Chi-Wen ChenChi-Wen Chen

Human development

Introduction

TheLife-Span

Perspective

• What Is Life-Span Development?

– A pattern of change involving growth and decline, beginning at conception and lasting until death.

– Life phases: infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood.

Average Human Life Expectancy (in Years) at Birth, Average Human Life Expectancy (in Years) at Birth, from Prehistoric to Contemporary Timesfrom Prehistoric to Contemporary Times

•人講九十滿滿是，八十無稀奇。•人生七十才開始，六十算什麼？•五十算來是幼齒，四十當古錐。•三十擱在搖籃裡，二十才出世。

摘自一首廟裡師父寫的詩

• Socioemotional – changes in relationships, emotions, and personality.

• In many instances, biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes are bidirectional because each can affect the other.

Figure 1.6

Biological processes

Socioemotional processes

Cognitive processes

Developmental Changes Are a Result of Biological, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes

What you concern most?What you concern most?

Ages and happinessAges and happiness

• 過去 ?

• 現在 ?

• 未來 ?

• Conceptions of age:

– Perhaps we are becoming an age-irrelevant society.

– How should age be conceptualized?

• Chronological age.

• Biological age.

• Psychological age.

• Social age.

– How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?

Figure 1.10

Age in terms of physical health

Biological age

Social roles and expectationsrelative to chronological age

Social age

Number of years since birth

Chronological age

Adaptive capacity compared withothers of the same chronological age

Psychological age

Conceptions of age

人類發展的分期人類發展的分期 ::

< 1y/o< 1y/o嬰兒期嬰兒期1-3y/o1-3y/o幼兒期幼兒期3-6y/o3-6y/o學齡前期學齡前期6-12y/o6-12y/o學齡期學齡期12-20y/o12-20y/o青少年期青少年期20-40y/o20-40y/o成年期成年期40-65y/o40-65y/o中年期中年期>65y/o>65y/o老年期老年期

Developmental

Issues

Q: Q: 決定人類發展的因素是什麼決定人類發展的因素是什麼 ??

• Nature versus nurture:– A debate about whether development is

influenced most by biological heredity or environmental experiences.

– Nature proponents argue that genetic blueprints produce commonalities in growth and development.

– Nature proponents acknowledge the influence of extreme environments on development.

– Psychologists emphasize the importance of nurture and that the range of environments can be vast.

• Stability and change:

– The assumption that nothing much changes in adulthood.

– The concept of plasticity, ongoing change.– Major changes were believed to occur only

in the first 5 years of childhood (early experience doctrine); we are no longer able to ignore the rest of the life span.

– There is still a lot of controversy over both sides of this issue.

• Continuity and discontinuity:

– The continuity–discontinuity issue focuses on whether development is

• A gradual, cumulative quantitative change process or

• A set of distinct stages that are qualitatively different from each other