Lifespan Development and Area E
Summary
TLDRProfessor Maureen Smith introduces the concept of Area E in the Engineering 10 course, focusing on human development and lifespan. She emphasizes the importance of understanding physiological, social, psychological, and cognitive aspects of development to foster personal growth. The course aims to help students recognize the interconnectedness of these elements, use social skills for positive relationships, and apply campus resources for academic and personal development. Smith outlines the scientific approach to human development, involving empirical evidence, critical thinking, and various research methods.
Takeaways
- 📘 Area E focuses on human development and aims to help students integrate physiological, social, psychological, cognitive, and emotional aspects of themselves.
- 🌟 The course's goal is for students to develop strategies for continuous personal growth and evolution throughout their lifespan.
- 🎯 Area E has four specific learning objectives: understanding well-being, recognizing the interconnection of development elements, utilizing social skills for positive relationships, and comprehending one's stage of human development.
- 🔍 Lifespan development is approached scientifically, seeking to separate facts from opinions through empirical evidence and data.
- 📊 Human development is multi-directional, with traits changing in various ways over time, such as increases, decreases, or remaining steady.
- 🌐 Development is multi-contextual, influenced by physical, social, and ecological systems, including microsystems, exo systems, macro systems, and meso systems.
- 🌟 The concept of 'plasticity' in human development means that traits can be molded and changed at almost any point in life.
- 🧬 The nature versus nurture debate acknowledges that both genetic and environmental factors play a role in human development.
- 👶 Critical and sensitive periods are times during development when certain experiences are crucial for normal development or when development occurs most easily.
- 🌈 Lifespan development considers a broad perspective, looking at people of all ages, ethnicities, genders, nations, and sexual orientations to understand both universal and specific aspects.
- 🔄 Dynamic systems theory in development recognizes that changes in one aspect of development can affect all other aspects, emphasizing the interconnectedness of development.
Q & A
What is the purpose of integrating physiological, social, and psychological aspects in the engineering course?
-The purpose is to help students see themselves as integrated individuals and create strategies for personal growth and development throughout their lifespan, avoiding stagnation.
What does Area E focus on in terms of human development?
-Area E focuses on lifespan development, aiming to understand why and how people change over time from a scientific perspective.
What are the four specific learning objectives of Area E?
-The four learning objectives are: recognizing the interconnected influences on well-being, understanding the impact of development across the lifespan, using social skills to build positive relationships, and recognizing one's current stage of human development and how it is affected by the context.
How does the engineering course incorporate the learning objectives?
-The course incorporates learning objectives through activities like term papers, robot projects, clicker assignments, journal write-ups, and self-reflections that connect to campus life and well-being.
What does empirical evidence mean in the context of lifespan development?
-Empirical evidence in lifespan development refers to evidence based on data that allows for objective truth and is gathered through careful statistical analysis and critical thinking.
How is lifespan development described as multi-directional?
-Lifespan development is multi-directional as human characteristics can increase, decrease, or remain steady, and development can follow various patterns such as linear, curvilinear, or zigzag.
What is meant by multi-contextual development?
-Multi-contextual development refers to the various contexts in which development occurs, including physical, social, and cultural environments, as well as larger systems like the economy and political policies.
How does the concept of plasticity relate to human development?
-Plasticity in human development means that human traits can be molded and altered at almost any point in the lifespan, indicating that development is not fixed and can be influenced by various factors.
What is the difference between a critical period and a sensitive period in development?
-A critical period is a time when certain experiences must occur for normal development, while a sensitive period is a time when a particular development happens most easily, though it can still occur outside of this period.
Why is it important to study human development from a broad perspective?
-Studying human development from a broad perspective helps to understand both universal and specific aspects of development, avoiding limited conclusions and recognizing alternative pathways.
How does the concept of dynamic systems apply to lifespan development?
-Dynamic systems in lifespan development refer to the continuous changes and interactions between different aspects of development, where change in one aspect can affect all others, emphasizing the interconnectedness of development.
Outlines
📚 Introduction to Lifespan Development in Engineering Education
Professor Maureen Smith introduces the concept of Area E, which focuses on human development and its integration with physiological, social, psychological, and cognitive aspects. The aim is to encourage personal growth and development throughout one's lifespan. The course objectives include understanding how well-being is shaped by interconnected developmental elements, recognizing the impact of these elements across the lifespan, using social skills to build positive relationships, and understanding one's current stage of human development and how it is influenced by the context of San Jose State University. The professor outlines various activities and projects designed to help students meet these objectives, such as writing a term paper and engaging in robot projects that explore lifespan development issues.
