A Topical Approach to

LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT
NINTH EDITION
JOHN W. SANTROCK
Chapter 1
Introduction

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 • Learning Goals

Discuss the distinctive features of a life-span

perspective on development

Identify the most important processes, periods, and

issues in development

Describe the main theories of human development

Explain how research on life-span development is

conducted

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 • The Life-Span Perspective 1

Development
• Pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and
continues through life span
• Includes growth, but also decline and dying

Traditional view of development

• Extensive change from birth to adolescence
• Little or no change during adulthood
• Decline in old age

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 • The Life-Span Perspective 2

Life-span perspective
• Developmental change throughout adulthood as well as
during childhood

Human life expectancy

• Maximum life span—upper boundary of the human
life span
• Currently regarded as 122 years
• Life expectancy—average number of years that a person born
in a particular year can expect to live
• Currently 79 years in the United States

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 • Figure 2 Human Life Expectancy at
Birth from Prehistoric to Contemporary
Times
It took 5,000 years to extend human life expectancy from 18
(in prehistoric times) to 41 years of age (in nineteenth-century England).
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 • The Life-Span Perspective 3

Characteristics of development according to the

life-span perspective:
• Lifelong
• Multidimensional
• Multidirectional
• Plastic
• Multidisciplinary
• Contextual
• Involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss
• Constructed through biological, sociocultural, and individual
factors working together
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 • The Life-Span Perspective 4

Three types of contextual changes

• Normative age-graded influences
• Similar for individuals sharing the same age group
• Normative history-graded influences
• Common to people of a particular generation due to historical
circumstances
• Nonnormative life events
• Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an
individual’s life

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 • The Life-Span Perspective 5

Some contemporary concerns

• Health and well-being
• Parenting and education
• Sociocultural contexts and diversity
• Culture: behavior patterns, beliefs, and other products of a people that
are passed on from generation to generation
• Cross-cultural studies compare two or more cultures
• Ethnicity: characteristic based on cultural heritage, nationality
characteristics, race, religion, and language
• Socioeconomic status (SES): a person’s position within society based on
occupational, educational, and economic characteristics
• Gender: the characteristics of people as males and females

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 • The Life-Span Perspective 6

Some contemporary concerns

• Social policy
• Government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare
of its citizens

Key concerns in social policy:

• Infant/child mortality rates, children, malnourishment,
impoverished families
• Older adults and the growing number of older adults
• Health-care costs and access to adequate health care
• Social supports available to older adults

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 • The Nature of Development 1

Developmental processes
• Biological processes
• Produce changes in an individual’s physical nature
• Examples: height, weight, and motor skill changes
• Cognitive processes
• Involve changes in an individual’s thought, intelligence, and language
• Examples: two-word sentences and solving a puzzle
• Socioemotional processes
• Involve changes in an individual’s relationships with other people,
emotions, and personality
• Examples: smiling in response to interacting with a playmate

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 • Figure 6 Processes Involved in Developmental
Changes
Biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes interact as individuals develop.

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 • The Nature of Development 2

Two rapidly emerging fields

• Developmental cognitive neuroscience
• Developmental social neuroscience

Periods of development
• Developmental period—a time frame characterized by certain
features
• Eight sequential periods with approximate age ranges
• Widely used for the purposes of organization and understanding

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Development

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biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes.
• Figure 7 Processes and Periods of

The unfolding of life’s periods of development is influenced by the interaction of

(Lef to right): © Brand X Pictures/PunchStock RF; Courtesy of John Santrock; © Laurence

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 • The Nature of Development 3

Of recent interest: emerging adulthood

• Period of transition from adolescence to adulthood

Significance of age
• Is one age in life better than another?
• Age and happiness
• In the U.S., adults are happier as they age
• Psychological well-being increases after age 50
• Older adults report having more positive emotional experiences than
younger adults

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 • The Nature of Development 4

Conceptions of age
• Chronological age—number of years since birth
• Biological age—age in terms of biological health
• Psychological age—adaptive capacities compared with others
of the same chronological age
• Social age—connectedness with others and the social roles
that individuals adopt

Three developmental patterns of aging

• Normal aging
• Pathological aging
• Successful aging
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 • The Nature of Development 5

Developmental issues
• Nature and nurture: biological inheritance or environmental
experience?
• Stability and change: forever shaped by early experience, or is
there capacity to change?
• Continuity and discontinuity: gradual, cumulative change or
distinct stages?

