Chapter 1: the Study of Human Development

Full file at http://emailtestbank.com/ Solution-Manual-for-Experience-Human-Development- 13th-Edition-by-Papalia Chapter 1: The Study of Human Development

Introduction

The primary goal for Chapter One is to introduce primary concepts in the field of human growth and development. In addition to detailing how the field has developed historically, the chapter stresses the practical applications of the discipline. The authors introduce key principles of a life span approach, emphasizing that the study of human development is an ever-evolving endeavor with influences from genetics, the environment and social differences including social class and ethnicity. These differences can be normative or nonnormative and vary due to the timing of events around us and our context. The three domains of development: physical, cognitive, and psychosocial, serve to introduce the periods of the life span, which are notably different in different societies. Cultural differences introduce the concept of social construction which explains why some cultures do not have stages of adolescence or middle age. The chapter concludes with a description of the life-span developmental perspective proposed by Paul Baltes.

Learning Objectives

1. Describe human development and how its study has evolved.

2. Describe the domains and periods of human development.

3. Give examples of the influences that make one person different from another.

4. Discuss the principles of the life-span perspective.

The Total Teaching Package Outline: Chapter 1 The Study of Human Development

Heading Resources Research in Action: Is There a Critical Learning Objective 1.3 Period for Language Acquisition? Videos: Secrets of the Wild Child Nell Activity: 1.3 Window on the World: Children of Learning Objective 1.3 Immigrant Families Lecture Opener: 1.1

Human Development: An Ever- Learning Objective 1.1 Evolving Field Checkpoint: 1-1 Critical Thinking Exercise: 1.2

Studying the Life Span Learning Objective 1.1 Checkpoint: 1-2 Activity: 1.5 Human Development Today Learning Objective 1.1 Checkpoint: 1-3 The Study of Human Development: Learning Objective 1.2 Basic Concepts Lecture Opener: 1.5

Domains of Development Learning Objective 1.2 Checkpoint: 1-4 Essay Questions: 1.1, 1.3 Periods of the Life Span Learning Objective 1.2 Lecture Openers: 1.4 Checkpoint: 1-5 Critical Thinking Exercise: 1.1 Activity: 1.4, 1.8 Video Developmental Characteristics from Video Collection Influences on Development Learning Objective 1.2 Checkpoint: 1-6 Activity: 1.6 Heredity, Environment, and Maturation Learning Objective 1.2 Lecture Opener: 1.3

Contexts of Development Learning Objective 1.3 Essay Question: 1.2, 1.4 Activity: 1.1, 1.7

Normative and Nonnormative Influences Checkpoint: 1-7 Activity: 1.2 Lecture Opener: 1.2 Critical Thinking Exercise: 1.3 Timing of Influences: Critical or Sensitive Learning Objective 1.3 Periods Checkpoint: 1-8 Paul B. Baltes’s Life-Span Learning Objective 1.4 Developmental Approach Checkpoint: 1-9

Detailed Chapter Outline with Key Terms

Chapter 1: The Study of Human Development

Research in Action: Is There a Critical Period for Language Acquisition?

Window on the World: Children of Immigrant Families

DID YOU KNOW…?

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: AN EVER-EVOLVING FIELD

● Human development: Scientific study of processes of change and stability throughout the human life span.

Studying the Life Span

● Life-span development: Concept of development as a lifelong process, which can be studied scientifically.

Human Development Today

● Describe: Goal in the study of human development in which scientists observe behavior in order to describe what happens in the lives of children and adults. ● Explain: Goal in which scientists attempt to understand, or explain, why observed behavior occurs—the cause of observed behavior. ● Predict: Goal in which scientists make educated guesses about what might happen in the future to behavior.

● Intervene: Goal in which scientists use the knowledge of causes of behavior to change or control behavior.

THE STUDY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: BASIC CONCEPTS

Domains of Development

● Domain: An aspect of the self, such as physical, cognitive, or psychosocial. ● Physical development: Growth of the body and brain and change or stability in sensory capacities, motor skills, and health. ● Cognitive development: Change or stability in mental abilities, such as learning, memory, language, thinking, moral reasoning, and creativity. ● Psychosocial development: Change and stability in emotions, personality, and social relationships.

