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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2021

Christopher Goodey
Affiliation:
The Open University, Milton Keynes
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Summary

Development is one of psychology’s given components. Psychologists and consequently the lay public in Western cultures see childhood as well as adult character in terms of what I call here ‘the developmental idea’, describing a scientific category that exists ‘out there’ in nature. The human interior, it seems, passes through a necessary series of stages that play out over time. And so the youngest of us are only potential human beings; we do not start to display signs of ‘empathy’, say, until we are three, or ‘logical reasoning’ until we are six: or so we are told. Adult character and conduct are the desired outcome of those stages (though a few of us, it appears, never reach them even when we arrive at adulthood by calendar age).

Type
Chapter
Information
Development
The History of a Psychological Concept
, pp. 1 - 8
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Introduction
  • Christopher Goodey, The Open University, Milton Keynes
  • Book: Development
  • Online publication: 10 June 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108980845.001
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  • Introduction
  • Christopher Goodey, The Open University, Milton Keynes
  • Book: Development
  • Online publication: 10 June 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108980845.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Christopher Goodey, The Open University, Milton Keynes
  • Book: Development
  • Online publication: 10 June 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108980845.001
Available formats
×