🔬 The Scientific Approach to Lifespan Development
The script explains the scientific method used in studying lifespan development, emphasizing the importance of empirical evidence and objective truth. It discusses how data is collected and analyzed to understand human development, and the use of theory to drive research questions. The scientific method involves careful statistical analysis, critical thinking, and sound methodology in designing experiments and choosing measures. The paragraph also touches on the multi-directional nature of human development, where traits can increase, decrease, or remain steady, and how development can be linear, curvilinear, or zigzag. It also introduces the concept of multi-contextual development, which considers various contexts such as physical, social, and ecological systems.
🌐 Multi-Contextual and Multidisciplinary Nature of Lifespan Development
This section delves into the multi-contextual aspect of development, discussing how human development occurs in various contexts such as physical, social, and ecological systems. It introduces the ecological systems theory, which includes microsystems (immediate surroundings), exosystems (local institutions), macro systems (larger societal context), and meso systems (connections between different systems). The paragraph also discusses the chrono system, which considers historical conditions and how they shape development. The concept of multicultural development is introduced, emphasizing the importance of understanding development within the context of different cultures and groups. Lastly, it highlights the multidisciplinary approach to lifespan development, drawing from various academic disciplines such as psychology, sociology, biology, and urban planning.
🌱 Key Themes in Lifespan Development
The script outlines key themes in lifespan development, including the nature versus nurture debate, critical and sensitive periods, and the importance of considering development from a broad perspective. It discusses how traits and characteristics are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors, and how the understanding of these influences has evolved. The concept of critical periods, where certain experiences are necessary for normal development, and sensitive periods, where development occurs most easily, are explained. The paragraph also emphasizes the importance of looking at development across the lifespan, considering both universal and specific aspects, and recognizing that differences in development do not necessarily indicate a deficit but can be alternative pathways.
🔄 Dynamic Systems and Changes Over Time
This section focuses on the dynamic nature of development, where changes in one aspect of the system can affect all other aspects. It discusses the importance of understanding development as a series of continuous and discontinuous changes, with both consistency and transformation occurring throughout the lifespan. The role of age in understanding what is normative and appropriate at different stages of development is highlighted. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the interconnectedness and mutual influence of all aspects of development, which is why it is referred to as a dynamic system.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Lifespan Development
💡Area E
💡Interconnectedness
💡Well-being
💡Empirical Evidence
💡Multidirectional
💡Multicontextual
💡Plasticity
💡Scientific Method
💡Dynamic Systems
💡Nature vs. Nurture
Highlights
Introduction to Area E and Lifespan Development
Goal of Area E: Integrated personal growth
Importance of using SJSU resources for academic and personal development
Area E's four specific learning objectives
Interconnection of physiological, social, and psychological development
Using social skills to build positive relationships
Understanding the stage of human development in emerging adulthood
Designed activities to demonstrate understanding of learning objectives
Writing a term paper on physiological, social, cultural, and psychological influences
Robot projects to explore lifespan development
Self-reflections to understand campus impact on well-being
Lifespan development as a scientific perspective
Importance of empirical evidence in human development studies
Multidirectional nature of human characteristics change
Multicontextual development across various settings
Ecological systems theory and its components
Chrono system and historical conditions' impact on development
Plasticity in human development
Scientific method in lifespan psychology
Observational and experimental research methods
Cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches in data collection
Nature versus nurture debate in development
Critical and sensitive periods in development
Broad perspective on lifespan development
Dynamic systems and changes over time
Transcripts
good morning by the time you are
listening to this you will be in week 9
of your engineering 10 introduction to
engineering course my name is professor
maureen smith i am a professor of child
and adolescent development in the lori
college of education on the opposite
side of campus from where your
engineering building is
i am the person that's been asked to
help turn your engineering 10 course
into
a course that meets the requirements for
general education in area e less than
development so i thought i'd start out
by introducing you to what area e is and
what lifespan development is so that you
have a basic grounding and basic
understanding of the kinds of things
that we're going to be focusing on
during this week in engineering
so as an area e course which is human
development and
what we really want you to do is sort of
see yourself as a person who has
integrated their physiological their
social and they're psychological
cognitive emotional basically
aspects of themselves we also want to
make sure that you can sort of create
strategies that will allow you to
continue to grow as a person and develop