Periods of the Life Span

● Social construction: Concept about the nature of reality, based on societally shared perceptions or assumptions.

INFLUENCES ON DEVELOPMENT

● Individual differences: Differences in characteristics, influences, or developmental outcomes.

Heredity, Environment, and Maturation

● Heredity: Inborn characteristics inherited from the biological parents at conception. ● Environment: Totality of nonhereditary, or experiential, influences on development. ● Maturation: Unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral changes, including readiness to master new abilities. ● Inherited characteristics: The influence of heredity on development ● Environmental factors: The influence of environment on development

CONTEXTS OF DEVELOPMENT

Family

● Nuclear family: Kinship and household unit made up of one or two parents and their natural, adopted, or stepchildren. ● Extended family: Kinship network of parents, children, and other relatives, sometimes living together in an extended-family household.

Socioeconomic Status and Neighborhood

● Socioeconomic status (SES): Combination of economic and social factors describing an individual or family, including income, education, and occupation. ● Risk factors: Conditions that increase the likelihood of a negative developmental outcome.

Culture and Race/Ethnicity

● Culture: A society’s or group’s total way of life, including customs, traditions, beliefs, values, language, and physical products—all learned behavior passed on from parents to children. ● Ethnic group: Group united by ancestry, race, religion, language, and/or national origins, which contribute to a sense of shared identity.

The Historical Context

Normative and Nonnormative Influences

● Normative: Characteristic of an event that occurs in a similar way for most people in a group. ● Normative age-graded influences: Event or influence that is highly similar for people in a particular age group- includes biological (puberty, menopause) and social (marriage, retirement) events. ● Normative history-graded influences: Event or influence common to a particular cohort. In this section, the concept of historical generations is defined as a group of people who experience the event at a formative time in their lives. ● Cohort: Group of people growing up at about the same time. ● Historical generation: A group of people strongly influenced by a major historical event during their formative period. ● Nonnormative: Characteristic of an unusual event that happens to a particular person, or a typical event that happens at an unusual time of life.

Timing of Influences: Critical or Sensitive Periods

● Imprinting: Phenomenon in which newly hatched birds will instinctively follow the first moving object they see- the result of the readiness of the nervous system of the organism to acquire certain information during a brief critical period in early life. ● Predisposition toward learning: The readiness of an organism’s nervous system to acquire certain information. ● Critical period: Specific time when a given event, or its absence, has the greatest impact on development. ● Plasticity: Range of modifiability of performance. ● Sensitive periods: Times in development when a person is particularly open to certain kinds of experiences.

● Baltes’s Seven Principles of the Life-Span Approach: o Development is lifelong. o Development is multidimensional. o Development is multidirectional. o Relative influences of biology and culture shift over the life span. o Development involves changing resource allocations. o Development shows plasticity. o Development is influenced by the historical and cultural context.

1.1 “Everything you always wanted to know about human development but were afraid to ask…”

Objective: To have students engage in the course material. To create a classroom atmosphere of inquiry and acceptance. To assist in identifying and matching student and instructor course goals.

Time necessary: 15 minutes

Directions: This exercise works well for a first day class opener. Give each student a blank 3” x 5” note card. Begin by having students take a moment or two to think of several questions they have about childhood, adolescence, adulthood, or old age but “were afraid to ask.” Have them submit these questions anonymously. The questions can then be categorized by topic and used as potential discussion starters later in the course to be sure the information and materials are being addressed appropriately.

Wrap-Up: These questions can be used throughout the semester or by topic, depending on the responses. You can also repeat the exercise several times throughout the semester to be sure students have the opportunity to voice their questions and concerns.

1.2 Defining Your Generation

Objective: To increase student interaction and to illustrate the concepts of normative history- graded influences on development and historical generations. NOTE: This exercise works best in classes that include a wide range of ages.

Time necessary: 15-30 minutes, depending on whether the exercise is shared in small groups or in a larger discussion

Directions: Divide the class into groups by age, placing students of similar age together. Have each group make a list of defining historical and cultural events that characterized their pre-teen and adolescent years. Events might include popular songs, movies, books, pop culture figures, as well as political and historical events that they witnessed. Have each group share its completed list with the entire class.

