THEMES IN THE

STUDY OF HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT

MA. JOCILLE S. ALABATA, RPM

NOTRE DAME OF MARBEL UNIVERSITY
 THE
NATURE/NURTURE
THEME
Is human development primarily the result
of nature (biological forces) or nurture
(environmental forces)?
 Heredity and not environment is the chief maker of man. . . .
Nearly all of the misery and nearly all of the happiness in the
world are due not to environment. . . . The differences among men
are due to differences in germ cells with which they were born
(Wiggam, 1923, p. 42).

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well formed, and my own

specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any
one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I
might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, chief, and yes,
even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. There
is no such thing as an inheritance of capacity, talent,
temperament, mental constitution, and behavioral characteristics
(Watson, 1925, p. 82).
• Of course, there is a middle ground endorsed by many
contemporary researchers who believe that the relative
contributions of nature and nurture depend on the aspect of
development in question.
• However, they stress that all complex human attributes such as
intelligence, temperament, and personality are the end
products of a long and involved interplay between biological
predispositions and environmental forces (Bornstein & Lamb,
2005; Garcia Coll, Bearer, & Lerner, 2003; Gottlieb, 2003;
Lerner, 2002).
• Their advice to us, then, is to think less about nature versus
nurture and more about how these two sets of influences
combine or interact to produce developmental change.
 THE
ACTIVE/PASSIVE
THEME
 Are children curious, active creatures who largely
determine how agents of society treat them? Or, are
they passive souls on whom society fixes its stamp?
• The active/passive theme goes beyond considering the
child’s conscious choices and behaviors.
• That is, developmentalists consider a child active in
development whenever any aspect of the child has an
effect on the environment the child is experiencing.
• So a temperamentally difficult infant who challenges the
patience of his loving but frustrated parents is actively
influencing his development, even though he is not
consciously choosing to be temperamentally
difficult.
Similarly, a young preteen girl who has gone through
the biological changes of puberty earlier than most of
her classmates and friends did not choose this event.
Nevertheless, the fact that she appears so much more
mature than her peers is likely to have dramatic effects
on the ways others treat her and the environment she
experiences in general.
THE CONTINUITY/
DISCONTINUITY
ISSUE
Think for a moment about developmental change. Do
you think that the changes we experience occur very
gradually? Or, would you say that these changes are
rather abrupt?
• Continuity theorists who
view human development
as an additive process
that occurs gradually and
continuously, without
sudden changes.
• They might represent the
course of developmental
change with a smooth line
of growth
• Discontinuity theorists
describe the road to maturity
each of which elevates the
child to a new and presumably
more advanced level of
functioning.
• These levels, or “stages,” are
represented by the steps of
the discontinuous growth
curve as a series of abrupt
changes,
Quantitative changes Qualitative changes
• are changes in degree or • are changes in form or kind
changes that make the
amount.
individual fundamentally
• For example, children grow taller
different in some way than he
and run a little faster with each or she was earlier.
passing year, and they acquire more • The transformation of a tadpole into
and more knowledge about the a frog is a qualitative change.
world around them. Similarly, an infant who lacks
• Continuity theorists language may be qualitatively
generally think that different from a preschooler who
developmental changes are speaks well, and an adolescent who
basically quantitative in is sexually mature may be
fundamentally different from a
nature
classmate who has yet to reach
puberty.
• Discontinuity theorists tend
to portray development as a
sequence of qualitative
changes.
Discontinuity theorists are the ones who
claim we progress through developmental
stages, each of which is a distinct phase of
life characterized by a particular set of
abilities, emotions, motives, or behaviors
that form a coherent pattern.
THE HOLISTIC
NATURE OF
DEVELOPMENT
THEME
The final major theme that has intrigued
developmental scientists is the extent to which
development is a holistic process versus a
segmented, separate process.
The question is whether different aspects of human
development, such as cognition, personality, social
development, biological development, and so forth, are
interrelated and influence each other as the child
matures.
Early views of development tended to take a more segmented
approach, with scientists limiting themselves to one area of
development and attempting to study that development in
isolation from influences from the other areas.
Today, most developmental scientists adopt a more holistic
perspective, believing that all areas of development are
interdependent and that one cannot truly understand
development change in one area without at least a passing
knowledge of what is happening developmentally in other areas of
the child’s life.
Today, many developmentalists are
theoretical eclectics: individuals who rely
on many theories, recognizing that none
of the grand theories can explain all
aspects of development and that each
makes some contribution to our
understanding.