Calderon, Pattiz S.

30th of January, 2020

1PSY01 Developmental Psychology
Ma’am Helen Baguno

1. What is development?
 When we talk about development, we automatically think it is about growth of
person’s well-being. But development is divided into 4 groups: cognitive,
emotional, intellectual and social capabilities over the lifespan of a person – from
infancy to death. (Britannica, n.d.) In other words, development is a process of
change or growing to cause something more advanced or larger.
2. Factors of development?
 There are 2 factors that affects human development:
1. Physical Factors:
 Genes play an important role in the transmission of physical
and social characteristics from parents to off-spring.
i. Phenotype, Characteristics of Parents, Race, Sex,
Genetic Disorder, and Hormones.
E.g. If your family has a history with asthma or lung
related illnesses, you have inherited the genes for
that illness.
 Lifestyle choices is also a physical factor that affects our
human development.
E.g. Your family doesn’t have a history with asthma
and yet your doctor said you have one, it’s because
of your lifestyle choices. It’s whether you smoke, or
you often experience second hand smoke.
2. Environmental Factors:
 Environmental factors are the things that we experience
outside and inside our own household this affect a person’s
physical, social and economic factors.
E.g. Parents has great impact towards the social
development of a child. Parents should provide their
child with their very first opportunity to develop a
relationship, communicate and compromise. (SCAN,
n.d.)
E.g. Peers has also great impact towards the
emotional development of a child. Peer
relationships provide a unique context in which
 children learn a range of critical social emotional
skills, such as empathy, cooperation, and problem-
solving strategies. Peer relationships can also
contribute negatively to social emotional
development through bullying, exclusion, and
deviant peer processes. (Pepler & Bierman, 2018)
 Pre-natal environment is also an environmental factor,
during pregnancy there are food that a mother shouldn’t
eat and do such as alcohol intake, smoking and drugs.
3. What is developmental psychology and its importance?
 Developmental psychology is a scientific approach which
aims to explain growth, change and consistency though the
lifespan. Developmental psychology looks at how thinking,
feeling, and behaviour change throughout a person’s life.
(Mcleod, 2017)
 It is important because the researches in this field are
constantly evolving throughout the years that passed.
These researchers can also be the reason why we can
prevent illnesses that are rampant and relevant to our time
today such as: cancer, aids and more. This field of
psychology aims also to describe, explain and to optimize
development (Baltes, Reese, & Lipsitt, 1980)
4. How does heredity and environment affect human development?
 Basically speaking, heredity is the one who’s responsible for
the person’s inborn traits, instincts, I.Q., emotions and
physical traits. While on the other hand, environment is the
who’s responsible with the development of social, mental,
emotional and physical ability/trait of a certain individual.
(Hopwood, 2011)

SOURCES USED:
 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058678/
 https://www.slideshare.net/Wegeee/factors-affectinghumandevelopment
 https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2018/11/with-a-little-help-from-my-friends--the-
importance-of-peer-relationships-for-social-emotional-development.html
 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14410155
 https://prezi.com/fdyyjlhbaak7/factors-that-affect-human-growth-and-development/
 https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/psychological-factors-that-affect-human-growth-and-
development-powerpoint-health-and-social-care-11901281