Wrap-Up: Use the groups’ examples of defining characteristics to help reinforce the concept of normative history-graded influences. You can also have the students label their age-group using the current terms of baby-boomers, X-generation, millennials to demonstrate social construction of terms.

Jean Twenge has written a book, Generation Me, that is an excellent summary of the characteristics of the current cohort of college students called millennials. This is easily incorporated into the exercise.

1.3 Nature/Nurture Debate

Objective: To develop more awareness of how heredity and environment interact to shape human development. To illustrate the concepts of the three domains of development: physical, cognitive, and psychosocial.

Directions: Have small groups or the entire class list five characteristics that fall under each of the three domains: physical, cognitive, and psychosocial. Encourage students to consider, for example, traits like weight, height, hair color, intelligence, mathematical ability, friendliness, or shyness. Once the list of fifteen characteristics is complete, guide students to discuss whether environment or heredity more strongly influences each trait. This discussion lends itself to a debate-like format in which students on one side of the argument are assigned to present ways heredity influences the characteristic, while the other side is assigned to present ways that environment might influence it.

Wrap-Up: Present some research-generated information about the relative influence of heredity and environment on some of the characteristics that were included in the debate. Conclude the activity with a discussion of how heredity and environment most often work together in shaping our development.

1.4 Memory and Social Constructions

Objective: To develop more awareness of social constructions.

Directions: Ask the students to think about their earliest memory, either in small groups or as a class. A few students can be called upon to share their memories on a voluntary basis if the exercise is done with the class as a whole. They may share with each other if it is done in small groups. Encourage them to analyze their memories by considering the following questions: How do you know if this event actually happened? Do you have personal memories of the event? Do you have memories of people telling you about the event? How might other family members recall the event? Does it matter if the event actually happened or not? How is the event woven into the fabric of your ideas about your past? Has your description of the event changed at all over time?

Wrap-Up: You may be able to tie the concept of social constructions to the examples of memories generated by the students. If done in small groups, this exercise can also serve as a “bonding” experience for students. In addition, it is a good exercise to refer back to when

8 © 2015 McGraw-Hill Education Full file at http://emailtestbank.com/ Solution-Manual-for-Experience-Human-Development- 13th-Edition-by-Papalia discussing theories during the next chapter. This exercise can also be used to demonstrate how research might use data provided from memory and how bias and error can be a significant problem.

1.5 Social Construction of Childhood

Objective: To illustrate social constructionist theory by examining the construct of childhood from a historical perspective.

Time necessary: 20 minutes, variable

Directions: Illustrate for students how childhood as a construct has changed historically. You may do this either through traditional lecture format or in a visual format, using PowerPoint or other projection/multimedia tools. You can find many effective visual images in the sources listed below. Discuss images in the context of such variables as infant mortality, birth rate, economics, value placed on children or even childhood clothing. Tracing one or more of these variables through several historical periods provides an effective way to demonstrate how the concept of childhood has been socially constructed and is embedded in a historical context.

Wrap-Up: Sometimes the complexity of social constructionism is initially difficult for students to grasp. Placing concrete visual images before them seems to help communicate more abstract concepts.

Internet Resources: Society for the History of Children and Youth http://www.h-net.org/~child/SHCY/index.htm The “Useful Links” page on this site provides excellent primary and secondary resources for the history of childhood.

A Google search for images from childhood can also provide a wealth of illustrations for a PowerPoint slide show to highlight this topic.

Published Resources: Hwang, C.P., Lamb, M.E., Sigel, I.E. (Eds.). (1996). Images of childhood. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Mintz, S. & Kellogg, S. (1989). Domestic revolutions: A social history of American family life. New York: Free Press. Simpson, J. (1976). The American family: A history in photographs. New York: Viking. Mintz, S. (2004). Huck's Raft: A history of American childhood. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

1.1 Challenging Stereotypes of Developmental Stages

Objective: To identify and challenge preconceived ideas students may have about developmental stages.