and evolve as a person for the rest of
your lifespan so that you don't just
stagnate at age 25. then finally one of
the sort of overall goals is that you'll
be able to use the resources here at san
jose state in a way that they support
your academic growth and your personal
personal development
now area e also has four very specific
learning objectives so they are quite
similar in some ways the content goals
in the sense that we again want you to
recognize that your well-being is shaped
by
the way that the your physiological
development your social cultural as well
as your psychological development comes
together and then that influences and
shapes your well-being
we also want you to recognize that those
elements of your development
physiological social cultural
psychological are interconnected and
they're going to
impact your development all the way
across the span it started before birth
and it will continue all the way up
until you die
and then of course
we also want you to be able to use
social skills in ways that will allow
you to get positive relationships with
people on campus get along well with and
work with a wide range of people and
individuals
and then the last one is that we
definitely want you to understand that
you are a person going through a
particular stage of human development in
your case it will be emerging adulthood
and that your well-being at this stage
is will be affected by the context that
you're in specifically here at san jose
state the academic and social systems
and then we want you to understand how
they can help you actually
succeed in this particular stage and
move forward to the next one now we have
designed a series of activities
and
opportunities so that you can
demonstrate that you've understood and
mastered these learning objectives
pretty soon you'll be writing a term
paper that will get you to
understanding this first one recognizing
the physiological social cultural
psychological influences on your
well-being when you get to the robot
projects towards the end of the semester
we'll be looking at um you know sort of
lifespan development issues in the
context of physiological social cultural
psychological factors you've already
done some clicker assignments that have
looked at social skills some journal
write-ups and of course your
self-reflections have really been taking
you across campus and around campus to
help you see
how campus can improve your well-being
or relate to your well-being over
time okay so area e is a lifespan human
development course
and
the bottom line of human development
lifespan development is that we want to
understand
why people change over time and how
that change happens
and we take it from a very specific
scientific perspective so everybody of
everybody in your class everybody in
your family everybody on this campus has
opinions about human development we all
have opinions about how to best feed an
infant how to discipline children how to
structure adolescents time how to deal
with stress how to cope with an empty
nest when your kids leave home and how
to care for the elderly as they progress
closer and closer towards their final
days
but what science does from the
psychological science the social science
perspective
is really seek to separate out facts
from opinions and we do this by
gathering evidence
and so we rely on empirical evidence and
that means evidence that's based on data
and this ensures that there's a degree
of object truth objective truth to what
it is that we're talking about human
development so that we look at um group
averages and of course always there's
exceptions but we really look at what
does the data say about the vast
majority of people in this particular
setting
and
when we do this objective um as best as
objective as we can get scientific
method we're allowed to then make
conclusions
that are accepted by the scientific
community because
these empirical findings are such that
they can be later replicated with other
groups of subjects and other people in
other labs so our goal is really
replication and empirical
data objectivity and so
we use data we get numbers we are able
to collect data about people numbers we
are theory driven theory drives
the questions we ask and how we think
about human development we do very
careful statistical analysis of the data
that we've collected
we engage in critical thinking as we
think about what is this data means what
is it showing us and of course we use
very sound methodology and choose our
experiments and our ms and on our
measures and our design very very
carefully
now lifespan device development really
when you think about it as a science has
many different components to it so one
of the things is that it's
multi-directional
and what that really means is that human
characteristics change in many different
ways over time
you know traits and human
characteristics can increase they can
decrease they can hold steady you could
develop you know development could look
like a straight line it could look
curvilinear which is like an upside down
umbrella or a right side up umbrella or
it can zigzag like a z only horizontal
changes can be in stages
so development follows after development
so first you babble then you have first
words and you have two word sentences
and you have full sentences
and sometimes it's much more gradual so
for example when children are gaining
vocabulary between the ages of six and
ten the development is gradual and slow
and they just ever more
increase the number of words they have
and what's happening this gets bigger
but it's a slow gradual development
we also know that in terms of
multi-directional that
human development can have gains and
losses that occur simultaneously
sometimes loss leads to gain sometimes
gain leads to loss one perfect example
of this is that when infants are first
born
they can
wiggle their legs
when they're lying on their backs in
such a way that they mimic stepping and
when you hold them up over a table or a
flat surface
