Development Through Life: A Psychosocial Approach

About This Edition

New Features

• Retaining the basic structure and positive developmental emphasis of previous editions, the Eleventh Edition is fine-tuned to be even more clear, readable, and thought-provoking, while still capturing the complexities and novel concepts that make the study of human development so fascinating.


• New research findings and recent census data are integrated throughout this completely updated edition.


• Many new discussions have been added, including technology's influences on the societal system, evolutionary theory and William James's theory of consciousness, adoption as an alternative to childbearing, the fact that toddlers aren't getting enough physical activity to support optimal physical development, the relationship between playing violent video games and moral development, the reduction in unstructured child-initiated play time, how sibling relationships influence social development, and ways to help socially anxious children increase their sense of closeness to friends.


• Other new discussions cover early adolescence as a time of positive strides toward maturity, the interaction of cognition and emotion and how the brain processes emotions, how hostile and aggressive parenting can lead to increased feelings of alienation for early adolescent children, four contexts for predicting alcohol misuse (parents, peers, school, neighborhood), the concept of career decision-making self efficacy, the rationale for calling the stage later adolescence rather than emerging adulthood, and role experimentation as a cycling of commitment formation and commitment reevaluation.


• Additional new content explains how the transition into adulthood has changed, speed dating and online dating as new ways of finding a partner, the communal norm and the exchange norm as explanations for how relationships are sustained in the early years of marriage, workers who experience hostility from their supervisors, an international comparison of poverty rates in 21 countries (noting the relatively limited resources dedicated to workers in the United States), online social networking, and, in a new section, the benefits of sleep in early adulthood.


• Coverage of middle adulthood includes new discussions of sex discrimination, age discrimination, race discrimination, and sexual harassment; and elder-hood coverage includes new discussions of insomnia, osteoarthritis, and osteoporosis.

Additional Features

• Two chapters are devoted to the theories of development: one focuses on the major theorists such as Piaget and Vygotsky, and a second is devoted to the psychosocial theories of Erikson and Havighurst that are used in the rest of the book.


• Every chapter helps to guide student study with a chapter-opening outline and brief list of objectives, an integrated case study with accompanying analysis and critical-thinking questions, an Applied Topic, a chapter-ending summary organized by learning objectives, Questions for Further Reflection, and specific references to the optional Life-Span Development: A Case Book that is available with the main text.


• The authors' organizing conceptual framework of psychosocial theory highlights the continuous interaction and integration of individual competencies with the demands and resources of culture. Psychosocial theory attempts to explain human development across the life span, especially patterned change in ego development, which is reflected in self-understanding, social relationships, and worldview.


• One or more case studies in each chapter, accompanied by Critical Thinking and Case Analysis questions, illuminate concepts.


• A strong multicultural perspective--including discussions of cultural practices and reviews of cross-national and interethnic research--is interwoven throughout the text in the narrative, in application boxes, and in first-person accounts. The multicultural aspect of the text is a result of the psychosocial point of view, in which the social-cultural context of development is fundamental to the process of development.

Explore this title's supplements:

Study Guide for "Development Through Life: A Psychosocial Approach" (11th Edition)

Life-Span Development: A Case Book