Lifespan Development, Global Edition

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If the same child sees a horse during his first time visiting the zoo, the child might call it a dog, demonstrating assimilation. Assimilation is piecing new information into an old schema. In this case, the child puts the horse into the dog schema of an animal with four legs and a tail. This text covered the major topical areas of human development in a thorough and concise format. The textbook contains ten (10) major units, with each unit covering a developmental stage, and broken into smaller sections of theories and concepts. The units also include supplementary materials to help the reader expand on perspectives and approaches. Overall, this text is highly comprehensive and easy to read. On the other hand, accommodation is creating space in a body of knowledge to insert new information. A child accommodates new words such as horse and cat and understands that not all animals with four legs and a tail are dogs. New schemas are created in the child's mind to organize this information. Assimilating involves using old knowledge to understand new situations, while accommodation involves redesigning old knowledge and understandings to include new knowledge. Critical Periods in Development Lifelong development means that development is not completed in infancy or childhood or at any specific age; it encompasses the entire lifespan, from conception to death. The study of development traditionally focused almost exclusively on the changes occurring from conception to adolescence and the gradual decline in old age; it was believed that the five or six decades after adolescence yielded little to no developmental change at all. The current view reflects the possibility that specific changes in development can occur later in life, without having been established at birth. The early events of one’s childhood can be transformed by later events in one’s life. This belief clearly emphasizes that all stages of the lifespan contribute to the regulation of the nature of human development. are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written

Stages of Development As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, developmental psychologists often divide our development into three areas: physical development, cognitive development, and psychosocial development. Mirroring Erikson’s stages, lifespan development is divided into different stages that are based on age. We will discuss prenatal, infant, child, adolescent, and adult development.Erik Erikson introduced the Psychosocial Theory of Development as a modification of Sigmund Freud's Psychosexual Theory. He proposed that social connection throughout the lifespan fosters development. According to Erikson, each stage in life consists of certain tasks that must be completed, and the inability to do so elicits feelings of insufficiency. The text is organized by developmental periods and takes a lifespan approach to the topic of human development. The text covers developmental periods from fertilization through death and presents the material from a multiple-domain perspective. The breadth of material covered in each chapter is broad and includes all the topics you want and expect to find in a quality human developmental text. While I was unable to read every chapter of the text, it appears as if the depth of the content may vary from one section to another where some areas are discussed at great depth (e.g., meta-theories, older adulthood, etc.) and in a way that is clear and should facilitate the ease of understanding of complex topics. At the same time, other concepts or mechanisms of development under different theoretical perspectives are not covered as fully as one might desire if using this text for an upper-level core course. However, with that being said the text offers great supplemental reading suggestions and any instructor can choose which topic to explore more in-depth as needed. The organizational structure and flow of the text are consistent throughout and what one would expect in a text within the field of human development. The material is presented in a way that clearly connects to the material presented earlier, and there are no surprise sections or sections that seem out of place, as the table of contents clearly identifies what the reader should expect to find within each chapter. However, I believe a glossary/subject/author type index presented as a last chapter would be helpful for students looking for a specific concept or citation.

I thought the textbook was broken down in a sensible manner, with content being grouped in an appropriate manner. The chapters have a good amount of content, but are not overwhelming or too long. What is meant by the word “context”? It means that we are influenced by when and where we live. Our actions, beliefs, and values are a response to the circumstances surrounding us. Sternberg describes contextual intelligence as the ability to understand what is called for in a situation (Sternberg, 1996). The key here is to understand that behaviors, motivations, emotions, and choices are all part of a bigger picture. Our concerns are such because of who we are socially, where we live, and when we live; they are part of a social climate and set of realities that surround us. Important social factors include cohort, social class, gender, race, ethnicity, and age. Let’s begin by exploring two of these: cohort and social class.Maturation is a natural physical and mental development process that occurs over time until a person reaches full maturity. Maturity, in this sense, can also mean when a person starts to act like a grown-up. One example of this is when a person seeks emotional stability, which is a sign of maturity.