Developmental Psychology is a science specialized in studying the changes occurring to a person during the different stages of his life, starting from childhood to old age such as physical, emotional, behavioral, and social changes
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| Detailed overview with examples about Developmental Psychology |
Basic Topics of Developmental Psychology
1. Children's Development
Developmental Psychology is interested in studying the physical, social, or cognitive development of the child, starting from infancy to adolescence, such as the child's movement development and the child's ability extent to acquire language
2 Adults 's development
Developmental Psychology focuses on studying changes in the body, knowledge, and social communication with others, starting from puberty to old age
Developmental Psychology Fields
1. Cognitive Development
Cognitive development studies the development of children or adults. How they pay attention, how they receive and remember the information, and how they solve problems perfectly
2. Social Development
Social Development studies child's or adult's social skills development, their interaction with others, and their influence by group's decisions.
There are several factors affected by a child's or adult's social skills development including:
2.1. Empathy
A person's sympathy with a certain group and his integration with them may affect his behavior and actions, whether positively or negatively
2.2. Moral Development
The morals of children or adults change for the better or for the worse as a result of their influence on the environment around them
Development Psychology Theories
1. Piaget's Theory
Piaget's Theory links cognitive psychology with evolutionary psychology, which states "cognitive development passes through three stages: pre-operational sensory, concrete operational, and formal operation".
Piaget's Theory is limited to studying how children translate, acquire ideas
2. Erikson's theory
Erikson's theory combines evolutionary psychology, social psychology, and emotional psychology Erikson focused on measuring the extent relationship between evolutionary psychology with social and emotional psychology based on different eight stages.
Each stage has social and psychological problems, which differ from one stage to another
The theory measures the people's ability to pass from stage 1 to stage 8 and solve the problems effectively .
3. Bowlby's Attachment Theory
Bowlby's Attachment theory links developmental and emotional psychology, and it is limited to children The theory states " good emotional behaviors with children in early childhood stages are very necessary to improve the children's emotional and healthy development after puberty. "
Bandura's Social Learning Theory
The theory linked evolutionary and social psychology, and focused on the importance of observing, stating " Children's behaviors are acquired from parents' observation and adults' behaviors are acquired from society and groups "
Analysis techniques of development psychology
Developmental psychology uses a variety of analysis techniques to gather and analyze data.
The analysis techniques are chosen based on two factors: data collected type, and specific research topic There are examples of analytical techniques used in developmental psychology:
1. Descriptive Statistics
Descriptive statistics is a technique used to describe and summarize the data collected 's characteristics. It uses a variety types of measures such as percentages, mean, and standard deviations
2. Inferential Statistics
The inferential statistics technique uses a small sample as a training set, which is used to draw conclusions and inferences for a larger sample or population.
3. Regression Analysis
In a linear relationship, y=x1+x2, there is a relationship between one dependent variable and one or more independent variables.
A Regression analysis technique was used to examine this relationship. Researchers in development psychology may use logistic regression or linear regression.
Examples of Developmental Psychology
The examples can be divided into three categories:
1. Infant State:
It is a period that starts from birth until the child reaches approximately two years of age. It is an essential period in the child’s life in which changes occur quickly
1.1. The role of the hands in the infant stage
Teaching the infant to hold things with one hand or both hands, and also to move things from one place to another or to lift them from the ground, and to distinguish things by touch, is very important in the development of the infant’s behavior and the growth of his behavior in a logical manner, according to the parents’ teaching.
1.2. Observing symptoms of autism in infants
Infants learn how to use their hands, feet, and mouth, and learning occurs through repetition.
For example, for an infant to learn how to hold a toy, the parents must make the infant hold the toy repeatedly But exaggerating the repetition significantly may lead to autism, which is the isolation of the infant’s mind from engaging in any activity except holding the toy
2. Adolescent stage
Adolescence is a stage full of challenges and hardships, in which psychological and physical changes and disorders occur in the adolescent.
This period is between childhood and adulthood, in the sense of a bridge period. If the teenager can pass it successfully, he will become an individual with good behavior and morals. And vice versa, if he indulges in lust, drugs, and bad behaviors, the result is his behaviors are bad.
a. The role of direct observations in developing an adolescent's life
Researchers have conducted many studies focusing on the role of monitoring and observing the family and friends of adolescents' behaviors to improve their behaviors in the future.
Observation's benefit is to change the adolescent's bad behavior first by first before the bad behavior becomes a habit that is difficult to leave.
b. The prevalence of depression in the stressful stage and dealing with it
Adolescents cannot control emotions in the stressful stage due to biological, psychological, and physical changes. Also, if adolescents indulge in emotions, it is difficult to change their characters, so they may drift into the swamp of depression.
Therefore, the largest percentage of depression in the world occurs during adolescence
3. Adults State
In adulthood, psychologies focus on the impact of some factors on the adults' development the most important of which are:
1 . Disease
2. Aging
3. Family life
Is family life happy and has few problems?
How to treat the wife and children?
This has a psychological and physical effect on an adult
Studying the impact of emotions on young people and elderly
The influence of young people's emotions was studied and compared to the influence of older people's emotions.
Scientists have shown a movie called Facereader including four emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, and disgust, and compares affecting young people's feelings and the elderly's feelings with the movie.