Chapter 3 - Bases of Behaviour - NCERT

1 Psychology40 Chapter3 describe the meaning and process of development, explain the influence of heredity, environment and context on humandevelopment, identify the stages of development and describe the major characteristicsof infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age, and reflect on your own course of development and related reading this Chapter , you would be able toHuman DevHuman DevHuman DevHuman DevHuman Developmentelopmentelopmentelopmentelopm entHuman DevHuman DevHuman DevHuman DevHuman Developmentelopmentelopmentelopmentelopm entIntroductionMeaning of DevelopmentLife-Span Perspective on DevelopmentGrowth, Development, Maturation, andEvolution (Box )Factors Influencing DevelopmentContext of DevelopmentOverview of Developmental StagesPrenatal StageInfancyChildhoodGender and Sex Roles (Box )Challenges of AdolescenceAdulthood and Old AgeKey TermsSummaryReview QuestionsProject IdeasContentsI wish I could travel by the road thatcrosses the baby s mind, and outbeyond all bounds; where messengersrun errands for no cause between thekingdoms of kings of no history; whereReason makes kites of her laws andflies them, and Truth sets Fact freefrom its fetters.

2 Rabindranath TagoreRationalised 2023-24 Chapter 3 Human Development41associated with the processes of knowing,and experiencing, such as thought,perception, attention, problem solving, processes that influencedevelopment refer to changes in anindividual s interactions with other people,changes in emotions, and in personality. Achild s hug to her/his mother, a young girl saffectionate gesture to her/his sibling, or anadolescent s sorrow at losing a match are allreflections of socio-emotional processes deeplyinvolved in human you would be reading about thedifferent processes in different chapters of thistextbook, it is important to remember that thebiological, cognitive, and socio-emotionalprocesses are interwoven. These processesinfluence changes in the development of theindividual as a whole throughout the Perspective on DevelopmentThe study of development according to theLife-Span Perspective (LSP) includes thefollowing assumptions is lifelong, it takes placeacross all age groups starting fromMEANING OF DEVELOPMENTWhen we think of development, invariably wethink of physical changes, as these arecommonly observed at home with youngersiblings, with parents and grandparents, inschool with peers or others around us.

3 Fromconception until the moment of death, we notonly change physically, but we also change inthe way we think, use language, and developsocial relationships. Remember that, changesare not confined to any one area of a person slife; they occur in the person in an integratedmanner. Development is the pattern ofprogressive, orderly, and predictable changesthat begin at conception and continuethroughout life. Development mostly involveschanges both growth and decline, asobserved during old is influenced by an interplayof biological, cognitive, and socio-emotionalprocesses. Development due to genesinherited from parents, such as in height andweight, brain , heart, and lungs development,etc. all point towards the role of biologicalprocesses. The role of cognitive processesin development relate to mental activitiesIf you look around, you will notice that from birth onwards changes of variouskinds are taking place in an individual s life, which continue even during old a span of time, a human grows and develops, learns to communicate, walk,count, and read and write.

4 S/he also learns to distinguish between right and makes friends, goes through puberty, gets married, rears children, and growsold. Even though we differ from each other, we share many commonalities. Most ofus learn to walk by the first year and talk by the second year. This Chapter willfamiliarise you with the changes observed in people during the course of their life-span in different domains. You will learn about key developmental processes andchanges taking place in major periods during the life-span: prenatal, infancy,childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. This would be a journey of personalunderstanding and self-discovery which should help in your future study of human development would also help you to deal with others 2023-24 Psychology42conception to old age. It includes both gainsand losses, which interact in dynamic(change in one aspect goes with changes inothers) ways throughout the various processes of humandevelopment, biological, cognitive, andsocio-emotional are interwoven in thedevelopment of a person throughout is multi-directional.

5 Somedimensions or components of a givendimension of development may increase,while others show decrement. For example,the experiences of adults may make themwiser and guide their decisions. However,with an increase in age, one s performanceis likely to decrease on tasks requiringspeed, such as is highly plastic, withinperson, modifiability is found inpsychological development, thoughplasticity varies among individuals. Thismeans skills and abilities can be improvedor developed throughout the is influenced by historicalconditions. For example, the experiencesof 20-year olds who lived through thefreedom struggle in India would be verydifferent from the experiences of 20 yearolds of today. The career orientation ofschool students today is very different fromthose students who were in schools 50years is the concern of anumber of disciplines. Differentdisciplines like psychology, anthropology,sociology, and neuro-sciences studyhuman development, each trying toprovide answers to developmentthroughout the individual responds and acts oncontexts, which include what wasinherited, the physical environment, social,historical, and cultural contexts.

