LECTURE 3

THEORIES OF CHILD
DEVELOPMENT

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Historical Views of
Childhood
Medieval Era

Childhood (to age 7 or 8) regarded as

separate phase with special needs,
protections

16th Century

Puritan child depravity views

17th Century

John Locke tabula rasa or blank

slate view; continuous development

18th Century

Jean-Jacques Rousseau noble

savages view; natural maturation

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Historical and current views of

childhood.

Historical Period

Some probable characteristics of views of childhood

1. Antiquity

Selective infanticide, immature infants perhaps viewed as something

less than fully human.

2. Medieval Europe

High infant and child morality; no clear view of childhood as a

vulnerable period, or of children as needing nurturance and guidance.

3.Eighteenth-century Europe Poverty and perhaps emotional indifferences lead to widespread

abandonment of infants, continuing infant morality rates.
4.

Nineteenth century Industrialization contributes to widespread use of children as manual

Europe and North America laborers in factories, mines, fields, shops, and so on; ambivalent
attitude toward children.

5.

The
today

6.

The industrialized world Accelerating social and technological changes present new risks and
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today
challenges, preoccupation with rights, the needs and the desire of
children.

developing

world Relatively high under 5 morality rates, often due to preventable

causes. Increasing recognition of childrens right; increasing use of
immunization prevents many needless deaths.

Early Scientific Study

of Development
Evolutionary
Theory

Darwins ideas of natural selection

and survival of the fittest are still
influential.

Normative
Approach

Hall & Gesell: Age-related averages

based on measurements of large
numbers of children

Mental Testing Binet & Simon: Early developers of

Movement
intelligence tests
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THEORY
An orderly, integrated set of
statements that
describes behavior.
explains behavior.
predicts behavior.
A theory should allow us to predict
and explain human behavior
It should be stated in such a way
that it can be shown to be false
It must be open to scientific
investigation
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Photodisc, Education 2 Royalty Free

Models of Theories of child development

Mechanistic model A model in human

developmental psychology based on belief that it is
useful to view human beings in terms of reactive,
machinelike characteristics. E.g. Early behaviorists
such as Watson
Organismic model A model in human
development that assumes people are active rather
than simply reactive, and they are therefore more
like biological organisms than like machine.
Eg.Piaget, Freud, Erikson
Contextual model A developmental that
emphasizes the importance of the individuals
interaction with environmental context. It looks at
the historical period and which individuals are
raised, as well as the unique experiences they have.
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Eg. Bronfenbrenner,
Vygotsky, Bandura, Skinner 6
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Theories of Development
Five Theoretical Orientations to Development
Psychoanalytic
Behavioral and Social Cognitive
Cognitive
Ethological
Ecological
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Psychoanalytic Approach:
Sigmund Freud (1856 1936)
This theory based on the assumption
that the most important causes of

human behavior and personality are deep-seated, usually unconscious

forces within individuals.
Freud believed that these forces, some of which are in conflict with one
another, are the root of mental disorders.
Libido a general Freudian term denoting sexual urges. The libido is
assumed to be the source of energy for sexual urges. Freud considered
these urges the most important force in human development.
Id- all the instinctual urges to which humans are heir and are the
source of all human motives. A newborn childs personality, according
to Freud, is all id.
Ego the rational, reality- oriented level of human personality, which
develops as children become aware of what the environment makes
possible and impossible, and therefore serves as a damper to the id.
The id tends toward immediate gratification of impulses as they are felt,
whereas the ego imposes restrictions that are based on environmental
reality.
Superego the moral or ethical aspects of personality and is in
constant conflict with thePA10103
id. The
superego is essentially the persons
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conscience concerned with
right
and wrong.

Freuds Psychosexual
Stages

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 Oedipus complex : - A Freudian concept denoting the

developmental stage (around 4 years) when a boys
increasing awareness of sexual feelings leads him to desire
his mother and envy his father.
Electra complex: - A Freudian stage occurs around the
age of 4, when a girls sexual feelings lead her to desire
her father and to become jealous of her mother.

Review of Freudian Theory

Freud was responsible for making parents realize how
important the experiences of the early years.
However Freuds theory is clearly weak from scientific point
of view, based as it is on a limited number of observation
collected by a single individual (Freud himself).
The theory has often been criticized because it places
excessive emphasis on sexual and aggressive impulses.
People who dont resolve the issue of each stage get
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stuck in that stage for
their
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Psychosocial Approach:
Erik Erikson (1902 1994)
Emphasizes the importance of social environment. His
theory is a theory of psychosocial development rather
than of psychosexual development.
Psychosocial
development:
describe
human
development as sequence of stages involving the
resolution of crises that are primarily social.
Each stage is a conflict the child must resolve.
How society or parents respond to the child in each
stage determines if the child succeeds or fails to resolve
the conflict of that stage.
Typical Psychoanalytic comment: (S)he must never
have learned to trust people when (s)he was a little kid.

