Notes on Theoretical Perspectives in Human Development

Psychoanalytic Theories

• Core assumption: development involves moving through stages where individuals confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations; how conflicts are resolved influences psychological adjustment (e.g., learning, social relationships, anxiety coping).
• Freud (psychosexual theory)
  • Father of psychoanalytic perspective.
  • Development proceeds through psychosexual stages in which unconscious drives focus on different parts of the body.
  • Key contribution: emphasis on early family experiences and how an individual's life history shapes development.
  • Current view: largely unpopular today; critiques focus on overemphasis of sexuality; nonetheless, underscored that life history events shape development.
• Erikson (PsychoSocial Theory of Development)
  • Expanded Freud to cover the entire lifespan; added adult stages.
  • Emphasizes that normal development must be understood in relation to cultural context.
  • Stages involve conflicts between biological drives and social expectations at each stage.
  • Strengths: highlights lifelong development and the influence of life history; spurred research on attachment, morality, and child-rearing practices.
  • Limitations: stages can be vague; empirical testing is challenging.

Behaviorist and Social Learning Theories

• Core idea: behavior is shaped by the environment; psychology should focus on observable stimuli and responses; internal mental states are not the primary focus.
• John Watson (Behaviorism)
  • Sought an objective science of behavior anchored in observable events; avoided speculation about unobservable mental states.
• Classical Conditioning (Pavlov-inspired; applied by Watson to development)
  • Learning through association: a neutral stimulus becomes capable of eliciting a response after being paired with a stimulus that already elicits that response.
  • Example in the lecture: ringing a bell paired with food leads to salivation; later, bell alone elicits salivation.
  • Definition: a form of learning in which environmental stimuli come to elicit physiological responses through association.
• Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner)
  • Behavior probability changes based on consequences.
  • Reinforcement: a behavior followed by a rewarding/pleasant outcome increases likelihood of that behavior.
  • Punishment: a behavior followed by an aversive/unpleasant outcome decreases likelihood of that behavior.
  • Application: explains how skills and habits are learned; individuals actively shape their development through responses to reinforcement and punishment.
• Social Learning Theory / Social Cognitive Theory (Albert Bandura)
  • Emphasizes active information processing; thoughts and feelings influence behavior.
  • Modeling/observational learning: people learn by observing and imitating others.
  • Reciprocal determinism: individuals and environments influence each other.
  • Self-efficacy and personal standards: developed through observation and feedback.
  • Modern view is often described as Social Cognitive Theory, focusing on thoughts about self and others and self-regulation.
• Contributions and applications
  • Behavior modification can treat undesirable behaviors (e.g., poor time management, fears).
• Limitations
  • Critics argue this view can offer too narrow an account of environmental influences and may underestimate individuals’ active role in their own development.

Cognitive Theories

• Focus: cognition is central to understanding functioning across the lifespan.
• Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory
  • People are active explorers driven to learn by interacting with the world and by organizing knowledge into cognitive schemas (concepts and methods for interacting with the world).
  • Development progresses through four broad stages:
  • Sensorimotor stage: infancy; learning through senses and movements.
  • Preoperational stage: early childhood; symbolic but illogical thinking.
  • Concrete Operational stage: school-age; more organized and logical reasoning.
  • Formal Operational stage: adolescence and beyond; abstract and systematic reasoning.
  • Strengths: one of the most widely cited theories; emphasizes active knowledge construction.
  • Critiques: may overemphasize cognitive aspects while underemphasizing emotional and social factors.
• Information Processing Theory
  • The mind works like a computer; information is encoded, processed, stored, and retrieved.
  • Enables precise, testable predictions about behavior.
  • Critique: tends to ignore non-linear, imaginative, and creative aspects of cognition.

Contextual Theories

• Core idea: development is shaped by socio-cultural contexts and their interactions with biology and cognition.
• Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory
  • Culture is transmitted through social interactions.
  • Cognitive development is a social process; learning occurs via dialogue with more knowledgeable members of society.
  • Emphasized the central role of culture and social context in development.
• Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Systems Theory
  • Development results from ongoing interactions within multiple nested contexts and changing systems over time.
  • Systems (from inner to outer): micro-system (immediate environment), meso-system (interconnections among micro-systems; transcript uses the term "message system"), exosystem (settings that influence the individual indirectly; transcript uses "access system"), macrosystem (broader cultural context), and chronosystem (time dimension).
  • Strength: offers a differentiated, comprehensive account of contextual influences.
  • Criticisms: complexity and potential over-explanation; can be difficult to apply succinctly.
• Dynamic Systems Theory
  • Development is seen as the integration of multiple domains (maturation and environment) forming a constantly changing system.
  • Milestones emerge through goal-directed skill-building; growth is organized around purposeful activities and the interrelation of factors.

Ethology and Evolutionary Developmental Theory

• Ethology
  • Scientific study of the evolutionary basis of behavior.
  • Proposes that humans display preprogrammed biological behaviors that promote development.
  • Focuses on adaptive/survival value of behavior and its evolutionary history.
• Evolutionary Developmental Theory ( Evo-Devo )
  • Applies principles of evolution and the interactive influence of genetic and environmental mechanisms to understand lifelong changes.
  • Emphasizes genetic factors and their interaction with physical and social environments in shaping development.