Welcome to PSY3201 Human Development and Psychology of

Adulthood

LECTURE 1:
INTRODUCTION TO
THE HUMAN LIFE-SPAN
DEVELOPMENT
2024-2025

This lecture will be recorded

 Why do we study human development?
As a psychology student
• Understand human nature and behavior from a
developmental perspective
• Enrich knowledge about methodology in studying human
nature and behavior
• Learn to think like a developmental psychologist

As an individual person (and/or future parent)

• Gain more insights about your history: how those past years
influenced who you are today
• Know more about what your life will be like later: how your
experiences today will influence your development through the
rest of your adult years
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 GROUND RULES

Aittentive Responsive

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 TODAY’S INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

. After this lecture, you are expected to be able to

1. Get a picture of this course, including intended learning
outcomes, lecture arrangement, assessment scheme etc.
2. Understand conceptualization of life-span development
3. Reflect on modern perspectives in developmental
psychology
4. Recognize major developmental issues
 PART I:
OVERVIEW OF THE COURSE

Class Contact Hours 42 hours (3 hours per week)

Category Major required – Psychology
Prerequisite(s) PSY2101 Introduction to
Psychology or PSY3102 Exploring
Psychology in Western and
Chinese Cultures
 LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able:
Knowledge
K1). To demonstrate understanding of the human development trajectories in
various domains, including socio-emotional, cognitive, moral, identity
development, work and well-being
K2). To demonstrate understanding of different psychological theories in
explaining the human development

Skills
S1). To apply theoretical and empirical research in studying the science of human
development and developmental issues across lifespan

Values
V1). To develop the insights of the importance of various factors (biological,
intrapersonal, interpersonal, societal) in affecting human development and
adjustment to life
V2). To demonstrate appreciation of basic human values and understanding of the
complexity and diversity of human development
LECTURE ARRANGEMENT

Week Date Topic Book

Chapte
r
1 Jan 14 L1: Introduction of course and basic concepts 1
2 Jan 21 L2: Major theories on human development 1
3 Jan 28 Chinese New Year Holiday (No class)
4 Feb 4 L3: Perceptual development 5
5 Feb 11 L4: Cognitive development 6
6 Feb 18 L5: Self and personality 10
7 Feb 25 L6: Genetic and environmental influence 2
8 Mar 4 Mid-Term Test (From L1 to L5)
9 Mar 11 L7: Intelligence 8
10 Mar 18 L8: Moral development (I) 12
11 Mar 25 L9: Moral development (II) 12
12 April 1 L10: Human relationship development 13
13 April 8 L 11: Human development and the family 14
14 April 15 L12: Aging, death and dying; Course Review 16
ASSESSMENT

1. One mid-term examination (25%)

• Date: March 4, 2025 (in Lecture)
2. One group presentation (15%)
• in Tutorial
3. One reflective journal (10%)
• Deadline: April 24, 2025 (23:59) (Turnitin)
4. One final examination (50%)
• Date: TBC
ASSESSMENT
1. One mid-term examination (25%)
• Date: March 4, 2025 (in Lecture)
2. One group presentation (15%)
• in Tutorial
3. One reflective journal (10%)
• Deadline: April 24, 2025 (23:59) (Turnitin)

Class Attendance?
• Date TBC
School Policy: “According to Regulations, students are expected to attend classes and
other class activities punctually and regularly …”

Course Policy: Class attendance will be recorded in some lectures, and it will NOT
influence the assessment of assignment and exams. However…
 COURSE POLICY

. Plagiarism is NOT allowed

• Students are required to submit writing assignment(s) using Turnitin.
. Late submission of coursework
• The submission deadline of all coursework is 23:59 on the due date. Late
submissions are accepted within 3 working days after the due date. But
these submissions will be deducted 10%. Late submissions beyond 3
working days of the due date will receive 0%.
. Missed examination
• Supplementary assessment will only be arranged for students with
medical or other compelling reasons under exceptional circumstances. To
be eligible for consideration, you must provide a formal letter and
supporting evidence to your instructor(s) within 24 hours of the missed
exam. Otherwise, a missed exam will receive zero mark.
 USE OF GENERATIVE AI

. PSY3201 allows using Generative AI tools ethically and

responsibly (see guideline in Moodle)
. Will offer a briefing in Lecture 2 after the add/drop period

. Course outline
• 5) Students must adhere to the University’s guidelines and practices
when using Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. The official
documents “Guidelines for Using GAI Tools at Lingnan University” and
“ Best Practices for Ethical and Responsible Use of GAI Tools in Course
Assessments” can be found here:
https://www.ln.edu.hk/tlc/generative-artificial-intelligence/gai-
guidelines-best-practices.