Evaluating the developmental issues

• All three issues are significant to development throughout the
human life span

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 • Theories of Development 1

Scientific method
• Conceptualize a process or problem to be studied
• Collect research information (data)
• Analyze data
• Draw conclusions

Theory—an interrelated, coherent set of ideas that

helps explain phenomena and make predictions

Hypotheses—specific assertions and predictions that

can be tested

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 • Theories of Development:
Psychoanalytic Theories 1
Psychoanalytic theories
• Describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily
influenced by emotions
• Stress that early experiences with parents deeply shape
development

Freud’s stages of psychosexual development

• Five stages
• Adult personality is determined by how we resolve conflicts
between sources of pleasure at each stage and the demands
of reality

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 Oral Stage Anal Stage Phallic Stage Latency Stage Genital Stage
Infant’s pleasure Child’s pleasure Child’s pleasure Child represses A time of sexual
centers on the focuses on the anus. focuses on the sexual interest and reawakening; source
mouth. genitals. develops social and of sexual pleasure
intellectual skills. becomes someone
outside the family.
Birth to 1½ Years 1½ to 3 Years 3 to 6 Years 6 Years to Puberty Puberty Onward

• Figure 11 Freudian Stages

Because Freud emphasized sexual motivation, his stages of development
are known as psychosexual stages. In his view, if the need for pleasure at
any stage is either undergratified or overgratified, an individual may
become fixated, or locked in, at that stage of development.

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 • Theories of Development:
Psychoanalytic Theories 2
Erikson’s psychosocial theory
• Primary motivation for human behavior is social and reflects a
desire to affiliate with other people
• Developmental change occurs throughout the life span
• Emphasized the importance of both early and later experiences
• Eight stages, representing eight key crises that must be
resolved

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 Erikson’s Developmental
Stages Period
Integrity versus Late adulthood (60s
despair onward)

Generativity versus Middle adulthood

stagnation (40s, 50s)

Intimacy versus Early adulthood

isolation (20s, 30s)

Identity versus Adolescence (10 to

identity confusion 20 years)

Industry versus Middle and late

inferiority childhood
(elementary school
years, 6 years to
puberty)

Initiative versus Early childhood

guilt (preschool years, 3
to 5 years)

Autonomy versus Infancy (1 to 3

shame and doubt years)
• Figure 12
Trust versus Infancy (first year)
Erikson’s Eight Life-Span Stages mistrust

Like Freud, Erikson proposed that individuals go through

distinct, universal stages of development.

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 • Theories of Development 2

Evaluation of psychoanalytic theories

• Stress the importance of the unconscious
• Criticized for a lack of scientific support, an emphasis on sexual
underpinnings, and a negative image of people

Cognitive theories emphasize conscious thought

• Three important theories:
• Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory
• Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognitive theory
• Information-processing theory

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 • Theories of Development:
Cognitive Theories 1
Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory
• Four stages
• Children actively construct their understanding of
the world
• Two key processes: organization and adaptation
• Each age-related stage consists of a distinct way of thinking
• Child’s cognition is qualitatively different in one stage compared with
another

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 Sensorimotor
Stage
The infant constructs an
understanding of the
world by coordinating
sensory experiences with
physical actions. An infant
progresses from reflexive,
instinctual action at birth
to the beginning of
symbolic thought toward
the end of the stage.
Birth to 2 Years of Age
Preoperational
Stage
The child begins to
represent the world with
words and images. These
words and images reflect
increased symbolic
thinking and go beyond
the connection of sensory
information and physical
action.
2 to 7 Years of Age
Concrete Operational Formal Operational
Stage Stage
The child can now reason The adolescent reasons in
logically about concrete more abstract, idealistic,
events and classify objects and logical ways.
into different sets.
7 to 11 Years of Age 11 Years of Age
Through Adulthood

• Figure 13 Piaget’s Four Stages of

Cognitive Development
According to Piaget, how a child thinks—not how much the child
knows—determines the child’s stage of cognitive development.
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 • Theories of Development:
Cognitive Theories 2
Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognitive theory
• Children actively construct knowledge about the world
• Culture and social interaction play a greater role
• Social interaction with more-skilled adults and peers is
necessary for cognitive development

