Module 2 - Developmental Theories

• Scientific Theory of Development


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


  Explanations or predictions that can be tested by further research
• Two basic issues theorists explain development depend on


  • Whether people are active or reactive in their own development
  • Whether development is continuous or occurs in stages
• Active


  People absorb experiences that shapes them over time
• Reactive


  People create experiences for themselves
• Continuous


  Development is gradual and incremental
• Discontinuous


  Development is abrupt or uneven
• Mechanical Model


  • People are like machines that react to environmental input
  • Development results from the operation of biological parts in response to external or internal stimuli
• Organismic Model


  • Sees people as active, growing organism who 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
• Quantitative Change


  A change in number or amount such as height, weight, or vocabulary size
• Qualitative Change


  Marked by the emergence of new phenomena that could not be easily predicted based on past functioning (i.e.: mood change)
• Theoretical Perspectives


  • Psychoanalytic
  • Learning
  • Cognitive
  • Contextual
  • Sociobiological
• Psychosexual Development (Sigmund Freud)


  • Reactive, Qualitative
  • Proposed the provinces of the mind: Id, Ego and Superego
  • Newborns are governed by the "ID"
  • First year or so – "Ego", which represents reason, develops gradually
  • 5-6 years old – "Superego" which includes conscience and incorporates socially approved behavior to the child's system
  • 5 stages of Psychosexual Development
• Psychosocial Development (Erik Erikson)


  • Reactive, Qualitative
  • Extended Freudian Theory by emphasizing the influence of society in developing personality
  • Covers 8 stages of across lifespan
  • Each stage involves a crisis in personality – a major psychosocial challenge that is particularly important during that stage
  • These crises must be satisfactory resolved for healthy ego development
  • It also puts the person in a particularly good position to address the next crisis
  • Erikson highlighted the social clock-the conventional, culturally preferred timing of important life events
  • Explained the development is a lifelong process
• Behaviorism (Mechanistic)


  • Describes observed behavior as a predictable response to experience
  • Considers development as both reactive and continuous
  • They hold that human being at all ages learn about the world the same way other organisms do; by reacting to conditions or aspects of their environment that they find pleasing, painful, or threatening
  • Focuses on associate leaning where a mental link is formed between two events
• Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)


  • A type of learning in which a response (salivation) to a stimulus (a bell) is elicited after repeated association with a stimulus that normally elicits the response
  • John B. Watson claimed that he could mold any infant in any way he chose
• Operant Conditioning (BF Skinner)


  • A type of learning where an individual learns from the consequence of "operating" the environment
  • It involves consequences rather than the predictors of behaviors
  • Skinner argued that animal or human will tend to repeat a response that has been reinforced by desirable consequences and will suppress a response that has been punished
  • Reinforcement – is the process by which a behavior is strengthened, increasing the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated
  • Punishment – Is the process by which a behavior is weakened, decreasing the likelihood of repetition
  • BOTH CAN BE POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE
• Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura)


  • He suggested that the impetus for development is bidirectional called "reciprocal determinism:" The person acts on the world as the world acts on the person
  • Maintains that people learning appropriate social behavior chiefly by observing and imitating models; or in short, by watching people which is called observational learning or modeling
  • Social Cognitive Theory – updated version of SLT and reflects great emphasis on cognitive processes as central to development
  • Cognitive process is at work as people observe models, learn chunks of behavior, and mentally put the chunks together into complex new behavior patterns
  • Self-efficacy – confidence in their ability
• Cognitive Stage Theory (Jean Piaget)


  • Reintroduced the concept of scientific inquire into mental states
  • Viewed development as the product of children's attempts to understand and act upon their world
  • Cognitive growth occurs through three inter-related processes: Organization, Adaptation, Equilibration
• Sociocultural Theory (Lev Semenovich Vygotsky)


  • Vygotsky believed children learn collaboratively through social interaction and shared activities
  • Vygotsky belied there are as many ways to develop as there are different cultures and different experiences
  • Adults or more advanced peers must help direct and organize a child's learning
  • ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (ZPD) – The gap between what they are already able to do by themselves and what they can accomplish with assistance
  • The supportive assistance with a task that parents, teachers, or others give a child is known as "scaffolding"
• Information-Processing


  • Seeks to explain cognitive development by analyzing the processes involved in making sense of incoming information and performing tasks effectively
  • Theorist within this tradition focus on process such as attention, memory, planning strategies, decision errors, decision making, and goal setting
  • Some information-processing theorists compare the brain to a computer; there are certain inputs (such as sensory impressions) and certain outputs (such as behaviors)
  • They note age-related increases in the speed, complexity, and efficiency of mental processing and in the variety of material that can be stored in memory
• Bioecological Theory (Urie Bronfenbrenner)


  • Generally represented as a set of rings with developing child in the middle
  • The child is not seen as just an outcome of development; the child is an active shaper of development
  • To understand development, we must see the child within the context of the multiple environments surrounding them
  • Five level of Environmental Influences: Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem, Chronosystem
• Evolutionary/Sociobiological (Charles Darwin)


  • Influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, it draws on findings of anthropology, ecology, genetics, ethology, and evolutionary
  • Natural selection is defined as the differential survival and reproduction of different variants of members of a species and is the tool the natural world uses to shape evolutionary process – Survival of the Fittest
  • Ethology is the study of the adaptive behaviors of animal species in natural contexts
  • Evolutionary psychology – focus on humans and apply Darwinian principles to human behavior
  • Despite arguing that reproductive success is the key feature driving our adaptations, does not propose that people are consciously seeking to maximize their reproductive output
• Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years): Infants explore objects using all senses and motor skills
• Piaget's theory states that children develop through four stages of cognitive development
• Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years): Children rely on sensations and motor skills to explore the world around them
• Piaget's theory suggests that children develop through four stages of cognitive development
• Assimilation and accommodation are key processes in Piaget's theory, where children either fit new information into existing mental structures or adjust their mental structures to accommodate new information.
• According to Piaget, children construct their understanding of the world through their actions on the environment.
• Piaget's theory consists of four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.
• Preoperational stage (2-7 years): Children begin to use symbols but cannot think logically about abstract concepts
• Concrete operational stage (7-11 years): Children become capable of logical thinking when dealing with concrete situations
• Formal operational stage (11+ years): Teens and adults can reason about hypothetical ideas and consider alternative solutions to problems.
• Preoperational stage (ages 2–7): Children begin to use symbols like words and pictures but have difficulty understanding other perspectives or reasoning logically about things they cannot directly experience.
• Concrete operational stage (ages 7–11): Children become more adept at logical thinking and problem solving, especially when dealing with concrete situations.
• Concrete operational stage (ages 7–11): Children become better at logical thinking and problem solving when dealing with concrete situations, but still struggle with abstract concepts.
• Preoperational stage (ages 2–7): Children begin to use symbols like words but have difficulty understanding other perspectives or reasoning logically about events they cannot directly observe.
• Formal operational stage (ages 11+): Teenagers and adults can think abstractly and reason logically about hypothetical scenarios.
• Preoperational stage (ages 2–7): Children begin to use symbols such as words but still have difficulty understanding other perspectives beyond their own.
• Concrete operational stage (ages 7–11): Children can perform basic operations with concrete materials but struggle with abstract concepts.