Developmental Psychology

Achieve Test Prep: Developmental Psychology

There are different Intelligence Theories , and each type has its own neurological network in the brain. - General Intelligence o Proposed by Charles Spearman o Basic analytic reasoning - Multiple Intelligence o Proposed by Howard Gardner o Involved in linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, body-kinesthetic, inter and intrapersonal, naturalistic, and philosophical intelligences - Triarchic Intelligence o Proposed by Sternberg o Analytic, creative, and practical intelligences - Expert versus Novices o Experts : are more experienced, intuitive and rely on accumulated knowledge o Novice : rely more on procedure Psychosocial Development: The point of middle adulthood is when society generally recognizes an individual is in their ‘midlife’ period. Erik Erikson proposed that during middle adulthood an individual is in the Generativity versus Stagnation Phase . During this phase, the adult is seeking to be productive through work and/or child-rearing. The overriding thought of this phase is the notion of leaving something to the next generation. Without this feeling of generativity, Erikson purported that the adult will feel empty and purposeless or stagnated. There are many changes which occur during middle adulthood, such as rebalancing family and work, reexamining marriages, and potentially a ‘midlife crisis.’ The notion of a ‘midlife crisis’ is a portion of the theories of both Levinson and Erikson , which said middle adulthood is a time of rapid change of an individual’s roles which may lead to a ‘crisis.’ Personality appears to be somewhat stable throughout life. Many personality researchers support the idea that there are five clusters of traits which remain the most stable, the Big Five . The Big Five include the stable characteristics of: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to new ideas. There are two notable changes to one’s personality, during this age: an individual generally becomes more generative and typical gender roles tend to become more pliable to allow each gender to explore the other roles.

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