Information-processing theory
• Individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize
about it
• Development is gradual rather than stage-like, allowing them
to acquire increasingly complex knowledge and skills

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 • Theories of Development 3

Evaluating cognitive theories

• Noted for an emphasis on the active construction of
understanding
• Criticized for insufficient attention to individual variation

Behavioral and social cognitive theories

• Development is observable behavior that we can learn
through experience with the environment
• Emphasize continuity in development
• Two significant versions:
• Skinner’s operant conditioning
• Bandura’s social cognitive theory
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 • Theories of Development:
Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theories
Skinner’s operant conditioning
• Consequences of a behavior produce changes in
the probability of the behavior’s occurrence
• Rewards and punishments shape behavior

Bandura’s social cognitive theory

• Development is shaped through observational learning
• Model of learning and development includes three elements:
behavior, the person/cognition, and the environment

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 • Figure 14 Bandura’s Social Cognitive
Model
The arrows illustrate how relations between behavior, person/cognition, and
environment are reciprocal rather than one-way. Person/cognition refers to
cognitive processes (for example, thinking and planning) and personal
characteristics (for example, believing that you can control your experiences).
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 • Theories of Development:
Ethological Theory 1
Ethological theory
• Behavior is strongly influenced by biology, tied to evolution,
and characterized by critical or sensitive periods
• Presence or absence of certain experiences during specific
time frames has a long-lasting influence

Konrad Lorenz
• European zoologist who studied the behavior of
greylag geese
• Imprinting: rapid, innate learning involving attachment to the
first moving object seen
• Imprinting takes place in a critical period
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 • Theories of Development:
Ethological Theory 2
John Bowlby
• Applied ethological theory to human development
• Studied attachment to caregivers
• Attachment over the first year of life has important
consequences throughout the life span
• Secure attachment predicts optimal development in childhood
and adulthood
• Attachment should occur in a sensitive period

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 • Theories of Development:
Ecological Theory
Ecological theory
• Emphasizes environmental factors on development

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory

• Development reflects the influence of several environmental
systems
• Microsystem
• Mesosystem
• Exosystem
• Macrosystem
• Chronosystem

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 • Figure 15 Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological
Theory of Development
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory consists of five environmental systems:
microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.
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 • Theories of Development 4

An eclectic theoretical orientation

• No single theory explains the complexity of life-span
development
• Each theory has furthered understanding of the factors that
shape development
• Rather than a strict following of a single approach, an eclectic
theoretical orientation selects from each theory whatever is
considered best in it

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Methods for
Collecting Data 1
Observation
• Laboratory: observation in a controlled setting where many
complex factors of the “real world” have been removed
• Naturalistic observation: observation of behavior in
real-world settings

Survey and interview

• Standard set of questions used to obtain people’s self-reported
attitudes or beliefs
• Pro: easy to get many participants
• Con: individuals may not tell the truth

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Methods for
Collecting Data 2
Standardized test
• Test with uniform procedures for administration and scoring
• Allows a person’s performance to be compared with the
performance of others
• Con: assumes behavior is consistent

Case study
• In-depth examination of a single individual

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Methods for
Collecting Data 3
Physiological measures
• Brain, bodily, and hormone changes
• Heart rate
• Eye movement
• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI):
electromagnetic waves used to construct images of brain
tissue and biochemical activity

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Research Designs 1
Descriptive research
• Aims to observe and record behavior

Correlational research
• Strives to describe the strength of the relationship between
two or more events or characteristics
• Prediction is based on the strength of the relationship
• Correlation coefficient: a numerical measure based on
statistical analysis, used to describe the degree of association
between two variables (+1.00 to −1.00)

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 • Figure 19 Possible Explanations of Correlational
Data
Correlation does not equal causation. In this example, the observed correlation is that as
permissive parenting increases, children’s self-control decreases. What are the possible
explanations for this observed correlation?
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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Research Designs 2
Experimental research
• Used to determine if one factor causes another
• Experiment uses carefully related procedures in which one or
more factors are manipulated while all other factors are held
constant
• Independent variable: factor manipulated by the experimenter
• Dependent variable: factor that can change in response;
measured by the experimenter

