Module 1.2

his presentation covers the contributions of Freud, Erikson, Watson, Skinner, and Ventura to our understandings of human development. A theory is an integrated set of principles that organizes, explains, and predicts development. Theories help researchers to organize and interpret their data by providing a big picture. Theories permit have broad and organized view of the influences on development. A good theory is parsimonious, falsifiable, and heuristic. Parsimonious refers to a theory that has a concise generalization which explains a broad range of phenomena. Falsifiable means that a theory is capable of making specific predictions about the future that can be tested. A theory that is falsifiable can be supported or disconfirmed. Heuristic means that a theory is useful in adding to our knowledge a generating lots of research and new theories. There are multiple theories of development and no one single theory provides all the answers. Today, developmental psychologist understand that each theory explains certain aspects of development and is likely to rely upon several theories in their understandings of human behavior. Sigmund Freud was a Viennese physician and the Victorian era, one of the first developmental theorists. He thought patients with nervous systems, hallucinations and paralysis had no physical basis or explanation. Freud found that by talking about early traumatic childhood events, his patients were helped. A central part of Freud's theory is that human beings have basic urges that must be satisfied. Freud describes human development in terms of intrinsic or internal drives and motives. He further stress to that our drives and motives are unconscious to us. This iceberg picture represents Freud's beliefs about our unconscious drives and motives. According to Freud, what we are conscious or aware of is just the tip of the iceberg. Take a look at the unconscious level or bottom of the iceberg. These represent our basic desires. According to Freud, we are driven by these desires that society doesn't approve of ways that we can satisfy these desires. Thus, we are in conflict based on our desires in society's demands and expectations for appropriate behavior. How these conflicts are resolved in childhood? Shapes are later personality. The most important factors that influence personality development or the parent's responses to a child's sexual and aggressive impulses. Freud considered sexual energy to be the most important life instinct. Bisexual energy. He meant pleasure derived from different parts of your own body and development. He thought that this sexual energy shifted to different parts of the body. The shift of how pleasure is derived is identified by distinct stages. The oral stage covers birth to one year of age. In this stage, infants seek pleasure by placing objects in their mouths. The anal stage is one to three years of age. During this stage, the expulsion of feces is the primary means for sexual gratification. The phallic stage from three to six years of age. Children become curious about their own genitals and derive pleasure from touching themselves. At this stage, freud also says children develop a strong desire for the parent of the opposite sex. At this stage, it's common for children to say that when they grow up, they're going to marry daddy if they're a girl or mommy if they are boy. Latency is ages six to 11 years. At this stage, your sexual instincts die down and it allows you to really develop your moral conscience. The vinyl stage, according to Freud, ages 12. And now, the goal of sexual energy at this adult stage is now channeled into reproduction. Forward emphasize the importance of early experiences on your later development and personality. In particular, Freud's theory has many contributions. The concept of unconscious motivation reduced to focus on only observable behavior and allowed us to study the mind. Freud was one of the first to suggest that early experiences play an important role in later development. Freud was also one of the first to focus on emotion rather than cognition of perception and development. A limitation of Freud's theory is that it is not classifiable. It is hard to obtain evidence to support or even confirm his theory. There is no way to measure sexual energy and balances between the id, the ego, and the super ego. It's interesting that his stage theory covers birth to the age of 12. Yet as far as we know, he never actually treated children. Freud is also criticized for overemphasizing sexual feelings. This is probably due to his living in the Victorian society in which sexuality was oppressed. Finally, Freud's theory is sometimes regarded as ADH, which may be because of using samples of individuals with mental health problems or be possibly related to Freud's drug use. With regard to the developmental issues, Freud viewed infants as inherently bad. Children's basic urges were selfish and aggressive. Nature was an important force with regard to any drives and instincts were born with, but nurture also had an effect. Parenting was important. Freud believed that we are passive and development that we're influenced by forces that are largely beyond our own control, such as instincts and child rearing practices. Freud believed that development was discontinuous, that there are distinct psychosexual stages. Other theories posit that development is universal. Universality and development means that everyone goes through the same stages in the same order. Erikson's psychosocial theory was heavily influenced by Freud. He agreed with him on some points such as the elements of personality being in conflict, the id, the ego and the super ego. And contrast with Freud, he viewed children as active, adaptive people who attempt to control their environment, rather than as being driven by biological urges and instincts. Erikson placed more emphasis on the social experience of children instead of sexual urges. Erikson's theory involved eight developmental stages, each characterized by particular challenge or crisis. Our social environment and cultural influences determine how well prepared we are to meet each crisis. The crisis, however, are innately determined and universal. His theory outlined eight major conflicts are stages that occur during lifespan development. He believed that the outcome of these conflicts would shape the person's later personality. Successful resolution of the conflict at each stage of development prepares the individual for the next