Chapter 2: Theory and research

• Theory of development


  A set of logically related concepts or statements that seek to describe and explain development and to predict the kinds of behavior that might occur under certain conditions; seeks to organize, explain, and predict data.
• Hypotheses


  Tentative explanations or predictions that can be tested by further research.
• Mechanistic model


  Views human development as a series of predictable responses to stimuli; People are like machines that react to environmental input. See development as continuous, like walking or crawling up a ramp. Is always governed by the same processes, allowing prediction. *Quantitative change.
• Organismic model


  Views people as active, growing organisms that set their own development in motion. They initiate events; they do not just react. The driving force for change is internal; environmental influences do not cause development, though they can speed or slow it. Discontinuous-marked by the emergence of new phenomena cannot be anticipated easily on the basis of earlier functioning. *Qualitative change.
• Quantitative change


  Changes in number or amount (height, weight)
• Qualitative change


  Changes in kind, structure, or organizations (discontinuous).
• What are the 5 major perspectives that underlie influential theory and research on human development?

  1) Psychoanalytic

  2) Learning

  3) Cognitive

  4) Contextual

  5)Evolutionary/sociobiological
• Psychoanalytic


  Originated by Sigmund Freud; views development as shaped by unconscious forces that motivate human behavior. Freud believed that people are born with biological drives that must be redirected to make it possible to live in society. Believed that personality forms through unconscious childhood conflicts between the inborn urges of the id and the requirements of civilized life.
• Id (newborns)


  Operates under the pleasure principle-the drive to seek immediate satisfaction of their needs and desires.
• Ego (reason)


  Develops gradually (1st year-2nd) and operates under the reality principle-to find realistic ways to gratify the id that are acceptable to the superego.
• Superego


  Develops between ages 5-6; the conscience and incorporates socially approved "should" and "should nots" into the child's value system.
• Psychosexual development


  In Freudian theory, an unvarying sequence of stages of childhood personality development in which gratification shifts from the mouth to the anus and then to the genitals; sensual pleasure shifts from one body zone to another.
• Fixation


  An arrest in development that can show up in adult personality.
• Phallic stage


  Boys develop sexual attachment to their mothers and girls to their fathers; have aggressive urges toward the same-sex parent (they regard as the rival); *Oedipus and Electra complexes
• Latency stage


  A period of relative emotional calm and intellectual and social exploration (school work, relationships, and hobbies).
• Genital stage


  Final stage; lasts throughout adulthood; heterosexual relations with persons outside the family origin.
• Erik Erikson: Psychosocial Development


  Erikson's 8 stage theory; the socially and culturally influenced process of development of the ego, or self. Emphasized the influence of society on the developing personality. Ego development is lifelong. Each stage involves a crisis in personality-a major psychosocial theme that is important at the time and will remain an issue to some degree throughout the rest of life; each stage requires balancing of a positive tendency and a negative one.
• Psychoanalytic


  -Freud's psychosexual theory: Behavior is controlled by powerful unconscious urges.

  
  

  -Erikson's psychosocial theory: Personality is influenced by society and develops through a series of crises.
• Learning


  -Behaviorism, or traditional learning theory (Pavlov, Skinner, Watson): People are responders; the environment controls behavior. Describes observed behavior as a predictable response to experience. Humans learn about the world by reacting to conditions or aspects of their environment that they find pleasing, painful, or threatening. Pavlov-dogs, Watson-humans

  
  

  -Social learning (social cognitive) theory (Bandura): Children learn in a social context by observing and imitating models. Children are active contributors to learning. Learning through watching the behavior of others.
• Behaviorism


  Learning theory that emphasizes the predictable role of environment in causing observable behavior.
• Classical conditioning


  Learning based on associating a stimulus that does not ordinarily elicit a response with another stimulus that does elicit the responce.

  
  

  A responce (salivation) to a stimulus (bell) is evoked after repeated association with a stimulus that normally elicits the response (food).
• Operant conditioning


  Individual learns from the consequences of "operating" on the environment; learning based on association of behavior with its consequences.
• Reinforcement


  A behavior is strengthened, increasing the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated.
• Punishment


  A behavior is weakened, decreasing the likelihood of repetition.
• Behavior modification


  Deliberate form of operant conditioning used to eliminate undesirable behavior.
• Social learning theory (social cognitive theory)


  Theory that behaviors are learned by observing and imitating models.
• Reciprocal determinism


  The person acts on the world as the world acts on the person.
• Observational learning


  Learning through watching the behavior of others.
• Self-efficacy


  The confidence that they have what it takes to succeed.
• Cognitive


  Cognitive perspective: View that thought processes are central to development; focuses on thought processes and the behavior that reflects those processes.

  
  

  -Piaget's cognitive-stage theory: Qualitative changes in thought occur between infancy and adolescence. Children are active initiators of development. The product of children's efforts to understand and act on their world. Suggested that cognitive development begins with an inborn ability to adapt to the environment; cognitive growth occurs through organization, adaptation, and equilibration (clinical method: children of the same ages made similar types of errors in logic-a typical 4 year old believed that pennies or flowers were more numerous when arranged in aline than when heaped or piled up).

  
  

  -Vygotsky's sociocultural theory: Social interaction is central to cognitive development. Placed special emphasis on language as an essential means to learning and thinking about the world. Adults and advanced peers must help direct and organize a child's learning before the child can master and internalize it; learning through social interaction.

  
  

  -Information-processing theory: Observing and analyzing the mental processes involved in perceiving and handling information; attention, memory, planning strategies, decision making, and goal setting. Human beings are processors of symbols.

  
  

  -Neo-Piagetian: integration of Piaget's theory with the information-processing approach. Focus on specific concepts, strategies, and skills. Helps account for individual differences in cognitive ability and for uneven development in various domains.
• Organization


  The tendency to create categories or systems of knowledge.
• Schemes


  Ways of organizing information about the world that govern the way the child thinks and behaves in a particular situation.
• Adaptation


  How children handle new information in light of what they already know.
• Assimilation


  Taking in new information and incorporating it into existing cognitive structures.
• Accommodation


  Adjusting one's cognitive structures to fit the new information.
• Equilibration


  A constant striving for a stable balance, or equilibrium-dictates the shift from assimilation to accommodation. The quest for equilibrium is the driving force behind cognitive growth.
• Sociocultural theory


  Vygotsky's theory of how contextual factors affect children's development.
• Zone of proximal development (ZPD)


  Vygotsky's term for the difference between what a child can do alone and what a child can do with help.
• Scaffolding


  The temporary support that parents, teachers, or others give a child in doing a task until the child can do it alone.
• Information-processing approach


  Approach to the study of cognitive development by observing and analyzing the mental processes involved in perceiving and handling information.