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Research Designs 3
Experimental and control groups
• Experimental group: group whose experience is manipulated
by the researcher
• Control group: group that is not manipulated, used for
comparison purposes
• Random assignment: used to determine if participants will be
placed in the experimental group or the control group

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 • Figure 20 Principles of Experimental Research
Imagine that you decide to conduct an experimental study of the effects of aerobic
exercise by pregnant women on their newborns’ breathing and sleeping patterns. You
would randomly assign pregnant women to experimental and control groups. The
experimental-group women would engage in aerobic exercise over a specified number of
sessions and weeks. The control group would not. Then, when the infants are born, you
would assess their breathing and sleeping patterns. If the breathing and sleeping patterns
of newborns whose mothers were in the experimental group are more positive than those
of the control group, you would conclude that aerobic exercise caused the positive effects.

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Time Span of
Research 1
Cross-sectional approach
• Research strategy that simultaneously compares individuals of
different ages

Longitudinal approach
• Research strategy in which the same individuals are studied
over a period of time
• Provides information about stability and change

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Time Span of
Research 2
Cohort effects
• Effects due to a person’s time of birth, era, or generation—not
to actual age
• Cross-sectional studies can confuse age changes with cohort
effects
• Longitudinal studies are effective in studying age changes, but
only within one cohort

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Conducting Ethical
Research 1
American Psychological Association (APA) has
established ethical guidelines for research
• Instructs psychologists to protect participants from mental or
physical harm

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Conducting Ethical
Research 2
1. Informed consent: all participants must know what the
research will involve, including potential risks
• Participants have right to withdraw from study at any point or for any
reason

2. Confidentiality: all research participants’ data must be

kept confidential and, when possible, anonymous

3. Debriefing: once the study is completed, participants

should be informed of its purpose and methods

4. Deception: if used, it must not harm participants

• Participants must be debriefed as soon as study is completed

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 • Research on Life-Span
Development: Conducting Ethical
Research 3
Minimizing bias
• Studies are most useful when conducted without bias or
prejudice toward any group of people

Gender bias
• Differences between males and females are often magnified

Cultural and ethnic bias

• Historically, people from ethnic minority groups have been
excluded from research
• Ethnic gloss: use of an ethnic label that portrays an ethnic
group as more homogeneous than it really is
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 Review
Discuss the distinctive features of a life-span
perspective on development

Identify the most important processes, periods, and

issues in development

Describe the main theories of human development

Explain how research on life-span development is

conducted

©McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Authorized only for instructor use in the classroom. No reproduction or further distribution permitted without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
 Long image descriptions

APPENDIX A

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 • Figure 7 Processes and Periods of Development Appendix

Prenatal period (conception to birth)

Infancy (birth through 18 to 24 months)

Early childhood (3 to 5 years)

Middle and late childhood (6 to 10 or 11 years)

Adolescence (10 to 12 through 18 to 21 years)

Early adulthood (20s and 30s)

Middle adulthood (40s and 50s)

Late adulthood (60s to 70s to death)

A Venn diagram demonstrates how biological, cognitive, and socioemotional

processes interact with each other and in combination have various effects on
development.
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 • Figure 15 Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory Appendix

The center of the model is the individual’s characteristics: sex, age, health,
etc.

The most immediate environmental system, imagined as a ring around the

individual, is the microsystem: family, school, peers, neighborhood play area,
church group, health services.

Between the microsystem ring and the exosystem ring is the mesosystem.

The exosystem ring consists of friends of family, neighbors, legal services,

social welfare services, and mass media.

Surrounding all of these is the macrosystem ring, consisting of the attitudes

and ideologies of the culture.

Finally the chronosystem, time, is imagined as depth in the system of rings,

symbolizing sociohistorical conditions and time since life events.

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 • Figure 19 Possible Explanations of Correlational Data
Appendix

An accompanying image shows a father focused on his computer while his

children play or fight in the background.

There are numerous possible explanations for the observed correlation—that

as permissive parenting increases, children’s self-control decreases.
• Permissive parenting causes children’s lack of self-control.
• Children’s lack of self-control causes permissive parenting.
• A third factor such as genetic tendencies or poverty causes both permissive
parenting and children’s lack of self-control.

An observed correlation between two events cannot be used to conclude that

one event causes the second event. Other possibilities are that the second
event causes the first event or that a third event causes the correlation
between the first two events.

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