conflict. However, if the conflict is not resolved, the individual will have problems later on. Here are Erikson stages. The stages include trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt. Initiative versus scale. Industry versus inferiority. Identity versus role confusion and adolescence. Intimacy versus isolation and young adulthood. Generativity versus stagnation in middle adulthood and integrity versus despair in older adulthood. As an example, according to Erikson, the first year of life involves the conflict of trust versus mistrust. You either learn basic trust of others knowing your needs will be met, or basic mistrust, having fear that you cannot count on others for care or affection. Eric's and felt that during this stage, your mother and her responsiveness is most important to your development. Erikson's theory has many contributions. His ideas about developmental changes in later years helped to initiate more research on adult development and aging changes. His ideas also consider the importance of culture. He noted that normal development may differ across cultures. This theory is fairly parsimonious, emphasizing many social conflicts that we experience. With regard to limitations to Erikson's theory, he didn't explicitly state what causes changes in development. He didn't clearly explain how an unresolved conflict at one stage would lead to problems later in development. His stages have also been criticized as being more descriptive and explanatory. His theory has also been criticized as not being falsifiable. Although some recent research has tested his ideas. With regard to the developmental issues, Erikson's theory takes the assumptions that humans are inherently good, both nature and nurture play a role in development. Nature's forces push the individual toward life crises and nurturing determine the outcome of that crises. Children are active participants in determining their own developmental outcomes. Development is discontinuous and that it's staged like, and it's universal and that everyone goes through the same stages in the same order at the same ages. Erikson's stress the impact of early experiences a later development, but was more optimistic than Freud about our ability to overcome early problems. he next set of theorists are the learning theorists, Watson and Skinner. Learning theorist, or also known as behaviors, or their theories might also be called behaviorism. According to this approach, behavior is learned through interactions with the environment, including people around you. The focus is on the objective study of behavior, what is observable, and what we can see. This approach emphasizes the causes and consequences of behavior. According to this approach, development is completely shaped by our environment and our experiences. Watson's behaviorism believed that the study of things unseen, such as mental processes, was a complete waste of time. He thought that psychology had to focus on the study of observable overt behavior. Watson believe like John Locke, that the infant was a blank slate. And that development happened through learned associations between stimuli and responses. He viewed development as a continuous process rather than a series of stages. As most famous experiment is with Albert. Albert was presented with a white rat and at first played with the white rat much like you would a pet. Then every time Albert reached for the rat, Watson would get behind them and make a loud noise. After this, Albert feared the white rat, suggesting that fears are emotions are easily learned. Because of this, Watson thought that parents should treat their children much as adults rather than being them. Skinner did research with animals. He focused on reinforcements are rewards and punishments to shape behavior. He used the Skinner box to train animals and produce behavior by using a reward like pushing a bar for a piece of food. He also found that he could use punishments or negative reinforcements to reduce or eliminate the behavior, such as giving animals a shock when they press the bar. Skinner view development as increasing the behaviors that lead to positive outcomes and reducing the behaviors that lead to negative outcomes. Thus, behavior is modified or shaped by external forces rather than internal drives. Overall, psychologists recommend positive punishment, such as spanking only in life-threatening situations to stop a behavior immediately. So for example, if a child is playing with matches or if they ran into the street, positive punishment such as spanking would be recommended to immediately stop the behavior. Research has indicated that spanking and punishment can be harmful and even counterproductive. Children don't learn to not do the behavior. Learn not to get caught. Punishment merely suppresses an undesirable behavior. Misbehavior can actually escalate due to the attention received when the punishment is a reinforcer. There are many negative effects of punishment. Severe physical punishment produces high levels of anxiety and interferes with learning. Children who are punished learn to fear and avoid the disciplinarian. Children who are spanked may imitate the adult and rely on aggression to deal with their own problems. And resentment from the punishment can actually make the child more difficult to control in the future. With regard to learning, behaviorists and development, behaviorists are the only theorists to assert that humans are tabula rasa US born blank slates, neither inherently good or bad. They believe that were completely shaped by our environment. Nurture is everything and that we are passive. Now we have no impact on how the environment shapes us or how we turn out or how we develop. According to these perspectives. Development is gradual. It's continuous as you learned behavior modification on a moment by moment basis throughout your life, every individual has different experiences and different environments that shape their behaviors. Let's talk about social learning theory, also called Social Cognitive Theory. Bandura emphasizes how people learn new behaviors by observing and imitating other people around them. Bandura believed in the concept of reciprocal determinism, which emphasizes that behaviour is the result of a mutual interaction of a person, the environment, and the behavior itself. According to Bandura, human development is a continuous reciprocal interaction between the child and their environment. Although the environment affects the