Developmental psychology did not appear in the late 1800's like many fields of psychology. It appeared in the beginning of the 20th century and one of the main founders of developmental psychology was G. Stanley Hall (Smuts, 1996). There were many studies and experiments that were taken that helped process Developmental psychology into what it is today. Developmental psychology was not an easy subject to study. Since Developmental psychology is the study of how humans develop throughout the course of their life span, this made Developmental psychology a very broad field to study. In order to find out the origins and history of developmental psychology, we must first see how it all started beginning with the study of children. Without child psychology, developmental psychology would not exist because In order to study how humans develop we must first study the early stages, beginning with infants and children. Studying children was not an easy task at that time. There were many confusion in the process of studying infants and children. The researchers did not know if children had any bias or what infants sees and feels so the first step that was taken in studying infants and children's were studying their cognitive thinking and their perception. Many researches have been done and some of the results were that infant's cognitive components are being challenged actively (Keil, 2000). Since their cognitive components are being challenged actively, the children's environment would have a huge impact on their course of development. Children that do not have caretakers are an example. In this world there are about 143 million children without parents in 93 different countries (Grotevant, 2011). Many of these children have no support from anyone and are living on their own. There is no child welfare provided for them and this can lead into developmental issues. Another example of how the environment can affect a child's development is child labor. Child labor takes a toll on children, affecting them mentally and physically; thus damaging the physical, emotional, and well being of the child. Children that been through child labor have a different course of development than children that did not go through child labor. Children who were part of child labor had a mentality to take care of their parents and their family. They feel obligated to put food on the table. Having this mentality can stress the child out because they are still at a young age. Thus this will change their future and how they develop (Newman, 2000). There are many issues in which the environment can affect a child's development, however the issue that mattered the most during the time of studying children was warfare. Warfare can cause trauma and stress for children. The trauma and stress are measured by mediators, moderators, and dose effect. Warfare might be terrible condition for children to live under, however without warfare, Developmental psychology as we know it today, might not exist (Masten & Narayan, 2012). G. Stanley Hall was an American psychologist and was famous for studying children. He had many struggles at the beginning of studying children. His child study movement failed, while woman social reformers, reform-minded scientists, and science-minded philanthropists succeeded. What lead to studying children and helped Hall accomplish his goal was World War I. Private philanthropy invested a lot of money into studying children after the war. The reason for that is to reform society after the war and the best way to do that is to start with the younger generations. By studying children we can reform them post war and that can help benefit society in the future (Smuts, 1996). So it was the beginning of the First World War that really gave child's psychology a boost. The economic funding is the key part to all this. Without the economic funding, G. Stanley Hall would not be able to perform his studies and thus developmental psychology as we know it would not be as refined. The first vast amount of economic funding is what changed the course of child psychology. Many people saw the importance of child psychology after what G. Stanley Hall has proven and that led to more funding to provide other psychologist like Hall. These funding provided other psychologist to try new research and new studies on children.
War world I was one of the main events that help provide funding to Child Psychology and it is also the reason why we have Developmental Psychology today. Citations:
Ferrari, M., Runions, K., & Fueser, J. J. (2003). William Kessen and James Mark Baldwin: Lessons from the history of developmental psychology. Developmental Review, 23(1), 1-8. doi:10.1016/S0273- 2297(03)00002-9
Bishop, D. M. (2006). Developmental cognitive genetics: How psychology can inform genetics and vice versa. The Quarterly Journal Of Experimental Psychology, 59(7), 1153-1168. doi:10.1080/17470210500489372
Smuts, A. (1996, June). Science discovers the child, 1893-1935: A history of the early scientific study of children. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A, 56,
Grotevant, H. D. (2011). Emerging issues in bridging developmental science, practice, and policy in the best interests of children without permanent parents. Monographs Of The Society For Research In Child Development, 76(4), 274-281. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5834.2011.00640.x
Winestock, S. L. (2010). Security theory and the history of developmental psychology. In R. Volpe (Ed.) , The secure child: Timeless lessons in parenting and childhood education (pp. 69-95). Charlotte, NC US: IAP Information Age Publishing.
Masten, A. S., & Narayan, A. J. (2012). Child development in the context of disaster, war, and terrorism: Pathways of risk and resilience. Annual Review Of Psychology, 63227-257. doi:10.1146/annurev- psych-120710-100356
Newman, T. (2000). Workers and helpers: Perspectives on children's labour 1899–1999. British Journal Of Social Work, 30(3), 323-338. doi:10.1093/bjsw/30.3.323
Sturge-Apple, M. L., Davies, P. T., Martin, M. J., Cicchetti, D., & Hentges, R. F. (2012). An examination of t the impact of harsh parenting contexts on children's adaptation within an evolutionary framework. Developmental Psychology, 48(3), 791-805. doi:10.1037/a0026908