Human Growth and Development	DEP 2000
	The fascination with the mysteries of human development goes back far into human history. This course studies the major theorists, researchers and schools of thought that have contributed to our attempts to unravel and understand the mysteries of how and why human beings develop into the people they become, with the multitude of capacities and subtle nuances of being human. The student will have the opportunity to study, as well as to apply the knowledge of developmental psychologists through class discussion and a major class project applying the material we examine to a self-study and developmental analysis portfolio. No, this is not your brain on drugs, rather it is your mind according to Freud. We will study his theories of personality development as well as many others, including the humanistic theory of Abraham Maslow, whose notion of the Hierarchy of Needs is depicted above right. We will also examine findings from laboratory research, a classic example is the photograph here below from one of the famous visual cliff experiements on visual perception in infants. Despite his mother’s encouragement, an infant is reluctant to cross the “visual cliff”—an apparently steep drop that is really covered by transparent glass. Psychologists in the 1960s discovered that most infants 6 to 14 months of age were reluctant to crawl over the cliff, concluding that they had the ability to perceive depth. A majority of psychologists believe that the ability to perceive depth is partly innate and partly influenced by early visual experience. I can be reached by email at rb@psych.lover.org. Email me.
	"Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world." -Albert Einstein

 

Students wishing to chat may use the chatroom. Click below.