they mimic the act of stepping and
walking even though they're only about a
month old
now by the time infants are about four
months old they're really no longer
capable of doing this they've lost that
ability
but they have gained the ability to have
motor control
greater muscular strength so gain lead
to loss
similarly
when babies are first born
they can babble in the sound of every
language on the known every known
language on the planet they can make
sound in swahili in russian in puerto
rican in english and scottish in german
and japanese all the different sounds of
those languages
by the time they develop their first
words which is around one years of age
they are limited to the sound of their
cultural community so again a gain and
ability to speak is associated with a
loss of that wider range of
linguist sounds
and then we also want to look at not
only averages but variations
now secondly
microphone development is
multi-contextual
that is it happens in a lot of different
contexts such as the physical context
the climate you're in noise population
density
the social context of family school work
neighbors peers classmates
[Music]
the ecological system is is really one
of the great theories and it really
looks at sort of um different processes
um including you know the built
environment and the social context so
you have
microsystems which are your immediate
surroundings
like your parents like your dorm mates
we have exo systems which are local
institutions
like the csu system
work institutions religious
organizations
you have a macro system which is the
larger context it's the values of the
culture on the political system the
economic policies of the united states
or whatever country you live in
and then the meso system is really
connections between work and home like
family leave policy or between
school and parents when they have
parent-teacher conference nights etc
and then brian from brenner's theory
also takes into account the chrono
system where you look at historical
conditions
so people born in different times of
different experiences that really shaped
their lives
an example of this is relevant for today
is that you know youth today know more
gay people and are more accepting of gay
marriage than their grandparents
because um
for their grandparents nobody was out
nobody was open about homosexuality when
their grandparents were forming their
opinions similarly youth in the 50s were
much more accepting of war than youth in
the 1970s
youth in the 1950s observed the the
heroism of world war ii
and the need to stop atrocities whereas
the years of 1970s saw the disaster of
the vietnam war and so
that you know time period that you're
born in makes a difference so that's all
under multi-contextual
multicultural really means that you know
meaning and information systems are
shared by a group they're transmitted
across several generations everything
that you know matters for happiness in
life everything affects every action
and so it involves a nation an ethnic
group a regional area the neighborhood
the members of any group that you happen
to belong to
and then finally it's multidisciplinary
we draw in many different academic
disciplines so in my field i'm a
psychologist but we also look at
sociology biology anthropology urban
planning medicine you get the idea
and
here
it's important to note
that there are three very
clear domains of development
biological
cognitive psychological
and social
we also have age divisions infancy early
childhood middle childhood
adolescence emerging adulthood adulthood
and late adulthood
and then everything that happens in one
domain influences every other domain
everything that happens in one age
influences
the following ages to come
and then finally we are very careful to
know that human development is what we
call plastic
that is human traits can be molded um
there's there's a certain sort of core
part of us that stays
but that any traitor characteristic that
we have truly can be altered almost at
any point in the lifespan sometimes for
the better sometimes for the worse
all right so
when we look at the scientific method
we're really involving you know
curiosity i want to know why babies do
this i want to know why young adults
actually take more risks than
adolescents and so you develop a
hypothesis
you test the hypothesis you brought
inclusion and you report the findings
this is what lifespan psychologists do
to figure out how human develop human
beings work
now
our scientific methods involve
observation so i could come over and sit
in morris daily hall up in the balcony
and i could observe your class and i
could take notes on behavioral trends
and i could observe to see which one of
you is paying attention
when um your professor is up on the
stage asking questions to which one of
you is busy looking out the window or
looking down at your notes and i could
see if there were gender differences or
height differences in people who did
this i could also conduct an experiment
where i randomly assign people to a
treatment group and a control group
i could do a correlational study i study
imagination and i can't randomly assign
people to have imaginary friends but i
can go out and i can compare kids with
imaginary friends to kids without and i
can see if there's differences that's a
correlational study or i can do a survey
i can hand out a survey instrument and
have people return that so there's many
different ways that i can collect data
about human development
i can also do it cross-sectionally so i
can look at a group of different aged
people all at once so i could gather 10
year olds 20 year olds 30 year olds 40
year olds and 50 year olds and look to
see if there are differences
i could do it longitudinally where i
could study one group of people over
time so i could study somebody starting
when they were 10 and follow them all
the way till they were 60
or i could do the complicated one
where i look at it sequentially where i
might have a group of 10 year olds and i
