Themes and Theories of Human Development

1. Themes and Theories of Human Development • What is a developmental theory? • Scientific theory • Characteristics of a good theory • Parsimony • Falsifiability • Heuristic Value • Questions and controversies in human development • Assumptions about human nature • Original sin • Innate purity • Nature versus nurture • Activity versus passivity • Continuity versus discontinuity • Stages of development • Qualitative/quantitative • Connectedness of development • Theories of human development • Psychoanalytic theory • Components of personality • Psychosexual development • Learning theory • Processes of learning • Social learning theory • Cognitive developmental theory • Ethological theory • Ecological theory • The importance of the natural environment • Environmental layers

2. What is a theory • What is a theory in general? • A set of concepts or propositions that describe and explain some aspect of experience. • What is a developmental theory? • A public pronouncement indicating what a scientist believes about his or her area specific area of investigation • What are the characteristics of a good theory? • Parsimony • Concise, yet able to explain a wide range of phenomena • Falsifiability • Capable of making explicit predictions • Heuristic value • Can be applied to unknown situations and cases

3. Question and controversies about human development • Assumptions about human nature • Innate purity versus original sin • Tabula rasa • Nature versus nurture • Activity versus passivity • Continuity of development • Stages of development • Quantitative versus qualitative change • Quantitative – changes in degree • Qualitative – changes in kind • Connectedness of development • Similarity versus differences

4. Continuous versus Discontinuous Development Continuous Development

5. Continuous versus Discontinuous Development Discontinuous Development

6. Question and controversies about human development • Assumptions about human nature • Innate purity versus original sin • Tabula rasa • Nature versus nurture • Activity versus passivity • Continuity of development • Stages of development • Quantitative versus qualitative change • Quantitative – changes in degree • Qualitative – changes in kind • Connectedness of development • Similarity versus differences

7. Theories of child developmentPsychoanalytic viewpoint • Basic instincts • Eros – the life instinct • Thanatos – the death instinct • Components of the personality • The Id – legislator of the personality • The Ego – executive of the personality • The Superego – judicial branch of the personality • The theory of psychosexual development • The oral stage (birth – 1 year) • The anal stage (1 – 3 years) • The phallic stage (3 – 6 years) • The Oedipus complex • Latency period (6 – 12 years) • The genital stage (12 years on) • Evaluation of theory

8. Theories of child developmentLearning theory (Behaviorism) • What is learning? • Classical conditioning • Operant conditioning • Reinforcers • Punishment • Observational learning • Theories of social learning • Evaluation of theory

9. Theories of child developmentCognitive developmental theory & Ecological theory • Cognitive developmental theory • Children as constructivists • Organismic theorist • Ethological theory • Study of the biological bases of behavior • Includes evolution, causation and behavior • Children are born with innate responses to evolution • Prefer naturalistic observations • Notion of a critical period

10. Theories of child developmentEcological theory • The importance of the natural environment • Developmental psychology had become “… the science of the strange behavior children in strange situations with strange adults for the briefest possible periods of time.” • The importance of studying children in their natural environments • Environmental influences and behavior settings

11. Ecological theoryEnvironmental Layers