It is a discipline that seeks to understand the psychological changes that people experience in the different phases of their existence. To offer help to individuals, it studies their characteristics and their social, cultural and even ethnic reality.
People are the result of everything that affects them, that they experience, learn and live. Therefore, the study of the human being involves the intervention of anthropology, medicine, sociology, education and psychology, especially when it comes to knowing and understanding what happens in development, since this directly influences intelligence, personality and behavior. In this way, it is important to talk about developmental psychology.
Definition of human development psychology
Also known as evolutionary psychology, developmental psychology involves the study of psychological and systematic change that occurs throughout a person's life, determined by the context that surrounds him or her during his or her evolution . Likewise, human development is seen from various areas, such as the historical, sociocultural and ethnic, which are part of a growth process that is continuous, global and flexible.
As explained by Neli Pérez Pérez and Ignasi Navarro Soria in their book Psychology of Human Development: From Birth to Old Age (2011), this discipline “is concerned with studying the psychological changes that occur in relation to the age of the individual, being much closer to the normative than to the idiosyncratic. The study of human development is presented as a science and, therefore, follows the objective rules of scientific evidence.”
For these authors, personality maturation is the element that allows us to understand how psychological changes are related to age. Therefore, the study of humans is divided into different phases, starting from early childhood (0 to 3 years), the years before school (3 to 6 years), during primary school (6 to 12 years), adolescence (13 to 20 years), maturity (20 to 70 years) and old age (from 70 years).
The topics analyzed by developmental psychology have to do with life cpa email addresses and the growth of the person, so all personal implications are considered. In this way, it analyzes human subjectivity and psychological individuality, which allows establishing the characteristics that are expressed in each human being.
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Methods and fields of developmental psychology
As has already been made clear, developmental psychology analyses all stages of life. However, experts mostly focus on what happens during childhood and adolescence, taking into account that these are particularly decisive moments due to human vulnerability. In order for the psychologist to be able to apply this discipline, he or she needs to master the research methods and the main models that dictate the working guidelines, as detailed below.
Methods
In order to fulfill its function and carry out the respective analyses, developmental psychology requires the application of various methods, such as observation and experiment, which are considered fundamental tools for psychological knowledge. Both techniques are explained here:
Observation. It is used to study subjects, both individually and as a group, to look for specific behaviors or to record everything that happens in as much detail as possible. It can be carried out in a natural environment, such as at home or at school, as well as in an artificial space, intended for study.
The experiment. It means confirming or denying one or more variables. It can be carried out in a laboratory, where a controlled situation is created, or in the field, such as at home, at school or in other spaces. It is also possible that it is carried out in natural situations, where the changes that occur are recorded.