child, as traditional behaviorist believed Bender, I believe the child also affects the environment. And therefore, the child is actively involved in creating their own experiences and their own development. According to Bandura, children can learn merely by observing the behavior of another person, even though they have never received any type of reinforcement for acting like they sell someone else behave, they will imitate others around them. Bender a stressed that humans are active thinkers, cognitive processors. And because of this, we are able to determine the consequences of our actions prior to performing those actions. And this, our thought processes lead our behavior to be modified by what we might believe is going to happen as opposed to what actually does happen. For instance, listening to class lectures is probably not always immediately satisfying, but you can anticipate that when test time comes around and you're studying, that it's going to be much easier to learn the material if you listen to the lectures throughout the weeks prior to the test. So even though listening to the lectures maybe wasn't immediately reinforcing or rewarding to you. You can be motivated by other things, by long-term goals as opposed to immediate rewards. This is Bandura's idea of learning, which is different from the traditional behaviorist perspectives than dura focused on observational learning or modeling, such that children learn behaviors, observing others, and develop a mental representation of behaviors they see so that they can imitate them later on. The Bobo doll experiment conducted by Bandura was designed to show that children could learn a response neither elicited by a conditioned stimulus nor performed and then strengthened by a reinforcer. Children watched a video of an adult model attacking an inflated Bobo doll with a mallet and shouting soccer room and throwing balls at Bobo, all shouting, bang, bang, bang. Some children saw the adult model being praised. Other children saw the model punished. Other children, saw no consequences after the adults attack on Bobo. After observing a model that was aggressive toward the Bobo doll, children imitated the aggressive behaviors, especially if they saw the model being rewarded for that. But even if they saw the model being punished for that behavior is still repeated the behaviors more often than children who saw a non aggressive model. Interestingly, children who saw the aggressive model were also more likely to come up with new ways to be aggressive. The take-home message is that we imitate others, even when we see others under negative consequences for their behavior, were still more likely to repeat their actions. Where does Bender a fall on developmental issues? Like traditional learning theorist, Bandura viewed humans as blank slates as tabula rasa IS. Nurture is more important than nature according to Bandura's social learning theory. Unlike traditional behaviorist, bandura believed that we are active in development. Like other behaviorist, he believed in continuity development rather than stage like there is particularity and development due to our experiences and our environments, development can proceed in many different directions depending upon life experiences and nurturing. The learning theories emphasized overt behavior, which helps us psychologists to focus on clinical techniques such as behavior modification. And this is a major contribution of these theories. Also, the learning theorists helped us to stress objectivity in every phase of our work. This helped us as a science to improve our research methods in psychology. Behavior has taught us to be careful in defining what we're measuring as well to use controlled experiments. The concepts of these theories are relatively simple and they spurred much research in the field. Thus, the theories are parsimonious and heuristic. Contributions of Bandura in particular, include that he helped us to understand aggression in children and in part started what has become known as the cognitive revolution in psychology. Emphasizing that our thoughts are very important and understanding our development and our behavior. Limitations to the traditional learning theorists are that they completely ignore the role of cognition and development. And overall, learning theorist and behaviorists also ignore the role of emotion and genetics. So learning theories may have oversimplified individual differences in development by ignoring important biological factors. The role of nature. Welcome to the third and final lecture on developmental theories. I want to spend a lot of time and the beginning of this lecture to make sure we cover all of the theories and assumptions. This last part, we'll cover Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, three contextual theories, and ball T's modern life-span perspective. Piaget's cognitive developmental theory focuses on the structure and development of an individual's thought processes. Theory also focuses on how our thought processes affect our understanding of the world, as well as our behavior. Piaget published his first research article at the age of 10. He later received his PhD in zoology and was concerned with how animals adapt to their environment. He first worked with benign on devising intelligence tests. In devising these intelligence tests for children, Piaget found out he was interested in the types of errors that children were making. He noticed that children have about the same age would make the same kinds of errors. After questioning children further about these wrong answers, he found that not only were younger children thinking and answering differently, but they had qualitatively different ways of thinking. Altogether. Piaget view children as actively structuring their own experiences, not simply imitating others in their environment, like social learning theory would propose, and not just responding to reward and punishments like behaviorists would propose. According to Piaget, children, actively construct knowledge as the manipulate and explore their environment. He viewed children as being naturally curious and eager to learn, very observant and aware of what was happening all around them. Piaget described intelligence as a basic life process that helped the organism adapt to their environment. Piaget developed stages of cognitive development that are represented in a table in your textbook in Chapter 1, we will learn these stages in great detail later in the