Development, Erikson, Vygotsky

Development-

Understanding constancy and how we change over time

  • Psychologists use experiments and/or observations


Theory- 

Statements that explain behavior

  • Using experiments and/or observations to look at change or constancy over time


Similarities and differences based off of age

Often broken into stages

  • Prenatal

  • Infancy and toddlerhood

  • Early childhood

  • Middle childhood

  • Adolescence

  • Early adulthood 

  • Middle adulthood

  • Late adulthood


2 Basic questions-

  1. Continuous .VS. Discontinuous 

  2. Nature .VS. Nurture


Continuous-

  • Born with skills, growth provides more advanced versions of the same skills

  • Difference is complexity

  • Adults and preschoolers are the same with different depths 

  • Kids limitations- kids can’t perform skills with the same information and precision 

  • Looks like a curve upwards

  • Process of augmenting the same skills that were there to begin with (ex learning to walk)

Discontinuous- 

  • Massive new change at a new stage (Milestones)

  • New ways of responding to the world takes place in stages

  • Rapid transformation at beginnings of a stage, little change until next stage

  • Emotions thoughts and behaviors differ wildly from adults

  • Series of developmental steps until reaching the highest level of functioning

  • Looks like stairs


Recent new theory! (Currently used)

Lifespan Psychology/perspective

  • Theories softened

  • Using both sides of both questions

  • Development is dynamic

  • Development is lifelong

  • Development is multidimensional and multidirectional 

  • Development is “highly plastic’’ or malleable

  • Development is affected by multiple forces


Three areas of development-

  • Psychosocial

  • Development of emotions, temperament, and social skills (family, friends, larger society). Includes how you think of yourself and others. (Verbal and nonverbal)

  • Cognitive

  • Mental processes used to obtain knowledge. Mental processes used to think about the environment, such as imagination, judgment and memory

  • Biological

  • Progress and growth of one's body of a lifetime, including the genetic, nutritional and health factors (control over motor skills, muscles, physical coordination, ability to sit and stand)



Lev Vygotsky

Continuous

Nurture


Background

  • Born in 1896 in Russia, (same time as Piaget)

  • Died at 38

  • Created Cognitive Development Theory based off of social interaction 


Social Development Theory

  • There is no one thing that accounts for development

  • Importance of social interaction (humans are social creatures/we interact)

  • Community determines meaning (if community changes what something means it affects you and your mindset) 

  • Impossible to understand development without social or cultural context (is something normal in that culture?)

  • Social learning (learning from others) will proceed development (learn first then develop)


Children begin life with:

  • Innate ability for intellectual development

  • Elementary mental functions: Attention (focus), sensation (feel), perception (how we think of things/how that makes us feel), memory (remember) (all relation to social interaction!)

  • These tools vary from culture to culture


How does social development occur?

  • Curiosity- actively trying to learn

  • Learning must be through someone teaching you- no self teaching!


2 Key principles-

  • A more knowledgeable other (MKO) 

  • MKO teaches you (someone or something that knows better than you)

  • How does the MKO do what they do? Scaffolding and guided participation (Words or demonstrations). 

  • You can’t do it for them

  • Zone of proximal development (ZPD) 

  • Difference between what a child can do independently and what a child needs MKO for.

  • More willing to be in ZPD when younger

  • Accepting help to get better


Current knowledge -> ZPD -> Out of reach (can be age oriented) 



2 Key roles of Language in Cognitive Development

  • How adults transmit information to children 

  • Language is a tool of intellectual adaptation 



3 Forms of language

  • Social Speech (Out loud speaking to others)

  • Can begin at age 2

  • Private Speech (Talking outloud to yourself to work things out) 

  • Helps you strategize

  • Sign of intelligence

  • Can begin at age 2, often becomes internal at age 10

  • Silent Inner Speech (Silently speaking in your head)

  • Can begin at 7


Criticisms

  • Does not account for cultural differences

  • Too much emphasis as language (can learn from only demonstration)

  • Discounts a child's ability to self teach


Erik Erikson-

Discontinuous, Nurture


Backstory

  • Never knew his father

  • Born in germany

  • Never felt comfortable as a Jew or a German (Nazi’s)

  • Met Anna Freud, a psychoanalyst and studies psychoanalysis under her

  • Fled to US before Holocaust

  • Continues studying psychoanalyst 

  • Dies in 1994


Ego Identity 

  • Conscious sense of who we are through social interactions. 

  • Development as a lifespan

  • Resolution of the crisis = development of ego strength


How stages work

  • If you are able to resolve the crisis at each stage you have competence and a healthy personality

  • If not, feelings of inadequacy 

  • You are able at a later stage to go back and fix crisis of an earlier stage

  • Everyone in any scenario go through all stages


Stages (Can not achieve the virtue from the next stage until you’ve got the previous)


Trust VS. Mistrust (0-1)

  • Can a baby trust the world to fulfill its needs

  • Trust or Mistrust carries up until adulthood

  • Virtue created- Hope

  • Orphans

  • Neglectful parents

  • Anxiety parents (1st child or ill child) children absorb the anxiety and feel unsafe


Autonomy VS. Shame and doubt (1-3)

  • Toddlers begin to control their bodies (dress themselves)

  • Control temper tantrums 

  • Big word is “No”

  • Can they learn to control themselves?

  • Virtue created- Will

  • Yelling at the kid (shame and guilt)


Initiative VS. Guilt (3-5)

  • Big word is “Why?”

  • Is curiosity engaged or stifled 

  • Virtue created- Purpose



Industry VS. Inferiority (5-12)

  • School!

  • Evaluated by peers and assessments

  • Could develop inferiority complex

  • Gifted or not gifted

  • What am I good at/not good at?

  • Virtue created- Competency 

  • Not getting in the gifted program

  • Being told you’re not good at something, not ‘you need to get better’


Identity VS. Role confusion (12-18) These days -> (~12-14 up until ~25)

  • Who are you?

  • What group do I fit in with?

  • Identity crisis

  • Key parts of identity- Who you really are, not what others need you to be/what you thought you should be.

  • Virtue created- Fidelity


Intimacy VS. Isolation (18-40) These days -> (~23-45)

  • Erikson believes it is VITAL that people develop close committed relationships with other people

  • Believed that this is the most important stage

  • Virtue created- Love

  • Have to know who you are before you move on to this stage

  • Continuing to grow together works as well 


Generativity VS. Stagnation (40-65)

  • Is my life what I want?

  • Am I happy with what I created?

  • Mid-life crisis

  • Sandwich generation (between children and parents, dependency)

  • Virtue created- Care


Integrity VS. Despair (65+)

  • Looking back on life

  • Was my life meaningful or do I have regret

  • Virtue created, Wisdom