The first section looks at life-span development from an evolutionary standpoint. It looks at natural selection as a force driving the development of adaptive behaviors common to all humans or common to certain cultures. It looks at the importance of evolutionary and evolutionary developmental psychology in understanding the physical and behavioral attributes that contribute to growth at various life stages. It also addresses evolution in terms of biological factors such as disease or heritable illnesses that affect our outcomes in terms of contextual events.
The second section looks at heritable traits at the genetic level and discusses our physical biological development at genomic and embryonic stage. It discusses abnormalities that occur from genetic disorders and how that affects one’s development. The third section looks at reproductive challenges and choices. It talks about medical tests now available to determine fetal abnormalities, so parents may have a choice on termination. It also discusses reproductive options for infertile couples and the possibilities of adoption.
The fourth section discusses the differences in hereditary and environmental interactions. That is, whether personality traits, talents etc. are heritable or the product of environmental influence. It looks at behavioral genetic studies done on fraternal and identical twins and natural versus adopted children. It also talks about shared and non-shared experiences. By far the most interesting section was the one on behavioral genetics.
It would have been nice to see more information on specific studies as I believe the concepts of nature and nurture are hugely important to life-span development on the level of populations and individuals. I feel like Santrock provided a very cursory overview and so it was my least liked and most liked section. On a personal level I thought the section on infertility was interesting, I have members in my family who have tried fertility treatments and ended up becoming pregnant through invitro fertilization, so it was interesting to read about it.