Human Development

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Psychology Class XI (Introduction to Psychology), Chapter 3.

The toy that stopped existing

Play with a young baby and a toy. Cover the toy with a cloth while she is watching, and she carries on as if nothing happened. She does not search. For her, a toy out of sight is simply gone. A few months later she will pull the cloth away and look for it.

Her eyes did not improve in those months. Her thinking changed. This chapter follows those changes across the whole life span: how the body grows, how the mind works differently at each stage, and how the people and places around you shape who you become.

What development is

Development is the pattern of progressive, orderly and predictable changes that begin at conception and continue throughout life. It includes both gains and declines, as in old age. Three kinds of process work together and cannot be pulled apart.

Four words are easily confused. Development is the broad term, and the other three are related ideas.

The life-span perspective

This view treats development as lifelong, not something that stops at adulthood. It rests on seven assumptions.

Heredity and environment

Why do you look and behave differently from your classmates but still resemble them more than any other species? Genes and environment together explain it. We all carry the human genetic code, which is why a fertilised human egg grows into a baby and not an elephant or a mouse.

Genes set the limits, and the environment works within them. A child with "short" height genes will not become taller than average even with the best nutrition. A child with an introverted genotype who grows up in a very social environment may become a little extroverted.

Genes also choose environments. Sandra Scarr (1992) argued that the environment parents give a child partly depends on their own genes. Intelligent parents who love reading fill the house with books, and their children may enjoy reading too. Children also seek out settings that suit their genotype, so a musically talented child spends time where she can play music.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: the chapter describes combinations of 80,000 or more genes shaping our characteristics. In reality: the Human Genome Project found that humans have roughly 20,000 to 25,000 protein coding genes, far fewer than the older estimate. Why it matters: the exam idea survives, which is that traits come from many genes acting together, not one gene for one trait. Use the textbook figure only if the question quotes it.

Context: Bronfenbrenner and Sinha

Development always happens inside a setting. Urie Bronfenbrenner's contextual view describes nested layers around the child.

Sinha's ecological model for India. Durganand Sinha (1977) described a child's ecology as two layers. The visible upper layer is the home (crowding, space per member, toys, technology), the quality of schooling, and activities with peers from childhood. The surrounding layer holds the general geographical environment (space for play, congestion, population density), the institutional setting (caste, class and other factors) and general amenities (drinking water, electricity, entertainment). The layers interact. Children in impoverished environments often lack books, toys and outings to a library, museum or zoo, have parents who cannot serve as role models, and live in crowded, noisy surroundings, so they are at a disadvantage in learning.

Stages and developmental tasks

Development is described in periods or stages, each with a dominant feature. At each stage a person moves toward a goal in the same order as others, though the rate varies. The accomplishments expected of a person at a stage are called developmental tasks.

Prenatal stage

The genetic blueprint guides development before birth, but environment matters too. Maternal age, nutrition and emotional state all affect the baby. Diseases such as rubella (German measles), genital herpes and HIV in the mother can cause problems in the newborn.

Teratogens are environmental agents that cause deviations from normal development, leading to serious abnormalities or death. Common ones are drugs, infections, radiation and pollution.

Infancy (birth to 2 years)

The newborn is not helpless. A newborn breathes, sucks, swallows and passes waste. In the first week she can tell which direction a sound is coming from, recognise her mother's voice and imitate simple gestures such as sticking out the tongue.

Reflexes are automatic, built in responses that act as survival mechanisms and are the building blocks of later motor development. Some, like coughing, blinking and yawning, last for life. Others vanish as the brain matures and voluntary control begins.

Motor and sensory development. The sequence of motor development is universal, with minor exceptions: grasping and reaching, sitting, crawling, walking, running. Vision at birth is lower than an adult's, improves by 6 months and is close to adult level (20/20) by about the first year. Full colour vision develops by about 3 months. Infants can hear immediately after birth, respond to touch, feel pain, and have smell and taste. Babbling starts between 3 and 6 months.

Cognitive development: Piaget. Jean Piaget held that children actively construct their understanding of the world. A child's mind passes through stages, each marked by a different way of thinking, not by the amount of information. That is why you at your age think differently from an 8 year old.

Object permanence is the awareness that objects continue to exist when not perceived. A young infant lacks it, so a hidden toy is "out of sight, out of mind." Gradually, by about 8 months, the infant starts to pursue an object that is partly covered in her presence.

Socio-emotional development: attachment. Attachment is the close emotional bond between an infant and her parents or caregivers. Babies prefer familiar faces, coo and gurgle at a parent's presence, and by 6 to 8 months show a preference for the mother, crying when separated or frightened by a new face.

According to Erik Erikson (1968), the first year of life is the key time for attachment, and its stage is trust versus mistrust. Sensitive, affectionate parenting builds trust and a secure attachment, a base from which to explore. Insensitive parenting and constant fault finding can create self doubt, and insecurely attached infants get anxious and upset on separation.

Harlow and Harlow (1962). Baby monkeys were separated from their mothers about 8 hours after birth and reared for 6 months by two substitute "mothers", one of wire and one of cloth. Half were fed by the wire mother and half by the cloth mother. All preferred the cloth mother and spent far more time with her, whichever one fed them. The study shows that feeding is not what creates attachment. Contact comfort is. That is also why many children hold on to a favourite toy or blanket and give it up as they grow more confident.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: attachment comes from contact comfort and sensitive caregiving, and Harlow's study shows it. In reality: the study is now widely regarded as ethically troubling because of the distress caused to the infant monkeys. It is often cited as a reason why strict ethical review of research exists. Why it matters: this links to the ethics section of the previous chapter, where beneficence means protecting participants from harm.

