Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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]
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]
Continuous changes, like growth in stature, involve fairly gradual and predictable progress toward adult characteristics. When developmental change is discontinuous, however, researchers may identify not only milestones of development, but related age periods often called stages.
The neo-Piagetian theories aim to correct one or more of the following weaknesses in Piaget's theory: Piaget's developmental stage theory proposes that people develop through various stages of cognitive development, but his theory does not sufficiently explain why development from stage to stage occurs. [1]
Information processing theory is the approach to the study of cognitive development evolved out of the American experimental tradition in psychology. Developmental psychologists who adopt the information processing perspective account for mental development in terms of maturational changes in basic components of a child's mind.
Dimensional models are intended to reflect what constitutes personality disorder symptomology according to a spectrum, rather than in a dichotomous way.As a result of this they have been used in three key ways; firstly to try to generate more accurate clinical diagnoses, secondly to develop more effective treatments and thirdly to determine the underlying etiology of disorders.
The Gibsonian ecological theory of development is a theory of development that was created by American psychologist Eleanor J. Gibson during the 1960s and 1970s. Gibson emphasized the importance of environment and context in learning and, together with husband and fellow psychologist James J. Gibson, argued that perception was crucial as it allowed humans to adapt to their environments.
For example, he believed that children experience the world through actions, representing things with words, thinking logically, and using reasoning. To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganisation of mental processes resulting from biological maturation and environmental experience.