Introduction to Life-Span Developmental Psychology

Life span refers to the ongoing process that we go through while growing up. It is the period of time from conception extending to death.

Life-span developmental psychology is the field of psychology which involves the examination of both constancy and change in human behaviour across the entire life span, that is, from conception to death (Baltes, 1987).

Development refers to the biological and psychological changes that occur in human beings between birth and the end of adolescent, as the individual progresses from dependency to increasing autonomy.

Developmetal psychology refers to development throughout the lifespan, and pediatrics, the branch of medicine relating to the care of children.

Growth refers to the development of children from birth to adolescence.

Four areas in which children’s growth and development take place:

a)    Physical

b)   Psychological and cognitive

c)    Social and emotional

d)   Sexuality and gender identity

Theories of Intelligence

Intelligence has been defined as the sum total of everything you know, as the ability to learn or profit from experience, as the ability to solve problems or as the ability to cope with the demands of the environment. 

Some of the definitions given by experts are given below:

“…intelligence, that is to say, reasoning, judgment, memory, and the power of abstraction” (Binet 1890, cited in Sattler, 1988)

 “Intelligence is a general capacity of the individual consciously to adjust his thinking to new requirements” (Stern, 1914)

“An individual is intelligent in proportion as he is able to carry on abstract thinking” (Terman, 1921)

“Intelligence is the capacity of the organism to adjust itself to an increasingly complex environment” (Spearman, 1927) 

In 1986, Sternberg and Determan found that twenty-four prominent scholars had twenty-four different definitions of intelligence. 

Snyderman and Rothman (1987) have presented responses of over 1,000 experts that belonged to different disciplines such as psychology, sociology, education, and genetics. Of the thirteen descriptions rated by the respondents, there was nearly unanimous agreement that abstract reasoning, the capacity to acquire knowledge, and problem solving ability were important elements of intelligence.

An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology focuses on the study of higher mental processes including thinking, language, memory, problem-solving, reasoning, judging and decision-making.

This is the branch of psychology that focuses on the way people process information.

The term “cognitive psychology” was first coined by Ulric Neisser in 1967.

1.1.       4 kinds of research methods in cognitive psychology:

a) Experimentation;

b)   Psychobiological Research: Post-Mortem, studying images and obtaining information.

c)    Self-reports, case studies and Naturalistic observations

d)   Computer Simulations and Artificial Intelligence