Developmental psychology deals with the mental development human beings throughout their life, from conception to old age. Developmental psychology is characterised by its focus on the stability and change of the core themes over time.

Core themes include emotional development; attachment and temperament; social-cognitive development (e.g. theory of mind); moral development; self and identity; development of intelligence, including in adulthood; language development; cognitive development; perceptual and motor development; biological development; gender development; personality development; relationships, family formation and parenthood; development of infants and young children, and late adulthood personality development and psychological challenges. Besides the themes, developmental psychology also concerns more broad basic questions including the concept of development; nature/nurture; stability and change over time; the universal versus the contextual and cross-cultural: continuous vs. discontinuous development; domain-general vs. domain-specific development, etc..

The course aims at offering a broad introduction to theories, research, and paradigms within modern developmental psychology with a considerable emphasis on methodology.