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Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why human beings develop over the course of their life. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including: motor skills, cognitive development, executive functions, moral understanding, language acquisition, social change, personality, emotional development, self-concept and identity formation. Developmental psychology examines the influences of nature ''and'' nurture on the process of human development, and processes of change in context and across time. Many researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual's behavior and environmental factors, including social context and the built environment. Ongoing debates include biological essentialism vs. neuroplasticity and stages of development vs. dynamic systems of development. Developmental psychology involves a range of fields, such as, educational psychology, child psychopathology, forensic developmental psychology, child development, cognitive psychology, ecological psychology, and cultural psychology. Influential developmental psychologists from the 20th century include Urie Bronfenbrenner, Erik Erikson, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Barbara Rogoff, Esther Thelen, and Lev Vygotsky. == Historical antecedents == John B. Watson and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are typically cited as providing the foundations for modern developmental psychology. In the mid-18th century Jean Jacques Rousseau described three stages of development: ''infants'' (infancy), ''puer'' (childhood) and ''adolescence'' in ''Emile: Or, On Education''. Rousseau's ideas were taken up strongly by educators at the time. In the late 19th century, psychologists familiar with the evolutionary theory of Darwin began seeking an evolutionary description of psychological development;〔 prominent here was the pioneering psychologist G. Stanley Hall,〔 who attempted to correlate ages of childhood with previous ages of mankind. James Mark Baldwin who wrote essays on topics that included ''Imitation: A Chapter in the Natural History of Consciousness'' and ''Mental Development in the Child and the Race: Methods and Processes''. Baldwin was heavily involved in the theory of developmental psychology.〔 Sigmund Freud, whose concepts were developmental, had a significant impact on public perceptions.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「developmental psychology」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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