Introduction

Welcome to Developmental Psychology! We are all developing people, a process that occurs through a highly intricate mix of factors that are proximal to us, such as our genetics, families, neighborhoods, and schools, in addition to factors that are more distal, including our government, media, and culture. When we understand how humans change, and what factors can influence that development, we are better equipped to create supportive environments in which humans (including ourselves) can flourish. This course will provide an overview of physical, cognitive, and psychosocial milestones across the lifespan. We will examine what psychological science can tell us about both normative patterns and individual differences, stability and change, and the ways in which culture and context shape development from conception to old age. I will also encourage you to consider how what we’re learning fits into your own experiences as children, spouses, parents, and community members, and how you can use developmental science to optimize your own development and support your community. This will sometimes require thinking about who is “left out” of considerations and research on development. By the end of our course, I am hopeful and confident that you will not only have a firm grasp of major developmental milestones, but that you will also be able to use developmental science to promote optimal human development in your life and in your community.

I am delighted to go on this journey with you. I hope you find this course meaningful and applicable to your life and your community. To get started, I’d like to give you an overview of how our course is put together. It is organized around five  learning objectives. I’ll list these five learning objectives, and then give you some context for each.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, I am hopeful and confident that you will be able to:

1. Articulate theories and research describing the ways people change in cognitive, physical, and psychosocial domains across the lifespan
   1. The course covers a defined content core, focused on major developmental milestones from birth to death. The learning of core content is supported by this OER textbook and a set of supplemental readings. For each class period, we have slides, lecture segments, targeted video clips, and in-class individual and group activities to stimulate “heads-on” engagement and provide feedback about learning to the instructor. Core content learning is supported by a study guide and is assessed by carefully calibrated Learning Opportunities. Core content learning is rounded out by brief reflective assignments.
2. Connect developmental ideas to your own past, present, and future
   1. The learning of this core content is motivated by the driving question of the class, namely, “How can we promote optimal human development?” and the demonstrated importance of this question to students in the class, including:
      1. the careers toward which you are working (e.g., teaching, social work, medicine, counseling, nursing, coaching) in which you will be shaping others’ development as part of your profession,
      2. key social roles in your current and future personal lives (as parents, spouses, voters, and citizens) in which you will be influencing the development of your children, nieces, nephews, spouses, and so on, and
      3. as contributors to your own development through your actions and decisions about college, vocations, romantic partners, hobbies, substance use, etc.
3. Analyze the ways social contexts foster or undermine developmenT
   1. A core principle guiding the class is that development takes place in multi-level changing societal and historical contexts. We’ll focus on two higher-order contexts throughout the class– poverty and racism— as two important societal conditions that exert downward pressure on optimal human development. We’ll also cover supplementary readings, including Gary Evan’s The Environment of Childhood Poverty and the American Academy of Pediatrics article on The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health.
4. Understand how knowledge about development is constructed
   1. It is easy for students to undervalue research methods, seeing them as some technical information that is not really relevant to them. So the arc on research methods is motivated by the idea of “evidence-based practices,” an idea which is coming or has already arrived in all professions based on the social sciences, such as teaching, medicine, nursing, counseling, and social work, toward which most of the students in our class are headed. You are continually encouraged to ask “How do we know what we know?” A strength of science as a way of knowing is its openness to improvement, and throughout this class we highlight critiques of developmental science– both past and present. The identification of blind spots, problems, and limitations encourages you (as a budding developmentalist) to see yourself as an informed consumer of social science research, and to remain skeptical and open to critical perspectives and alternative sources of knowledge.
5. Be a thoughtful user of developmental research
   1. Throughout the class, you are encouraged to use knowledge about human development as a platform to reimagine a world that better supports development all across the lifespan. The class focuses especially on status hierarchies created by all societies that rank order subgroups of people according to their inherent worth. These hierarchies give people differential access to opportunities, resources, and power, and so create serious problems for people at the bottom. Hierarchies produce objective living conditions that are developmentally hazardous to children and families (and youth, adults, and the elderly), sponsor entrenched myths about the inferiority of targeted subgroups, and defend cover stories that blame them for their situation and deny their everyday experiences of discrimination and prejudice. In readings and class sessions, we repeatedly explore how status hierarchies create risk factors for healthy development and brainstorm alternative societal structures that would be more supportive.
   2. The class views human development as an applied science and highlights the application of developmental research to solving real world problems. This strand is supported by in-class segments about how to create contexts that support the development of the people who inhabit them (e.g., families, schools, workplaces, and so on), including multiple examples drawn from intervention efforts designed to improve these contexts, such as early childhood programs or cognitive training for the elderly. This learning arc is supported by a major class project in which groups of students reinvent a specific developmental context so it better fosters human development.

Acknowledgements

This text is an open educational resource (OER) meaning that it is free to access and may be redistributed. This OER was first created by members of the Human Development Teaching & Learning Group at Portland State University. The team members who created the original master class include: previous faculty instructors, Cathleen Smith and Gabriella Martorell; faculty team leader, Ellen Skinner; Adjunct Faculty, Glen Richardson and Shannon Myrick; Graduate Instructors, Cynthia Taylor, Jennifer Pitzer; Graduate teaching assistants, Heather Brule, Cailin Currie, Rita Yelverton, Jeff Beers, Jessica Harrison, and Justin Vollet.

The most recent revision of the course was undertaken by faculty team leader, Ellen Skinner; adjunct faculty Cynthia Taylor, Heather Brule, and Julia Dancis; and doctoral teaching assistants (and future instructors) Dan Grimes, James Delaney, Brandy Brennan, Eli Labinger, Kristen Raine, and Brielle Petit. The team also benefited from the contributions of Jaime Wood and the Office of Academic Innovation at Portland State University, who provided logistical, financial, and pedagogical support for the conversion to OER.

These OER materials were originally converted to a Pressbook under the direction of Kristen Raine, and with the help of Heather Brule and James Delaney.

The original OER was converted to a topical format by Meredith Palm at Baylor University. Additional material was provided by Lumen Learning, NOBA Psychology, and Meredith Palm.

Media Attributions

Book Image Walking in the Trees by James Wheeler on Unsplash