Type/Length of activity: Whole-class or small group discussion

Time to complete: 30-45 minutes

Directions: Either on a handout, overhead transparency or on the board, create a list of age bracketed decades (0-9, 10-19, 20-29 etc.). Students should list, as quickly as possible, at least three words that describe each of the age groups. Identify which were the easiest and hardest decades to describe and discuss why this was the case. If working in small groups, each group might list their choices on the board. This can also be done in a larger group discussion. Discuss whether students had a particular person in mind, whether gender was relevant, or whether there were common associations with particular periods. Have students think about the sources for their perceptions. This exercise can also be used as an introduction to stage theories described later in the textbook.

Reference: Rebelsky, F.G. (1981). Life-span development. In L. Benjamin & K. Lowman (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology (pp. 131-132). Washington, DC: APA.

1.2 Back to the Future

Objective: To demonstrate social constructionist theory and potential media influences on these constructions. To serve as an introduction to research methods, particularly content analysis

Type/Length of activity: Can be done as an in-class demonstration or an out-of-class project

Time to complete: Varies

Directions: Divide the class into small groups. Have students assume the role of a researcher in human development from some time in the future. They have traveled back in time to the current year to investigate media portrayals of a particular age group. (Assign age groups or let students select a group of their choice.) Using a specific media type (news, sit-coms, cartoons, MTV, magazines), have each group bring in three videotapes or magazine articles that portray images of its assigned age group. Ask students what they might conclude about people in this age group in the current year if this were the only information available to them. This demonstration also works well as a PowerPoint presentation, where video or still images, such as those from magazines, can be inserted into a lecture format.

1.3 Identifying Current Life Adjustments

Objective: To help students become more aware of their own developmental stage and place current developmental challenges into a socio-historical context.

Type/Length of activity: Small groups

Time to complete: 20-30 minutes

Directions: Distribute a life adjustments scale, such as The Holmes-Rahe Social Adjustment Scale, to each group. The Holmes-Rahe Social Adjustment Scale can be found on the Internet at: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/stress.htm. Have students create personal lists of life challenges that they either face currently or have met and overcome recently. Then students should be asked to consider how each of these challenges might have been faced differently by their parents and their grandparents. Have students discuss whether they think challenges faced by their parents or grandparents were more or less difficult than those they face today.

1.1 Provide an example of a critical period for each of the domains of development: physical, cognitive, and psychosocial. Explain how plasticity would be related to each of your examples.

Sample Answers:  physical —the drug Thalidomide’s influence upon development of arms and legs  cognitive—the development of language in the first three years  psychosocial—the development of attachment in infancy  Plasticity in each example would include the impact based upon timing along with other influences in both biological and social areas.

1.2 Compare and contrast nuclear and extended families in terms of their differences in privacy, rules, and authority. Would one type be more “child friendly” than the other? If so, how? How would the two types of families manage resources, such as income, room allocation or space, and distribution of chores? What aspects of your development would be most influenced by the type of family you grew up in?

Sample Answers:  nuclear family—fewer adults in home, fewer parent figures, fewer resources for income and child care  extended family—more persons in home, may have additional parent figures, may have additional resources for income and child care

1.3 In each of the domains of development (physical, cognitive, and psychosocial), give an example of a change that is quantitative and an example that is qualitative.

Sample Answers:  physical development—quantitative: measurement of height, weight, blood pressure, motor control  physical development—qualitative: changes in a child upon reaching puberty  cognitive development—quantitative: measurement of intelligence by IQ score or grade level equivalents  cognitive development—qualitative: changes in the way a child acts upon acquiring object permanence in searching for toys and parents  psychosocial development—quantitative: scores on a shyness measure  psychosocial development—qualitative: temperament type

12 © 2015 McGraw-Hill Education Full file at http://emailtestbank.com/ Solution-Manual-for-Experience-Human-Development- 13th-Edition-by-Papalia 1.4 Examine the definitions in your textbook of ethnic gloss, stereotyping, and prejudice (prejudice is discussed in chapter 10). Discuss similarities and differences in the terms.

Sample Answer:  ethnic gloss: an overgeneralization that obscures cultural differences within a group.  stereotyping: having a standard or oversimplified idea about members of a group. Similar to ethnic gloss in that both obscure individual differences.  prejudice: negative attitudes toward members of certain groups outside one’s own, especially racial or ethnic groups. Different from stereotyping and ethnic gloss in that attitudes are negative. Similar in that attitudes ignore individual differences among group members.

