Developmental Psychology Study

Developmental psychology, which is also known as Human Development, is the study of progressive psychological changes that occur in human beings as they get older. Development is the series of age-related changes that happens over the course of a lifespan. People pass through different stages in a specific order and each stage builds on top of another and we develop capacities through those stages. Developmental psychologists have come up with their own theories as to how human beings develop. This leads theorists such as Jean Piaget, to argue that development happens in early childhood and stops once a child reaches adolescence, (meaning that the human being is fully developed by the time they reach their teen years), and it leads other theorists

Adulthood and aging may be viewed as a series of transitions defined by such events.” Lifespan psychology is the study that examines the behavioural patterns and trends that occur through a person’s life, specifically examining growth, change and stability, and how these aspects change a person throughout the course of their life. “Most contemporary approaches in developmental psychology-including the lifespan perspective-examine the entire life-span” (Watts, Cockcroft, & Duncan, 2009). In the past, psychologists had the idea that human development was all based on nature versus nurture. “Over the past century there have been constant debates about the relative influence of “nature” or “nurture” in producing outcomes for individual lives” (Drewery, 2011). This meant that people were either shaped by their environment (nurture) or shaped by their biology (nature). However, this is no longer a valid perspective. People are a product of both nature and nurture. According to (Drewery, 2011), “Jean Piaget (1972) argued that biology is a major underpinning of, and constraint on, human cognition”. By studying lifespan psychology, we learn that while childhood development is important, the way you are brought up and the environment you grow up in, has consequences on your life. We study lifespan psychology to offer an organised account of development across the lifespan of humans, to identify the interconnectivity between earlier and later events. “Life-span developmental psychology involves the study of constancy and change in behaviour throughout the life course (ontogenesis), from conception to death” (Baltes, 1987). One developmental psychologist whose theories are based on the idea of nature AND nurture, is Lev