PSYC 2110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Shure
30 May 2018
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PSYC 2110 Lecture 8 Notes
Introduction
Historical/Cultural Context
• Highly aggressive children who are intensely disliked by their peers often improve their
social status after learning and practicing the social skills that popular children display
(Mize & Ladd, 1990; Shure, 1989).
• It is indeed fortunate that human development is so plastic, for children who have
horrible starts can often be helped to overcome their deficiencies.
• No single portrait of development is accurate for all cultures, social classes, or racial and
ethnic groups.
• Each culture, subculture, and social class transmits a particular pattern of beliefs, values,
customs, and skills to its younger generations, and the content of this cultural
socialization has a strong influence on the attributes and competencies that individuals
display.
• Development is also influenced by societal changes: historical events such as wars,
technological breakthroughs such as the development of the Internet, and social causes
such as the gay and lesbian movement.
• Each generation develops in its own way, and each generation changes the world for
succeeding generations.
• So we should not automatically assume that developmental patterns observed in North
American or European children (the most heavily studied populations) are optimal
• Even that they characterize persons developing in other eras or cultural settings
(Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 1983).
• Only by adopting a historical/cultural perspective can we fully appreciate the richness
and diversity of human development.
• Human Development in Historical Perspective Contemporary Western societies can be
desried as hild-entered
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