1.1 Sociocultural Look at the Family

Due date: ______

Objective: To assess and analyze cultural differences in the makeup of the family.

Type/Length of activity: 5-6 page paper

Time to complete: variable, approximately 4-6 hours

Directions: You will use Internet resources, academic journals found in the campus library, and other printed media related to research differences and similarities in family structure and roles among at least four different cultural groups. In order to limit the topic and make the research more manageable, choose one specific area such as typical male/female roles in the family, discipline techniques, divorce rates, or family size and structure.

What do I turn in?

 A paper that is 5-6 pages long.  Begin by introducing your topic and your source(s).  Summarize and describe the typical family structure in at least four cultural groups.  Compare and contrast similarities and differences among these groups in terms of family structure, roles, and dynamics.  End with a concluding paragraph that summarizes the comparisons and contrasts among the groups.

 Follow correct format. The paper should be typed, and double spaced, with 1 inch margins, font no larger than 12 point.  Include a cover sheet with your name, the title of your paper, your ID#, course name and section number, and the date.  Reference all your sources using APA format.

Due date:______

Objective: To explore and examine individual milestones of development, looking both at the past and the future. To illustrate normative and nonnormative events.

Type/Length of activity: In or out-of-class

Time to complete: 50 minutes to 1 hour

Directions: You will need two sheets of typing paper for this (legal size works better than the standard size).

Your Past: Turn one sheet sideways and draw a line from one side to the other through the middle of the page. At the left write down your birth date, and on the right write down the due date for this project. This will form the timeline of your past. Add markers across your timeline for each of your birthdays. Mark at least 10 milestones or special dates on your timeline. A milestone might be the month you started walking or talking. A special date might be the month when you got your driver’s license or graduated from high school. You may need to check with your parents for some of these dates. Mark each event as a normative-age graded event, a normative-history graded event or a nonnormative event.

NOTE: Please protect your own privacy here. There is no need to put down anything embarrassing or anything so private that you prefer to keep it to yourself.

Your Future: Take the second sheet of paper, turn it sideways, and draw a line from one side to the other through the middle of the page. At the left, write down the due date for this project. At the right, write your best guess as to the date of your death and the cause of death. This will form a possible timeline for your future. Mark at least 10 milestones or special dates you anticipate in your future. Give yourself a reasonable and optimistic future. Also mark each event as a normative-age graded event, a normative-history graded event, or a nonnormative event.

Due date:______

Objective: To critically evaluate differences between Hollywood depictions of feral children with stories of Genie.

Type/Length of activity: Film viewing and 2-3 page paper

Time to complete: 2-3 hours

Directions: Watch the movie Nell and compare your findings with either the textbook’s description of Genie or the information presented in the video version of “Secrets of the Wild Child.”

A detailed transcript of the case of Genie as presented on NOVA can be found on the Internet at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2112gchild.html

Another website of interest includes a lengthy discussion of many aspects of the lives of feral children: http://www.feralchildren.com/en/pager.php?df=yousef2001&pg=2

What do I turn in?

Write and turn in your answers to the following questions. What similarities do you find in the stories of these wild children? What differences do you find? What scientific or ethical dilemmas do you see? What is the role of the “teacher” or person who “discovers” these children? Why are these stories of interest to people who study human growth and development?

Due date:______

Objective: To help you understand people of different ages and backgrounds.

Type/Length of activity: Ongoing or for a designated time period

Time to complete: Begin in class and complete out-of-class

Directions: Select a target age population and identify a group of people who would be willing to participate with your class or small group. Examples might include an elementary school class, a retirement community, etc. With your class or group, develop a list of questions that might help you better understand this age group, such as “What do you like about being your age?” “Describe the best thing about you?” “When you get angry, what do you do?” “What age would you like to be and why?” For use later, predict the target group’s responses to your questions. Conduct the exchange of information. Be sure to allow the target group to ask you questions as well. What do I turn in?

Write an essay to report the results. Include the target group’s responses to your questions as part of your essay, and then answer the following questions:

 How did the target group’s responses help you understand them better?  Were you surprised by some of the group’s answers? Which ones, and why?  How did the actual responses compare with your predictions?

