Overview

Development is shaped by the environments in which individuals live—especially the family unit and broader society. This topic explores how family structures, parenting styles, cultural values, and social influences impact growth, behavior, and well-being throughout life.

Key Themes and Concepts

• Family Structures: Includes nuclear, extended, blended, and single-parent households. Family type can influence emotional and academic outcomes.
• Parenting Styles: Baumrind identified four primary types: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved—each linked to different child outcomes.
• Abuse and Neglect: Exposure to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse can have lasting developmental effects. Prevention and intervention are critical for resilience.
• Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model: Describes development as nested within systems: microsystem (family), mesosystem (school/community), exosystem, macrosystem (culture), and chronosystem (time/history).
• Media and Technology: Impacts cognitive, social, and emotional development—positively (e.g., learning tools) and negatively (e.g., screen overuse, social comparison).
• Multicultural Perspectives: Culture shapes beliefs, expectations, and behaviors. Parenting, discipline, and family roles vary across societies.
• Death and Dying: Family and cultural beliefs influence understanding and response to loss. Grief stages (e.g., Kübler-Ross) and coping strategies vary by age.
• Social Class Influences: Economic status affects access to healthcare, nutrition, education, and opportunities—strong predictors of developmental outcomes.

Quick Tip

Understand parenting styles, ecological systems theory, and how family structure, media, and culture influence development. CLEP questions may use examples of parenting or ask about social-class impact on outcomes.