Two views. For the exam: Piaget's stages are fixed in order and tied to age: object permanence is a sensorimotor achievement that comes gradually. Another reading: later researchers using how long infants look at events have argued that babies grasp that hidden things still exist earlier than Piaget found, and that children can succeed at some tasks earlier when the task is made simpler. Many psychologists now see the stages as more overlapping than sharp. Piaget's order of stages remains the exam answer.

Childhood

Physical development follows two trends. Both come from a maturing nervous system and not from any limitation, since even visually impaired children show the same sequence.

Gross motor skills use arms and legs, and fine motor skills involve finger dexterity and eye hand coordination.

Preoperational thought (about 2 to 7 years). The child can now mentally represent an object that is not present, which shows in drawings of people, trees and houses. But she cannot yet perform mental operations.

Concrete operations (about 7 to 11 years). Thought becomes logical. Operations are mental actions that are reversible. Show a 7 or 8 year old two equal balls of clay, roll one into a long thin strip and ask which has more clay. She says both are the same, because she can imagine rolling the strip back into a ball. This is conservation. Egocentrism declines and thinking becomes more flexible. But she still needs concrete objects and cannot do abstract thinking, such as algebra steps or imagining lines of latitude and longitude.

Pause and predict: a 5 year old and a 9 year old watch water poured from a short wide glass into a tall thin one. Which one will say the tall glass has more, and why?

Check your answer: the 5 year old. Being preoperational, she centres on the height alone and cannot reverse the pouring in her mind. The 9 year old is concrete operational and knows that the amount has not changed.

The self. In early childhood the child defines herself by physical features ("I am tall"). In middle and late childhood she uses internal traits ("I am smart, I am popular"), social groups (a music club) and social comparison ("I got more marks than Atul"). Erikson places initiative versus guilt here. Freedom to cycle, run and ask questions builds initiative, and being told that questions and games are useless builds guilt.

Gender. Sex refers to the biological dimension of being male or female. Gender is the social dimension. A gender role is a set of expectations about how females and males should think, act and feel. Most children acquire gender identity by about 3 years and can label themselves as a boy or a girl. Parents, peers and media all shape gender roles through rewards, punishments, different chores and stereotypes in cartoons and advertisements. Once children learn their gender role, they organise their world by it, a process called gender typing.

Two views. For the exam: gender roles are mainly products of socialisation by parents, peers and media, and that is the position to write. Another reading: some researchers point out that average differences in aggression and in physical skills have been recorded, and that biology may contribute. Most scholars today see an interaction of biology and social learning, not one cause alone.

Moral development: Kohlberg. Lawrence Kohlberg interviewed children about stories in which characters face moral dilemmas, asking what the character should do and why. He found that children think about right and wrong differently at different ages, in three levels.

Adolescence

The word comes from the Latin adolescere, "to grow into maturity". It is the transition between childhood and adulthood and begins with puberty. The physical changes are universal. The social and psychological experience depends on culture. Not every society treats it as a distinct phase.

Physical development. Puberty is gradual, not sudden. Hormones produce primary sex characteristics (directly related to reproduction) and secondary sex characteristics (signs of sexual maturity, such as facial hair and voice change in boys). The growth spurt begins at about 12 or 13 for boys and 10 or 11 for girls. In girls, rapid growth begins about two years before menarche, the first menstruation. The age of menarche is declining in industrialised nations, owing to better nutrition and medical care. Identical twins reach menarche closer in time than fraternal twins, which shows the role of both genes and environment.

Cognitive development. Piaget's formal operational thought appears between 11 and 15. Thinking becomes abstract, logical and idealistic. Instead of trial and error, the adolescent solves problems systematically, which Piaget called hypothetical deductive reasoning. Moral thinking also becomes flexible: should I smoke because everyone does? Is it right to copy in an exam?

Elkind's adolescent egocentrism. David Elkind described two components.

Pause and predict: a 15 year old refuses to go to a family function because "everyone will stare at my new haircut." Which component of egocentrism is this?

Check your answer: the imaginary audience. She believes others are watching her as closely as she watches herself. The personal fable would have been "nobody can understand how I feel."

Identity. Adolescence asks "Who am I?" Identity is who you are and what your values, commitments and beliefs are. According to Erikson, the key task is to establish an identity separate from the parents. If the identity crisis is not resolved, the result is identity confusion: isolation from peers and family, or losing oneself in the crowd. Culture, family values, ethnic background and socio-economic status all shape the search. Peers and parents are dual influences that usually serve complementary functions. Vocational commitment, the ability to set realistic goals and choose an occupation, is also part of identity, and cultures differ in how much choice young people get.

Challenges. Peer pressure can be positive or negative.

Adulthood and old age

An adult is generally someone responsible, mature, self supporting and well integrated into society, and the timing of becoming one varies across individuals and cultures.

Work matters most in early adult years, then family, and in old age health becomes the most important issue. Retirement is seen by some as a loss of satisfaction and self esteem and by others as a shift that offers time for their own interests. Older adults who are open to new experiences and stay busy tend to be better adjusted. The image of old age as an incapacitating phase is changing, as many people in their seventies are active and creative. A sense of security and belonging is important for the elderly. Loss of a spouse is usually the most difficult loss, and people in different cultures view death differently.

Three theorists compared

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Methods of Enquiry in Psychology explains the case study method that Piaget used with his own children, and the ethics that Harlow's study raises.
• Next: Sensory, Attentional and Perceptual Processes goes deeper into the senses that infants already use.
• Same book: Thinking returns to concept formation and problem solving, and Motivation and Emotion to the emotions and needs of these stages.
• Class XII link: Self and Personality and Psychological Disorders build on identity, the self and the eating disorders introduced here.