Katz, L. (1996). Essay exchange with children: An exercise for the child development class. Teaching of psychology, 23, 112-115.

Due date:______

Objective: To understand the milestones and goals of human development and to gain exposure to cultural and economic influences.

Type/Length of activity: 2-3 page paper or can be assigned as a term project with an in-class oral presentation component

Time to complete: variable

Directions: Your instructor will ask you to randomly draw a slip of paper out of a hat with one of the following “lot in life” conditions. Your task is first to describe and define the condition, then to locate whatever local resources are available to support you in your community. Compile an annotated bibliography of these resources to present to the class or as your paper assignment.

Lots in Life  Your 7 year-old son has been diagnosed with ADHD.

 Your partner is of a different race and your parents do not approve of the relationship.

 Your 14 year-old daughter is pregnant and wants to keep the child.

 Your partner has been diagnosed with colon cancer.

 Your partner has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

 Your child was born blind.

 You and your spouse have just been told that you are expecting triplets.

 Your company is downsizing. You are likely either to lose your job or to have to take a salary that is barely above minimum wage with no benefits.

 Your family, including your junior-high daughter, must relocate to another state that is very different from the one in which you have lived for the past 12 years.

 Your 13 year-old daughter tells you that she and her best friend are sniffing paint.

 Your 10 year-old son/daughter tells you that a family member has been sexually molesting him/her.

 Your son/daughter has been arrested for breaking out the windows of the school over the weekend when you thought he/she was with a friend.

 Your 14 year-old son thinks he might be gay and is being teased at school.

 Your 75 year-old mother/father has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

 Your 83 year-old father/mother has recently become widowed.

 Your 28 year-old son/daughter has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

 Your 29 year-old son/daughter is divorced, jobless, homeless, and has two children to support.

 You are told that you or your partner is pregnant with a child that most likely has Trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome.

 A family member is hitting their children hard enough to leave bruises.

 Your parents have died and you are left to plan and pay for the funeral.

 Your elderly parent is incompetent and very ill. You are asked what amount of intervention you wish for your parent, if any. You and your siblings disagree on the amount of treatment.

 Your partner of 15 years tells you that he/she is having an affair. You have three children together, ages 2 to 13.

 You and your partner find that you cannot have children due to medical conditions that cause infertility for both of you. You want a child.

 Your partner has acquired a sexually transmitted disease which he/she has passed along to you.

 Your elderly parent has become too ill to stay alone and has decided to move in with you.

 Your ex-spouse will not pay child support and currently owes you $15,000.

 You have become part of a stepfamily and do not know how to manage and discipline your teenage stepchildren who live with you now.

 You have been very involved with your grandchildren, caring for them often. The children’s parents divorce and your child is not the primary custodian. You have not seen the children in months and foresee no opportunity to see them in the future.

 Your retirement is approaching and you find that the money that you had expected to be in your pension is not available.

 You are in your 60s and now must raise your three young grandchildren.

Specifics: Your paper should: • be 2-4 pages long. • be typed, double spaced, and have 1 inch margins. • include a cover sheet with your name, the title of your paper, your ID#, course name and section number, and the date. • reference all your sources using APA format.

Adapted from Hamill, S.B. (1996). Your lot in life. Teaching of Psychology, 23, 245-246.

1.6 Understanding Individual Differences

Due date:______

Objective: To examine individual differences for the three areas of development and attempt to understand what causes these differences.

Type/Length of activity: Self-analysis and 2-3 page reaction paper

Directions: Compare your life with the life of a sibling (or a parent if a sibling is not available). How are you alike and different in physical appearance (height, weight, medical conditions, hair color, complexion, strength, fine and gross motor skills, athletic ability, etc.)? How are you alike and different in cognitive abilities (school work, memory, grades, scores on entrance exams to college, use of language, vocabulary, etc.)? How are you alike and different in psychosocial areas (temperament, personality, reliability, responsibility, concern for others, etc.)? What caused these differences? Was it nature or nurture?

1.7 Cultural and SES variations on discipline

Due date:______

Objective: To understand the goals of human development and gain exposure to cultural and economic influences.