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Eriksons Psychosocial
Stages
Basic trust v.
mistrust

Birth1 year

Identity v. role
confusion

Adolescence

Autonomy v.
shame and
doubt

13 years

Intimacy v.
isolation

Emerging
adulthood

Initiative v.
guilt

36 years

Generativity v.
stagnation

Adulthood

Industry v.
inferiority

611PA10103
years
Integrity v.
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despair

Old age

Review of Eriksons Theory

Sometimes referred to as a theory of the life
cycle, of ego psychology, of psychosocial
development or as a psychoanalytically oriented
theory concerned mainly with the development
of healthy personality. Contrasted with Freuds
views, Erikson presents a highly positive and
optimistic picture of human development.
Development of children involves resolving a
series of conflicts and crises
However like Freuds, Eriksons theory does not
lend itself well to experimental validation.
What Erikssons theory provide is a very general
framework for describing and interpreting some
of the major changes that occur in the human
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Learning Theory
Classical Conditioning
Pavlov
Watson

Operant Conditioning
BF Skinner

Social Learning
Bandura

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Behaviorism & Social

Learning
Classical Conditioning

Stimulus Response

Operant Conditioning

Reinforcers & punishments

Social-Cognitive
Approach

Modeling
Self-efficacy

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Classical Conditioning
Pavlov believed behavior is the result of
learning
Dog+ food=saliva
Dog+food+bell = saliva
Dog+bell = saliva

Watson believed behavior is observable.

He is called the Father of Behaviorism

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Operant Conditioning
BF Skinner believed
Positive Reinforcement (rewards)
increase a desired behavior
Negative Reinforcement (punishment)
decrease an undesired behavior
Rewards and punishments shape
behavior when given right after the
behavior is demonstrated

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SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY:

ALBERT
BANDURA
Bandura believed
that people
learn behavior by observing
and imitating others
Monkey see, Monkey do
Typical Social Learning Theory comment:
You can teach a dog new tricks if you show him how to
do it, and reward him each time he does a good job.
And imitative behaviors are often reinforced in one of two
ways:Direct reinforcement reinforcement that occurs as a
direct consequence of behavior.
Vicarious reinforcement reinforcement that results
from observing someone else is being reinforced.
In
imitative behavior, observers frequently act as though they
are being reinforced when in fact they are not being
reinforced; rather, they
are aware, or simply assume, that
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the model is being reinforced

The processes of
observational learning
Attention Children arent likely to learn very
much from a model if they pay no attention to
important aspect of that models behavior.
Retention children must not only attend but
must also be able to remember.

Reproduction the observer must able to

reproduce the behavior that has been attended
to and retained.

Motivation without motivation, many

behaviors that observed and potentially
learned will not be performed.
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Effects of imitation

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Behavior Modification
Combines conditioning and modeling to
eliminate undesirable behaviors and
increase desirable responses
Example: Four- and 5-year-olds unruliness in
preschool was reduced using tokens, given for
good behavior, that could be traded for candy.
Example: Children being treated for acute burn
injuries played a virtual reality game that
distracted them from the procedure and
caused their levels of pain and anxiety to drop
dramatically.

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Limitations of Behaviorism and Social

Learning Theory
One of the criticisms of these approaches is that
they are poorly suited to explaining higher mental
processes thinking, feeling, analyzing, problem
solving, and so on.
A second criticism by emphasizing the
machinelike qualities of human functioning, they
rob us of what we consider most human- our ability
to think and imagine and our ability to exercise
significant control on our own behavior.
Contributions:
application of conditioning
principles
to
change
behavior
(behavior
modification).
Banduras work is unique in that it grants children an active
role in their own learning.
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Cognitive Development Theory

Jean Piaget, Switzerland, died in 1980s
Basic of Piagets idea: Human development is a
process of adaptation. And the highest form of
adaptation is cognition (or knowing)
Cognition: - Mental process such as thinking,
knowing, and remembering. Theories of cognition
attempt to explain intellectual development and
functioning.
His theory describes how childrens thinking and
learning develops
He believed
knowledge is built by the child over time
children are active learners in their environment
knowledge is the result of interaction between the
child and the environment

Cognitive Development
(cont.)
Knowledge is the result of
interactions:
Child +
Environment +
Understanding +
Interest =

Learning

Cognitive Dev. Vocabulary

Assimilation
and
accommodation
leads
to
adaptation: Assimilation the act of incorporating objects or
aspects of object to previously learned activities. To
assimilate is, in a sense, to ingest or to use
something that previously learned; more simply,
the exercising of previously learned responses.
Accommodation the modification of an activity
or an ability that a child has already learned, to
conform
to
environmental
demands.
(Accommodation
involves
change
in
understanding)

Schema the label used by Piaget to describe a

unit in cognitive structure. It usually labels a
specific activity: the looking scheme, etc.

Stages of Development
Piaget Lect 3 extension.ppt
Piaget extension lect 3.ppt

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