would study them at age 10 and again at
age 20 and when i am studying them at
age 20 i'm also getting a new set of 10
year olds who i study at age 20 again so
i can sort of
stagger my different age groups of
people it's kind of a mix of
cross-sectional with longitudinal these
are all the tools that lifespan
researchers use to come up with answers
about human development and they're the
basis of the research that you'll be
reading this week
so lifestyle development does have some
important themes
one of them is the big debate although
we've begun to finally settle it which
is the nature versus nurture debate
so nature really is asking how much of
your
traits and your characteristics and who
you are as a person is due to genes that
you've inherited so genetic influence
the nurture question
is really what are the environmental
influences on your development
and that can range from the diet that
you have as an infant
to your family practices to the school
you go to to the culture you come from
to the society you live in
and so really how much of any
characteristic any behavior any emotion
is due to genetic inheritance and how
much of it is due to environment and
that has really been the debate over
time
really truthfully now we've come to
discover that it's not an either or the
question really now is
how much is nurture and how much is
nature and almost everything you can
think of has a little bit of both
eye color you tend to think of as being
purely genetic you inherit the genes to
have a certain eye color but with the
invention of modern science you can now
buy contacts that change the color of
your eyes so there's an element of
nurture in there as well so we've now
come to the conclusion of it's what
proportion is genetic and what
proportion is environmental
another big and important theme is the
idea of critical insensitive periods and
this is really the idea that in a
critical period
something must happen to ensure normal
development
it's fairly rare in humans
prenatal is one time where certain
things have to happen or normal
development will not occur
one example i can give you
is that it was done years and years and
years ago
some researchers got a hold of some
brand new infant kittens who had just
been born
and kittens are born with their eyes
shut and so for the first couple of
weeks of the kittens life they have the
kittens wearing blindfolds
and they after about three weeks four
weeks i think of the kittens lives they
un blindfolded the kittens and what had
happened was the kittens who had been
born with all of the proper rods and
cones and nerve cells for them to be
able to see
were functionally blind because they
lacked that environmental input so
that's kind of an example of a critical
period
a sensitive period is when a particular
development happens most easily and this
is really common so it happens most
easily that you learn to walk at age one
but clearly you could learn to walk at
any particular age after age one
language is another
and if any of you are trying to take a
foreign language for the first time in
college you know that it is often a
struggle and it's much harder to learn
so the sensitive period for learning
language particularly a second language
is really early childhood rather than
after puberty when the
brain areas for language is sort of
finalized and set themselves up so
there's critical and sensitive periods
there's
also the idea of just looking at
lifespan development from a very broad
perspective and
you know we look at people of all ages
of all ethnicities of all genders of all
nations of all sexual orientations
and we want to really avoid drawing
conclusions from a very limited group so
we try to have a very broad picture of
people
we look at what's common to humanity and
then we also look at what is unique to
each person so we're interested in both
universal and specific aspects of
development
and
you know we really are very you know
want to kind of point out and i want to
emphasize that just because something is
different from the norm
doesn't mean it's a deficit it merely
means it's an alternative pathway for
development
and then the last couple of things to
think about is that we want to look at
changes over time dynamic systems
so
individuals are constantly changing
there's continuity in their development
there's discontinuity there's
consistency something that's consistent
all the way across and there's
transformations
that occur at all points across the
lifespan
and age is a really key part of
understanding this these changes over
time this development
so for example it's very normal for a
girl to have a temper tantrum if she
does not get to go to the restaurant she
likes if she's two years old
but it is not normal for her to have a
temper tantrum if she's 14.
similarly
it's very normal for a man to have a
sexual relationship with a committed
partner if he's 25
but that's not normal if he's 13. so age
is a big way to help us understand
what's normative and what's appropriate
for each particular period
and then finally it's really important
and this is why we call it dynamic to
remember that every aspect of
development interacts with every other
aspect that's why we call it the dynamic
systems so change in one aspect of the
system is going to change
all other aspects of the system so if
one person changes an entire family
changes
if members groups of the
society change the whole society is
going to be affected so all aspects of
development are very strongly
interconnected and mutually influence
each other
all right so that was just a very very
brief overview of sort of what lifespan
development is as a science
this is sort of what's going to guide
your thinking for the next week about um
lifespan development in your own
particular development as a college
student this is also the underpinnings
of the term paper that you will write
where you explore college student
development in greater depth
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