semester. Piaget viewed cognitive development as a process that follows a universal sequence of stages. The stages include the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. Each stage is characterized by a qualitatively distinct way of thinking. In France, Piaget's work became popular just as the behaviorists had gained popularity in America. Behaviorists believe that Piaget was wasting his time studying on the observable concepts like cognition. The introduction of his work to America in the 1960s contributed to what is now known as the cognitive revolution in psychology. Piaget was the first to stress that children are adaptive, thoughtful, and active in creating their own development. Educators have used his theories to develop active learning strategies in the classroom. His theory is very heuristic, generating lots of knowledge about cognitive development. And it's also falsifiable, easy to test. And limitations of Piaget's theory, or that He's faulted for ignoring emotion and motivation as influences on cognitive processes. While Piaget himself was obviously highly motivated to learn, this doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. So he assumed that everyone was motivated. Whereas in reality, that isn't necessarily what we see. Piaget also believed that direct teaching have little effect on development, which we now know is not true. Overall, piaget underestimated children's cognitive abilities, as we will discuss in detail later on. With regard to the developmental issues, piaget believed that we are inherently good. That we're born with predominantly positive tendencies such as curiosity. Piaget believed that both nature and nurture are important influences in development. He clearly sided that were active in our own development as we construct more sophisticated understandings of ourselves and our world. According to Piaget, development is discontinuous and that we go through distinct stages and is also universal. And that we go through the same stages at the same time, in the same order. Each stage incorporates the elements of a previous stage play in a connectedness between early and later development. We're also going to cover contextual theories, which includes Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory, which you've already had an introduction to, Lawrence's ethological theory and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. These three theories have in common that considering the context in which development occurs is a very central theme and is very important to each of these theorists. According to Vygotsky socio-cultural approach, we should focus on how culture, values, beliefs, and customs are transmitted to the next generation in order to understand cognitive development. Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who tried to explain cognitive development in terms of the guidance, support, and structure that's provided by the broader cultural context. Rather than considering an individual in isolation, vygotsky focused on the dynamic interaction between developing persons and their surrounding culture. Vygotsky believed that the development of cognitive competency results from social interaction between children and more mature members of society. According to Vygotsky, we develop cognitively through guided participation. This is when a skilled tutor engages the learner in joint activities. A child social partners progressively challenge them to think and more sophisticated manners rather than looking at what an individual can do alone. Vygotsky stressed the zone of proximal development. This is the range of skills that the child can do with assistance. Cognitive development as a socially mediated process. According to Vygotsky, this means that adults help children to master meaningful cultural activities, such as reading and writing, that eventually become part of the child's skills without adult assistance. Culture determines the activities that are seen as meaningful. And in many cultures, adult guidance has been shown to be an important part of learning. For example, for Native Americans of southern Mexico, young girls become expert basket weavers with the informal guidance of adults. In Brazil, children who work in the street with collaboration of adults and experienced peers acquire very sophisticated math skills early on. And America, we learn how to be really good at taking multiple choice tests. Vygotsky's theory has a couple of positive contributions in studying other cultures, we should take into account the activities that cultures perceive as important. Evaluating cognitive development. It is important to also note and understand how teamwork and group performance operate, as opposed to only focusing on the individual. With regard to developmental issues, nurture is very much emphasized by Vygotsky. The social environment is particularly important. The child has an active participant in their own development. According to Vygotsky, development is both universal and particularistic. There are some universal developmental challenges that children face these challenges and culturally specific ways. Development is continuous as you interact and learn socially. And both early and later experiences are equally important in development. According to Vygotsky, etiology is the scientific study of the evolutionary basis of behavior. Ethologists study developmental patterns that promote survival. This approach can be traced to Charles Darwin. We can say that etiology evolved from the evolutionary perspective. Ethologists believe that we are born with biologically programmed behaviors that contribute to our survival. They prefer to study animals and humans in their natural environment. Conrad Lorenz is the most famous ethologist. Lorenz took baby chick eggs, 1.5 of the mother, and the other half an incubator in his lab. The first group that hatched with their mother and printed upon their mother or father or their mother around. The second group, which first tolerance shortly after hatching, imprinted upon and followed burns around. So we often see pictures of Lorentz with baby chicks following behind him. Lorenz discovered through these studies that there are critical periods in development, limited time during development, in which we are biologically prepared to acquire certain adaptive behaviors. Today we use the term sensitive period, which is an optimal time for capacities to emerge. For example, there is a sensitive period and language development, which