Type/Length of activity: Interviews and 2-3 page report

Directions: Interview five persons about the methods of discipline that were used in their families (spanking, grounding, lecturing, time-outs, etc.). Determine each person’s SES (poor, working class, middle class, or wealthy) and his or her ethnic and/or cultural background. Write a short paper, comparing the responses to the interviews and attempting to explain them. Your paper should use the four goals of human development; you should: 1) describe the different methods of discipline, 2) explain the differences, 3 ) predict how other groups might respond, and 4) tell how you would modify the discipline methods if you had been hired to teach parenting classes to the parents of each person you interviewed.

1.8: Stages of Life

Due Date: ______

Objective: To gain an understanding of the activities and concerns of people in different stages of the life span.

Type/Length of activity: Observation with 1-2 page summary of observations

Time to complete: 1-2 hours, but variable

Directions: Select an age group to observe, such as seniors, preschoolers, or teenagers. Go to a place where people of the chosen age group tend to congregate, such as a senior citizen center, a playground, a mall area, etc.. Spend at least 30 minutes to an hour simply observing and noting down the kinds of activities in which the members of this age group engage. If you have time, observe at least one other age group under similar circumstances of leisure activities and note any contrasts or similarities in the activities. Summarize your observations in 1-2 written pages. Be sure to provide any comparisons and contrast between age groups that you observed.

1. Try to observe one or more examples of (a) an infant learning to walk and (b) a teenager learning to drive. (If you cannot find examples to observe, think about examples you have observed in the past.) Compare the roles played by physical, cognitive, and psychosocial factors in each of these developmental milestones. How much influence does each of the three domains have on each milestone? In each case, is one domain more influential than the others, or are the three domains equally influential? Is the relative influence of the domains similar or different in the two situations?

2. Thinking about your own life, give examples of the following kinds of influences: (a) normative age-graded, (b) normative history-graded, and (c) nonnormative. How have these influences helped make you the person you are today? Which of the three kinds of influences have been most important in your life? Compare your answers with those of one or two classmates. Discuss the normative history-graded influences you identified, and determine whether there is a clear consensus about the defining historical events for your cohort.

3. Watch the movie Boyhood (2014) and discuss how this movie depicts childhood and adolescence and the major milestones that occur. This movie was made over a 12 year period and is not a documentary but provides the observations of a single person as he grows from childhood to emerging adulthood. Write about the milestones that are discussed (first kiss to driving) and how those milestones match your milestones during that same period of time.

The following are a selection of various resources available in McGraw-Hill’s Connect, which can be used in class or assigned as homework. For more about Connect, please visit: http://successinhighered.com/psychology/connect/.

Activity Title Activity Type Learning Objective Development 1.2 Describe the domains and period of Video 1.42 min Characteristics development.

Audio Visual Resources

Distributor, date, and running time are given for each film or video. Distributors' addresses are listed in the Additional Resources at the end of this instructor’s manual. If a film or video is not in color, there is a notation (BW) to that effect. A helpful resource for locating AV resources is the excellent annotated directory, Audiovisual resources for family programming:

The greatest generation with Tom Brokaw DVD. (Entertainment Distributing, Inc., 1999, 400 min.) Split into three parts, this NBC News production sees Tom Brokaw casting an eye over the ordinary and extraordinary people who played a key role in America's Great Depression and Second World War.

Nell. (Fox Home Entertainment, 1994, 113 min.) Fictional story of Nell, a woman raised in the woods of North Carolina with no human contact except her speech-impaired mother, and her difficulty adjusting to the modern world.

Secret of the wild child. (NOVA, 1994, video, 60 min.) Discusses Genie, a girl whose parents kept her imprisoned in near total isolation from infancy as she goes through rehabilitation and shows how we learn the skills that make us human.

Multimedia Courseware for Child Development Charlotte J. Patterson, University of Virginia This video-based two-CD-ROM set (ISBN 0-07-254580-1) covers classic and contemporary experiments in child development. Respected researcher Charlotte J. Patterson selected the video and wrote modules that can be assigned to students. The modules also include suggestions for additional projects as well as a testing component. Multimedia Courseware can be packaged with the text at a discount.