Aims

- to improve the knowledge in the field of development of adult and aged.
- to draw the educational and clinical implications of these theoretical knowledge

Main themes

- the development of intelligence and of personality. This theme is tackled in the frame of life-span developmental psychology. The research on evolution of personality traits and of cognitive competences during adulthood are studied in detail. The development of moral judgment and of religious judgment are also tackled.
- the development in the familial and professional context. This theme tackles questions such as the attachment between generations, the dynamics of the familial system and the stages of professional life.

Content and teaching methods

The course presents the development of intelligence (psychometric approach and postformal intelligence) and the development of personality from the following reference frames: the humanist approach, the five-factors model of personality, the various means to face the critical life events; the cognitivo-developmental theories essentially considering the development of personality according to Loevinger, the moral development according to Rest, the development of religious judgment and the development of forgiveness. These themes are inserted in the frame of the conception of life-span developmental psychology - developed by Baltes and his colleagues. This approach considers the development as resulting from the combined influence of biological development and of the normative expectations of the society, of the socio-historical factors and of the reactions in front of crises occurring along the life. These considerations namely rest on the very sophisticated analysis of the transverso-sequential research consituting a combining of transverse research and of longitudinal research.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Lectures, discussions on texts and research results.
Written support:
- Vandenplas-Holper Ch.: 1998/2003. Le développement psychologique à l'âge adulte et pendant la vieillesse. Maturité et sagesse. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France. Coll. "Pédagogie d'aujourd'hui".