it is easier for us to learn a language during the first 12 years of life. Then later on. This doesn't mean that you can't acquire skill outside of a sensitive period, but rather that you seem to be primed to learn it easily at certain periods of life. Ethologists operate under the assumption that individuals are active in development. Their responses promote a particular kind of experience. This theory has been used to understand attachment in infants. An example is that crying is a biologically programmed distress signal we're born with, that promotes feeding by our caregivers. Infant cries, or a biologically programmed behavior designed to promote our survival by ensuring that our basic needs are met, such as food and safety. And to establish lots of close contact with other humans, which is necessary for our normal development. Ethologists believe that the attachment bond or social experiences that are formed during the first three years of life are very important for later social and emotional responsiveness. In other relationships. Lawrence is either logical theory has made several contributions. Ethologists have helped develop mentalists think more about biological forces influencing development. This helped us to view infants and children as inherently social creatures in infancy. Rather than blank slates or as meeting numerous experiences to learn a behavior to gain social attention. Ethologists have helped us to understand the development of attachment in infancy, which we'll study in more detail later in the semester. And it's also helped us to understand critical or sensitive periods in development, as well as the interaction between nature and nurture. Experience and your preprogrammed behaviors are both important to develop normally. As far as limitations go, it's very hard to test in humans. Ethologists have been criticised in that they explain things that have already happened, but don't do a good job in predicting what will happen in the future. According to the ethological theory, were born inherently good with positive and adaptive characteristics endowed by nature to adapt to our environment. Nature is emphasized a little more than nurture. Unusual experience can override biological predisposition. We are active participants in determining developmental outcomes. Development involves both continuous and discontinuous aspects. There are sensitive periods in development which are restricted time periods in which qualitatively distinct capacities and responses can emerge suddenly. So they are discontinuous phases of development with regard to universal and Particularistic. They kind of fall in the middle here. They don't really side on one side or the other sins, both nature and nurture interact to produce outcomes. It's hard to side on one or the other. Although we tend to stress early experience. But both early and later experience are important in development according to this approach. This is a bit of a review on Bronfenbrenner's Ecological theory. Bronfenbrenner believed that environments both influence and are influenced by the individual. He believed that natural environment or field studies are very important to do. He views the child is developing within a complex set of relationships and being affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment, not just their immediate environment, but also the over-arching culture. Our relationships within these systems are viewed as bidirectional and reciprocal. While the adults behavior influences the child's behavior. The child's behavior also influences the adults behavior. Bronfenbrenner really expanded our view of nurture and the environment, although extremely complex, his theory is probably a close characterization of all the forces that can influence our development. His theory is very challenging for developmental psychologists to recognize the true complexity of development and also encourages interdisciplinary research. Had the same time, his theory suggests that there are various levels that we can intervene to improve development. That theory also encourages political change and social policy in order to impact the development of children. An individual's limitations of his theory is that it's so complex that it's difficult to test and to include all the various levels of the environment that could possibly impact development. With regard to the developmental issues, Bronfenbrenner's Ecological theory takes the assumption that development is active, that we play an important role in determining our developmental outcomes. According to this theory, development is continuous. Both nature and nurture are important. Although nurture is probably influenced a little more. And both early and later experiences are important in development. All right, Last but not least, we want to cover Paul ball, tz is modern life-span perspective. According to this perspective, early development affects later development and we continue to develop and change throughout the entire lifespan. So development is a lifelong process. According to ball test his theory, there are many different developmental outcomes. Not all aspects of development are universal. There isn't one level of maturity or an end point at which we reach maturity. So development as multi-directional, you can improve in some areas and decline in other areas at all ages. Some capacities improve with age, while others decline and some stay the same. When you gain formal logical thought as a teenager, you may lose some creative imagination that you had as a child. We see that speech perception declines after six months of age and babies, babies are better at something such as music and speech perception than adults are. So these are things that decline very early in life. Older adults, on the other hand, have expertise and abilities that younger ones do not. For example, your vocabulary continues to increase throughout your life span. According to maltose, there's plasticity and development throughout the lifespan, we have the ability to adapt, to recover and to grow. We can overcome negative situations and we develop in response to experience. You can teach an old dog new tricks. Experience results in changes to our brain. And we can make new connections and neurons in our brain throughout the entire lifespan. Both nature and nurture influence our development. So we're multiply influenced. So in order to truly understand lifespan development, we need to approach it from multiple disciplines.