6 Forexample, the life events in everyone s lifeare not the same, such as, death of aparent, accident, earthquake, etc., affectthe course of one s life as also the positiveGrowth refers to an increase in the size of bodyparts or of the organism as a whole. It can bemeasured or quantified, for example, growth inheight, weight, etc. Development is a processby which an individual grows and changesthroughout the life cycle. The term developmentapplies to the changes that have a direction andhold definite relationship with what precedes it,and in turn, will determine what will come temporary change caused by a brief illness,for example, is not considered a part ofdevelopment. All changes which occur as a resultof development are not of the same kind. Thus,changes in size (physical growth), changes inproportion (child to adult), changes in features(disappearance of baby teeth), and acquiring newfeatures are varied in their pace and scope includes growth as one of itsaspects.

7 Maturation refers to the changes thatfollow an orderly sequence and are largelydictated by the genetic blueprint which , Development, Maturation, and EvolutionGrowth, Development, Maturation, and EvolutionGrowth, Development, Maturation, and EvolutionGrowth, Development, Maturation, and EvolutionGrowth, Development, Maturation, and Evolutioncommonalities in our growth and example, most children can sit without supportby 7 months of age, stand with support by 8 monthsand walk by one year. Once the underlying physicalstructure is sufficiently developed, proficiency in thesebehaviours requires adequate environment and littlepractice. However, special efforts to accelerate thesebehaviours do not help if the infant is maturationallynot ready. These processes seem to unfold fromwithin : following an inner, genetically determinedtimetable that is characteristic of the refers to species-specific changes.

8 Naturalselection is an evolutionary process that favoursindividuals or a species that are best adapted tosurvive and reproduce. The evolutionary changes arepassed from one generation to the next within aspecies. Evolution proceeds at a very slow of human beings from great apes tookabout 14 million years. It has been estimated thatthe Homo sapiens came into existence only about50,000 years 2023-24 Chapter 3 Human Development43influences such as winning an award orgetting a good job. People keep on changingwith changing INFLUENCING DEVELOPMENTHave you observed in your class that some ofyou have dark skin, others have light colouredskins, colour of your hair and eyes aredifferent, some of you are tall, others short,some are quiet or sad while others are talkativeor cheerful. People also differ with respect tointelligence, learning abilities, memory, andother psychological characteristics besidesphysical characteristics.

9 Despite thesevariations, no one can be mistaken for anyother species: we all are homo sapiens. Whatcauses us to be different from each other butat the same time more like each other? Theanswer lies in the interaction of heredity have already learned that theprinciples of heredity explain the mechanismfor transmission of characteristics by everyspecies from one generation to the next. Weinherit genetic codes from our parents, whichare in every cell of our body. Our geneticcodes are alike in one important way; theycontain the human genetic code. It isbecause of the human genetic code that afertilised human egg grows into a humanbaby and cannot grow into an elephant, abird or a transmission is very characteristics that we observe inhumans are combinations of larger numberof genes. You can imagine the combinationsproduced by 80,000 or more genes accounting for a variety of characteristics andbehaviours.

10 It is also not possible to possessall the characteristics made available to us byour genetic structure. The actual geneticmaterial or a person s genetic heritage isknown as genotype. However, not all of thisgenetic material is apparent or distinctlyidentifiable in our observable is the way an individual sgenotype is expressed in observable andmeasurable characteristics. Phenotypesinclude physical traits, such as height, weight,eye and skin colour, and many of thepsychological characteristics such asintelligence, creativity, and personality. Theseobservable characteristics of an individual arethe result of the interaction between theperson s inherited traits and the know it is the genetic code whichpredisposes a child to develop in a particularway. Genes provide a distinct blueprint andtimetable for the development of an genes do not exist in isolation anddevelopment occurs within the context of anindividual s environment.