Lifelong development

Development occurs throughout the life course – no one age period is predominant, development is not completed at adulthood and there is potential for growth at all ages. Development is not just about growth and maturing to a more advanced stage, rather it is about lifelong adaptive processes.

Multidimensionality and multidirectionality

Development varies between individuals & among behaviours as biological, psychological and social factors interact with the unique set of life experiences of each individual. Not all systems develop at the same rate or change in the same way within the person over time – some will remain stable, some decline, some improve and those that change may do so rapidly or slowly. Individual differences increase with age. It is always possible to find older adults whose performance on a particular measure is superior to that of young people, despite typical age-related differences on the measure – for example, an older adult who remains active and engages in resistance training will be stronger than an inactive younger adult.

Development as gain and loss

Development involves the joint occurrence of gain (growth) and loss (decline). This feature follows on from the idea of multidirectionality. For example, people become better able to consider consequences and regulate their actions during adolescence and early adulthood, but this may come with a less tolerance for spontaneity and rapid decision making, and less impulsivity as this period progresses.

Plasticity

There is capacity for change at all points in life span. The emphasis is on modifiability and this has influenced the research agenda as we search for interventions to enhance developmental outcomes. An example of this is the ‘use it or lose it’ approach to cognitive ageing with training effects found for cognitive skills that last over time and that can generalise to everyday abilities like driving behaviour.

Historical embeddedness

Life span development can vary substantially in accordance with historical-cultural conditions. We need to be aware of this when we interpret the findings of studies. You will see an example of this when you look at gender differences in personality at midlife. There is a reduction in scores on ‘dependency’ between young adulthood and midlife for women who came of age during a period when women’s rights predominated, but this was not seen for their mothers around the same age.

People

People are active participants in the developmental process, development isn’t just something that happens to you – your response is critical. An example of this in how people adapt to their experiences – how expected, important or controllable you perceive an event to be can impact on how you respond to it and how it impacts on your feelings or competence and well-being.

Contextualism

Multiple factors interact and influence development. These can be organised into three categories: age-graded-normative, history graded-normative and non-normative influences. ‘Influences’ refers to biological, social, cultural and historical factors and ‘normative’ suggest that these are common or typical for individuals. The relative importance of normative age-graded, normative history graded and non-normative life events varies across lifespan – normative age-graded influences are most likely to influence development at early and later in the lifespan. Normative history graded biggest impact on development during adolescence and young adulthood. The accumulation of non-normative life events become more apparent over the life course and help use to understand individual differences in life trajectories.

Normative age-graded influences

Factors that are closely tied to chronological age – for example, those influenced by biology e.g. learning to walk, entering puberty or those influenced by social customs e.g. starting school, retiring from work.

Normative history-graded influences

Influences that are common to people of particular generation or cohort – that is those who grow up in same time/place – for example, living through the wars, periods of economic depression, social unrest or changes in cultural values such as attitudes towards women’s roles. Think of the way we characterise people of different cohorts (Baby-boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z) – these features are often derived from history-graded influences they experienced.

Non-normative influences

Events or influences that are more unpredictable and unique to the individual as they are not tied to developmental or historical periods – for example, experiencing the death of parent at young age, learning a second language in midlife.