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Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan. [1]
According to this theory, life span development has multiple trajectories (positive, negative, stable) and causes (biological, psychological, social, and cultural). Individual variation is a hallmark of this theory – not all individuals develop and age at the same rate and in the same manner. [15] Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory
The development of the human mind is complex and a debated subject, and may take place in a continuous or discontinuous fashion. [4] Continuous development, like the height of a child, is measurable and quantitative, while discontinuous development is qualitative, like hair or skin color, where those traits fall only under a few specific phenotypes. [5]
Development at this stage also includes periods of reevaluation regarding life satisfaction, sustainment of active involvement, and developing a sense of health maintenance. [41] Developmental conflicts may arise in this stage, but psychological growth in earlier stages can help significantly in resolving these conflicts.
Emerging adulthood, early adulthood, or post-adolescence refers to a phase of the life span between late adolescence and early adulthood, as initially proposed by Jeffrey Arnett in a 2000 article from American Psychologist.
Glen Elder theorized the life course as based on five key principles: life-span development, human agency, historical time and geographic place, timing of decisions, and linked lives. As a concept, a life course is defined as "a sequence of socially defined events and roles that the individual enacts over time" (Giele and Elder 1998, p. 22).
As genetic factors and events during prenatal life may strongly influence developmental changes, genetics and prenatal development usually form a part of the study of child development. Related terms include developmental psychology , referring to development from birth to death, and pediatrics , the branch of medicine relating to the care of ...
Life-span psychology can be defined as the exploration of biological, cognitive, and psychosocial changes and constancies that occur throughout the course of life. [6] It has been presented as a theoretical perspective, proposing several fundamental, theoretical, and methodological principles about the nature of human development.