Developmental Psychology

This book has been revised and extended by the addition of two chapters on middle age to replace a much briefer chapter on adulthood. Working on the assumption that psychological development is a continuous process the book carries on both the traditional discussion of the developmental characteristics of infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and a discussion of available information on young adulthood, middle age, and old age, to point up the manner of psychological changes throughout the life span. The two major themes running through this book are (1) that childhood is the foundation age of life, and what the individual is and does for his remaining years depends on what forms that foundation has taken, and (2) that while physical and psychological foundations are determined by a person's hereditary endowment, how he develops that foundation will be influenced by the social and cultural patterns with which he is identified at