Chapter One: What Is Developmental Psychology

Chapter Summary

In this chapter you will read about why development is an interesting area of inquiry throughout
the biological sciences: Because necessarily every species of organism has a life cycle that
includes the development of a new individual into an adult.
You will be introduced to the history of developmental psychology, including ancient Greek
philosophers who created a focus on the nature vs. nurture question in the field of child
development. Early modern developmental researchers were still thinking about the relative
contribution of nature and nurture and using empirical research to explore their theories and test
their predictions.
Next you will read an introduction to some of the ideas of evolutionary psychology, which will
serve as a guiding and organizing perspective for the rest of this book. You will also read about
how an evolutionary perspective gives developmental psychologists a starting point to look for
potentially fruitful avenues of research in a potentially infinite field of untested hypotheses.
Thinking in terms of evolution by natural selection allows us to examine the functions of traits and
features of the developing child but requires us to think about this functionality in terms of the
environment in which our ancestors would have developed, the environment of evolutionary
adaptedness (EEA).

Learning Objectives

 The purposes of this chapter are to introduce you to developmental psychology and to
prepare you to read about evolutionary psychology and learn about research in the field of
developmental psychology, starting with a description of the discipline and its history.
 You will read about the classic nature vs. nurture question, dating back to the earliest
writings about human development, and how our contemporary understanding of human
psychology as a product of evolution by natural selection gives us a solid starting point for
thinking about nature and nurture working together rather than independently.
 You will understand how natural selection works and how our psychological processes
have resulted from evolution by natural selection. When thinking about what natural
selection has designed modern humans to do (from seeing to digesting to parenting), one
needs to think of the environment in which the relevant selection pressures acted, the
environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA)

Key Concepts

 adaptation, 5
 baby biography, 9
 clinical method, 12
 developmental psychology, 4
 dialectical process, 12
 EEA, 17
 empiricist, 7
 evolutionary psychology, 13
 gamete, 5
 generative entrenchment, 21
 genetic epistemology, 12
  nativist, 7
 normative approach, 10
 Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, 12
 species-typical environment, 6
 zone of proximal development, 13

Review Questions

1. A hypothesis is ________.

a. an explanation of how development progresses.

b. a belief about how development progresses.
c. considered to be correct if there is a general consensus among researchers.
d. irrelevant to the scientific method.

2. Adaptations are _______________ by natural selection.

a. ‘designed’
b. ‘invented’
c. ‘discouraged’
d. ‘experimented on’

3. Arnold Gesell was the first to

a. compute averages to represent typical development.

b. apply evolutionary ideas to developmental psychology.
c. use the term ‘noble savages’.
d. make normative information available to parents.

4. The normative approach involves

a. allowing children to be responsible for their own development.

b. treating all children equally in educational practices.
c. comparing children to averages that represent typical development.
d. carefully monitoring an individual child’s development.

5. Genetic determinism

a. is the idea that a particular gene always leads to a particular phenotypic outcome.
b. is commonly supported by evolutionary psychologists.
c. provides an accurate explanation of how development works.
d. all of the above
6. A fitness advantage that makes individuals more likely to survive and reproduce is called a(n)
_______________.

a. evolution.
b. adaptation.
c. adjustment.
d. phenotypic determinant.

7. The environment of evolutionary adaptedness ( EEA) refers to

a. the environment that we currently live in.

b. the environment that was ideally suited to the process of evolution.
c. the environment in which natural selection took place.
d. the environment of human beings in general.

8. We are still adapted to the EEA because

a. our modern environment doesn’t differ significantly from the EEA.

b. there have been no major mutations since then.
c. the evolution of human beings is effectively over.
d. evolution is slow.

9. A psychological adaptation that worked really well in the EEA

a. works well in the current environment as well because the environment hasn’t changed at
all.
b. works well in the current environment as well because it doesn’t really matter if the
environment changes.
c. may be maladaptive in the current environment.
d. is usually maladaptive in the current environment.

10. The spread of one mutation throughout an entire species is likely to take

a. a few generations.
b. about a hundred generations.
c. hundreds or thousands of generations.
d. millions of generations.

Answer Key

1. b (p. 4)
2. a (p. 6)
3. d (p. 11)
4. c (p. 11)
5. a (p. 17)
6. b (p. 18)
7. c (pp. 19–20)
8. d (p. 22)
9. c (p. 23)
10. c (p. 23)