Chapter 2 Theories of Human Development

1. Chapter 2 Theories of Human Development

2. Nature of Scientific Theories Scientific theory: A set of concepts and propositions that indicate what a scientist believes to be true Help us to organize our thinking Characteristics of a good theory Parsimonious Falsifiable Heuristic

3. Nature of Scientific Theories Figure 2.1� The role of theory in scientific investigation.

4. Questions and Controversies about Human Development The nature/nurture issue Is development due primarily to biological forces? Is development due primarily to environmental forces? Is there some middle ground? The active/passive issue Are children curious, active creatures largely determining how society treats them? Are children passive individuals upon whom society fixes its stamp? The continuity/discontinuity issue Is development additive, occurring gradually and continuously? Is development a series of abrupt changes, each of which elevates the child to a new and presumably more advanced level of functioning?

5. Freud's Psychosexual Theory, Part 1 Three components of personality Id: Present at birth; function is to satisfy inborn biological instincts Ego: Conscious, rational; function is to find realistic means of gratifying instincts Superego: Conscience; function is to be internal censor

6. Freud's Psychosexual Theory, Part 2 Stages of psychosexual development Oral Anal Phallic Latency Genital

7. Freud's Psychosexual Theory, Part 2

8. Contributions and Criticisms of Freud's Theory Contribution: Concept of unconscious motivation Criticism: Not much evidence of early conflicts predicting adult personality

9. Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development Comparing Erikson with Freud Erikson stressed that children are active, curious explorers. Ego is most important aspect of personality�far more complicated than Freud's idea. Erikson placed much less emphasis on sexual urges. Erikson placed much more emphasis on cultural influences.

10. Eight Life Crises (or Psychosocial Stages) Trust vs. mistrust Autonomy vs. shame and doubt Initiative vs. guilt Industry vs. inferiority Identity vs. role confusion Intimacy vs. isolation Generativity vs. stagnation Ego integrity vs. despair

11. Eight Life Crises (or Psychosocial Stages)

12. Eight Life Crises (or Psychosocial Stages)

13. Psychoanalytic Theory Today Neo-Freudians Karen Horney: Founder of psychology of women Alfred Adler: Siblings are important to social and personality development. Harry Stack Sullivan: Close, same-sex friendships in middle childhood set stage for intimate love relationships later in life. Many psychoanalytic hypotheses are untestable other than an interview or a clinical approach.

14. The Learning Viewpoint: Watson's Behaviorism Infant is tabula rasa: No inborn tendencies Little Albert Experiment to show emotional reactions are acquired rather than inborn White rat paired with loud noise

15. The Learning Viewpoint: Skinner's Operant-Learning Theory Radical behaviorism Humans and animals repeat acts that lead to favorable outcomes (reinforcement) Humans and animals suppress acts that produce unfavorable outcomes (punishment)

16. The Learning Viewpoint: Bandura's Cognitive Social-Learning Theory Humans are cognitive-active information processors. Humans are more affected by what they believe will happen than by the events they actually experience. Observational learning is a central developmental process. Social learning as reciprocal determinism: Interactions among active person, person's behavior, and environment

17. Contributions and Criticisms of Learning Theories Contributions Precise and testable Provide understanding of how and why developing persons form emotional attachments, adopt gender roles, make friends, learn to abide by moral rules, and change in countless other ways Behavioral modification techniques in clinical and practical applications Criticisms Oversimplified account of human development Downplays the contribution of important biological influences in development Too little attention to cognitive influences on development

18. Cognitive-Developmental Viewpoints: Piaget Piaget's view of intelligence and intellectual growth Scheme: An organized pattern of thought or action used to explain experience Assimilation: Interpreting experiences in terms of current cognitive structures Accommodation: Altering the existing schemes to provide a better explanation of new experience Four stages of cognitive development Sensorimotor Preoperational Concrete-operational Formal operational

19. Cognitive-Developmental Viewpoints: Piaget

20. Cognitive-Developmental Viewpoints: Piaget

21. Contributions and Criticisms of Piaget's Viewpoint Contributions Legitimized study of children's thinking Linked moral development to cognitive development Development of social cognition Strong impact on education: Discovery-based programs Criticisms Underestimated the intellectual capabilities of infants, preschoolers, and children Performance can be improved dramatically through training programs. Vygotsky's viewpoint of socially mediated activity challenged Piaget's idea of children as independent explorers. Invariant sequence of stages

22. The Information-Processing Viewpoint Cognitive psychology plus computer science Biological maturation is an important contributor to cognitive growth. Cognitive development is a continuous process that is not at all stagelike. Cognitive development involves small quantitative rather than large qualitative changes. Contributions and criticisms of the information-processing viewpoint Contributions: Fills in gaps left by Piaget's theory; rigorous and intensive research Criticisms: Artificial laboratory studies; underestimation of richness and diversity of human cognition

23. The Ethological (or Evolutionary) Viewpoint Assumptions of classical ethology Members of all animal species are born with biologically programmed behaviors. Natural selection Ethology and human development Early experiences are very important: Critical period vs. sensitive period Contributions and criticisms of the ethological viewpoint Contributions: Studying human development in normal, everyday settings and comparing human development with that of other species Criticisms: Very difficult to test, retrospective, difficult to use for prediction

24. The Ecological Systems Viewpoint Bronfenbrenner�s contexts for development The microsystem: Activities and interactions that occur in the person's immediate surroundings The mesosystem: The connections or interrelationships among microsystems The exosystem: Contexts that children and adolescents are not a part of but which may nevertheless influence their development The macrosystem: Broad, overarching ideology that dictates how children should be treated, what they should be taught, and the goals for which they should strive The chronosystem: Temporal dimension�the age of the child

25. The Ecological Systems Viewpoint (cont.) Contributions and criticisms of the ecological systems viewpoint Contributions: Provides a much richer description of environmental influences Criticisms: Falls far short of being a complete account of human development

26. Theories and World Views Mechanistic Humans are a collection of parts (behaviors) that can be decomposed. Humans are passive, changing mostly in response to outside influences. Humans change gradually or continuously as their parts (specific behavior patterns) are added or subtracted. Organismic Humans cannot be understood as a simple collection of parts. Humans are active, changing under the guidance of internal forces. Humans evolve through distinct stages as they mature.

27. Theories and World Views (cont.) Contextual Development is the product of a dynamic interplay between person and environment. Humans are active, and the environment is active.