a
new awareness of sexual feelings develops.
 Reason: individual’s awareness of the biological changes taking place and the emphasis
placed on sexuality by peers, parents, and society.
 Adolescents tend to become secretive about sexual concerns which make exchange of
information and communication difficult.
 The development of a sexual identity defines the sexual orientation and guides sexual
behaviour. As such it becomes an important developmental task for adolescents.
 Another important developmental task during adolescence is accepting one’s physical
self/ maturity.
 Cognitive Developmental Changes :
 thought becomes more abstract, logical, and idealistic;
 they become more capable of examining their own thoughts, others’ thoughts, and
what others are thinking about them.
 Adolescents’ developing ability to reason gives them a new level of cognitive and
social awareness.
 Piaget believed that formal operational thought appears between the age of
11 and 15. During this stage adolescent thinking expands beyond actual
concrete experiences and they begin to think more in abstract terms and
reason about them.
 Thought is also idealistic. Adolescents begin to think about ideal characteristics
for themselves and others and compare themselves and others with these
ideal standards.
 thinking becomes more systematic in solving problems — they think of possible
courses of action, why something is happening the way it is, and systematically
seek solutions.
 Piaget called this type of logical thinking — hypothetical deductive reasoning.
 Logical thought also influences the development of moral reasoning. Social
rules are not considered as absolute standards and moral thinking shows some
flexibility.
 The adolescent recognises alternative moral courses, explores options, and
then decides on a personal moral code.
 This also lends the possibility of adolescents not following society’s norms if they
conflict with personal code of ethics.
 For example, individuals at this age might participate in a protest march for a
cause rather than adhere/conform to college norm.
 Adolescents also develop a special kind of egocentrism. According to
David Elkind,
 imaginary audience: makes them extremely self-conscious.
 personal fable: reason they often say “Nobody understands me”..refers to
uniqueness that only they experience.
 Forming an Identity : Identity is who you are and what your values, commitments and beliefs are.
 The primary task of adolescence is to establish an identity separate from the parents. During
adolescence a detachment process enables the individual to develop a personalised set of beliefs that
are uniquely her or his own.
 In the process of achieving an identity the adolescent could experience conflict with parents and within
herself or himself. Those adolescents who can cope with the conflicting identities develop a new sense
of self. Adolescents who are not able to cope with this identity crisis are confused. This “identity
confusion”, according to Erikson, can lead to individuals isolating themselves from peers and family; or
they may lose their identity in the crowd.
 Adolescents on one hand, may desire independence but may also be afraid of it and show a great
deal of dependence on their parents. Rapid fluctuations between self-confidence and insecurity are
typical of this stage. Adolescents may at one time complain of being “treated like a baby” whereas on
other occasions they may seek comfort by depending on their parents.
 Seeking an identity involves searching for continuity and sameness in oneself, greater responsibility and
trying to get a clear sense of who one is, i.e. an identity.
 Factors responsible for identity formation:
 cultural background,
 family and societal values,
 ethnic background, and
 Socioeconomic status
 Family relationships become less important as the adolescent spends more
time outside.
 Increased interactions with peers provide them with opportunities for refining
their social skills and trying out different social behaviours.
 At times conflicting situations with parents lead to increased identification with
peers. But generally parents and peers serve complementary functions and
fulfil different needs of the adolescents.
 Vocational commitment is another factor influencing adolescent identity
formation. The question “What are you going to be when you grow up?”,
requires the ability to think about the future and to be able to set realistic and
achievable goals.
 Some Major Concerns:
 Adolescents may face periods of uncertainty, loneliness, self-doubt, anxiety,
and concern about themselves and their future, they are also likely to
experience excitement, joy, and feelings of competence as they overcome
the developmental challenges.
 Delinquency: Socially unaccepted behaviours which can lead to legal offences.
 Substance Abuse : Peer pressure often plays a role.
 Eating Disorders: Anorexia Nervosa & Bulimia.
Adulthood

 An adult is generally defined as someone who is responsible, mature, self-

supporting, and well integrated into society.
 The assumption of adult roles is directed by an individual’s social context.
 In early adulthood, two major tasks are, exploring the possibilities for adult
living and developing a stable life structure.
 Career and Work
 Marriage, Parenthood, and Family
 Physical changes during middle ages are caused by maturational
changes in the body.
 Though individuals may vary in the rate at which these changes occur,
almost all middle-aged people notice gradual deterioration in some
aspects of their physical functioning such as
 decline in vision,
 sensitivity to glare,
 hearing loss and
 changes in physical appearance (e.g., wrinkles, grey hair or thinning of hair,
weight gain).
 It is believed that some cognitive abilities decline with age while others do
not.
 Decline in memory is more in tasks involving long-term memory than short-
term memory.
 Memory tends to show greater decline, while wisdom may improve with
age.
 Remember that individual differences exist in intelligence at every age
and as not all children are exceptional, neither do all adults show wisdom.
Old Age

 Traditionally, the age of retirement was linked to old age. Now that people
are living longer, age of retiring from work is changing, and the cut-off
point for the definition of “old age” is moving upward.
 Some of the challenges, which the aged have to cope with include
 retirement,
 widowhood,
 illness,
 or death in the family.
 the experience of old age also depends on the socio-economic conditions,
availability of health care, attitude of people, expectations of society and the
available support system.
 Retirement from active vocational life is quite significant. It can be seen as
both negative and positive change.
 Older adults also need to adjust to changes in the family structure and new
roles (grand parenting) that have to be learnt.
 Empty nest syndrome.
 In old age feeling of loss of energy, and dwindling of health and financial
assets, lead to insecurity and dependency.
 The death of a spouse is usually seen as the most difficult loss.