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 REQUIRED READING

Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E.A. (2022). Life-span Human

Development ( 10th E d.).Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

To facilitate your learning, PowerPoint contains original texts from the TextBook
PART II
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF LIFE-SPAN
DEVELOPMENT
 What is development?

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 WHAT IS DEVELOPMENT?
. Systematic changes and continuities in an individual occurring
between conception and death
― From “womb to tomb”
― Not temporary change caused by brief illness, accident
. Changes and continuities occur in three domains
• Physical (e.g., physical aging): The growth of the body and its organs, the
functioning of physiological systems including the brain, physical aging,
changes in motor abilities, and so on
• Cognitive (e.g., language, memory): Changes and continuities in perception,
language, learning, memory, problem-solving, and other mental processes.
• Psychosocial (e.g., interpersonal development): Changes and carryover in
personal and interpersonal aspects of development, involving motives,
emotions, personality traits, social skills and relationships, and roles played
in the family and in the larger society.
Three domains are interrelated and mutually influence each
other
 EXAMPLE

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 WHAT IS DEVELOPMENT?
. Development involves gains, losses, neutral changes, and
continuities in EACH phase of the lifespan
• Includes growth: Physical changes that occur from conception to maturity
• Includes stability: Personality
• Includes aging: Range of positive and negative physical, cognitive, and
psychosocial changes
. Biologically, development involve growth in early life, stability in
early and middle adulthood (although aging is under-way), and
declines associated with the now-accumulated effects of aging in
later life
. Many aspects not following “gain-stability-loss”; Developmental
change at any age involves both gains and losses
 IS LOST ALWAYS HARMFUL?

. Synaptic pruning
• A process that occurs in the developing
brain where unnecessary or weak
synaptic connections between neurons

are selectively removed or "pruned" away.

• Optimize neural circuits; enhance energy
efficiency
• Improve cognitive function
• Enhance plasticity

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Which age period are you in?
Do you think you are (a) a kid, (b)
an “emerging” adult, or (c) a full-
fledged adult? Why or why not?

According to Arnett (2004), emerging

adults:

explore their identities;

lead unstable lives filled with
job changes, new relationships,
and
moves;
are self-focused, relatively
free of obligations to others, and
therefore
free to focus on their own
psychological needs;

feel in between—adult-like in some

ways but not others; and
believe they have limitless
possibilities ahead.
 CONCEPTUALIZING THE LIFESPAN

. Age is a rough indicator of development

. How do you define adulthood?
• Traditional milestones: leaving home, getting a job, marrying, and
having a child (Vespa, 2017)
• 25-to-34-year old: 45% (1975) vs. 24% (2016) (Furstenberg, 2015)
. Retirement age 60 years old – older people?
 CONCEPTUALIZING THE LIFESPAN

. Age grade: Each socially defined age

group in a society is assigned different
statuses, roles, privileges, and
responsibilities
. Age norm: society’s way of telling
people how to act their age (e.g., study
hard in tenth? marry in 20th –30th?)
. Social clock: a person’s sense of when
things should be done and when he or
she is ahead of or behind the schedule
dictated by age norms Age norms have been
weakening for some
time. It’s less clear now
what one should be
doing at what age
 CONCEPTUALIZING THE LIFESPAN
. Age grades, age norms, and social clocks differ not
only from culture to culture but also from subculture
to subculture
• Culture: shared understandings and way of life of a
people
― Coming of age: 13-year-old? 18-year-old? 20-year-old?
 CONCEPTUALIZING THE LIFESPAN

. Age grades, age norms, and social clocks differ not only from
culture to culture but also from subculture to subculture
• Ethnicity: Classification or affiliation with a group based on
common heritage or traditions
― Ethnic groups have different age norms and different
developmental experiences
― Family obligation – Asian and Latin American adolescents had
stronger values and greater expectations regarding their duty
to assist, respect, and support their families than their peers
with European backgrounds (Fuligni et al., 1999).
 CONCEPTUALIZING THE LIFESPAN

. Age grades, age norms, and social clocks differ not only from
culture to culture but also from subculture to subculture
• Socioeconomic status (SES): Standing in society based on
such indicators as occupational prestige, education, and income
― Can influence age at which milestones of adulthood are
reached
• low-income families earlier than high-income families
― Can influence developmental trajectory
 MODERN LIFE SPAN PERSPECTIVE
. Gerontologist Paul Baltes (1939–2006) laid out seven key
assumptions of this life-span perspective
1) Development is a lifelong process; not just “ kid stuff”
2) Development is multidirectional; different capacities show
different patterns of change over time
3) Development involves both gain and loss: both gain and loss
are evident in each phase of the life span.

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 MODERN LIFE SPAN PERSPECTIVE
. Gerontologist Paul Baltes (1939–2006) laid out seven key
assumptions of this life-span perspective
4) Development is characterized by lifelong plasticity: plasticity
occurs not only in early years, but continues into later life
5) Development is shaped by its historical-cultural context:
sociocultural influence cannot be ignored (e.g., individualist-
collectivist culture)
6)Development is multiply influenced: outcome of ongoing
inter-actions between a changing person and her changing world.
7)Development must be studied by multiple disciplines

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 PART III
MAJOR DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

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 MAJOR DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

. Four Recurring Issues in Human Development

1. Source of Development: Nature vs. Nurture?

2. Shape of Development: Continuity vs. Discontinuity?
3. Universality of Development: Universal vs. Context-
Specific Development?
4. Timing, is it too late?: Critical vs. Sensitive Periods
 THE NATURE-NURTURE ISSUE
. How biological forces and environmental forces act and interact
to make us what we are?
. Nature: the influences of heredity
• Emphasis upon the process of maturation guided by the genes,
biologically based predispositions produced by evolution, and
biological influences
• Biological development according to a genetic plan
. Nurture: the influences of environment (all the physical and social
conditions, stimuli, and events that can affect us)
• Emphasis on learning
― Experiences cause changes in thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors
 THE NATURE-NURTURE ISSUE

. Genotype: the genetic makeup a person inherits

. Phenotype: the characteristic or trait the person eventually
has
. Gene expression: the activation of particular genes in
particular cells of the body at particular times; only if a gene
is “turned on” is it influential.

Genes and environment

co-act to influence gene
expression and, in turn,
development
throughout the life span

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 THE NATURE-NURTURE ISSUE

“All developmental changes are the products of a

complex interplay between nature and nurture. It is
nature affecting nurture and nurture affecting nature
to the point that we really can’t separate the two.”

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 CONTINUITY / DISCONTINUITY

. Development as a gradual and smooth change or a

series of abrupt changes?
. Quantitative changes and qualitative changes
• Example: Erikson’s stage theory of psychosocial
development vs. information processing approach
UNIVERSAL VS. CONTEXT SPECIFIC
. Would contextual factors play a role in development?
• Are developmental changes common to all humans or
different across cultures, subcultures, contexts, and
individuals? And Why?
• Universality Without Uniformity

Do adolescents from China and United States

experience different developmental trajectories?
Why andWhy not?
https://psychology.illinois.edu/directory/profile/pomerntz
 UNIVERSAL VS. CONTEXT SPECIFIC
What do the figures tell us?
A study comparing adolescents from
China and the US found:
( 1) School engagement decreased
among the US adolescents (but not
Chinese adolescents)
(2) A decline in American but not Chinese
children’s sense of responsibility to
parents accounted for divergent
trajectories in the school engagement

(Yu & Pomerantz, 2015)

Trajectories of children’s engagement in school over the

seventh and eighth grades in the United States and China
before (Panel A) and after (Panel B) adjusting for the
trajectories of children’s sense of responsibility to parents.

Qu, Y., & Pomerantz, E. M. (2015). Divergent school trajectories in early adolescence in the United States and China: An examination of underlying
mechanisms. Journal of youth and adolescence, 44( 11), 2095-2109.
TIMING: IS IT TOO LATE? CRITICAL V. SENSITIVE PERIODS

. W h e n t h e p a n d e m i c i s o v e r,
can the child still “catch
up”?

More recent research shows that

later experiences are powerful,
too, and can change the direction
of development.
Most psychologists today talk
about sensitive periods—not
critical periods. There are
“windows of opportunity”—times
when a person is especially ready
for or responsive to certain
experiences (Scalise & Felds,
2017).
 PART VI
SUMMARY AND MASTERY CHECK

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MASTERY CHECK

. After this lecture, you are expected to be able to

1. Get a picture of this course, including intended learning
outcomes, lecture arrangement, assessment scheme etc.
― Deadline of reflective journal?

2. Understand conceptualization of life-span development

― Is development about growth?
3. Reflect on modern perspectives in developmental
psychology
― Can anyone recall one modern perspective of Baltes?
4. Recognize major reoccurring developmental issues
― What is your answer to these issues?