Theory in Human

Development
CHAPTER 2A

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Learning Objectives

2.1 Describe the purpose of a theory in research

and two theoretical issues on which
developmental scientists differ.
2.2 Summarize the main theories of human
development.
2.3 Describe the methods of developmental
research used to collect data and the
advantages and disadvantages of each.
2.4 Explain ethical guidelines for researchers who
study people.
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 Basic Theoretical Terms

 Theory
 A set of logically related concepts that seek to
describe and explain development and to predict the
kinds of behavior might occur under certain conditions
 Help us see connections between isolated pieces of
data
 Hypotheses
 Explanations that can be tested by further research

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 Issue 1:
Is Development Active or Reactive?

● Mechanistic Model: Passive

 Locke: tabula rasa
 Children are “blank slates on
which society writes”
 People are like machines that react
to environmental input

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 Issue 1:
Is Development Active or Reactive?

● Organismic Model: Active

 Rousseau: “noble savages”
 Children set their own
development in motion
 People initiate events,
don’t just react

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 Issue 2:
Continuous or Discontinuous?

 Mechanistic Theories: Continuous

 Focus on quantitative change
 Same processes are involved

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 Issue 2:
Continuous or Discontinuous?

 Organismic Theories: discontinuous

 Focus on qualitative change
 Different processes involved

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 Five Major Perspectives

 Psychoanalytic
 Learning
 Cognitive
 Contextual
 Evolutionary/Sociobiological

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 Perspective 1:
Psychoanalytic Theory

 Psychoanalytic
 Unconscious
forces motivate
human behavior
 Psychoanalysis: Therapy that
gives insight into unconscious
emotional conflicts

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 Freudian Parts of Personality

 Id
 Pleasure Principle
 Ego
 Reality Principle
 Superego
 Follows rules of society

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 Freudian Psychosexual Stages

Stage Age Unconscious Conflict

Birth to about15
Oral Sucking & feeding
months
12–18 months to
Anal Potty training
3 years
Phallic 3 to 6 years Attachment to parents

Latency 6 years to puberty Socialization

Genital Puberty to adult Mature adult sexuality

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 Erickson’s Psychosocial Theory

 Emphasized influence of society

 Development is lifelong, not just during
childhood
• Each of eight stages of
development involves a
“crisis”
• Crisis resolution gains a “virtue”
• Infancy: trust vs. mistrust

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 Perspective 2: Learning

 Learning
 Long-lastingchange in behavior,
based on experience adaptation to
the environment

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 Learning: Behaviorism

 Associative learning
 We respond based on whether the
situation is:
Painful or Threatening
Pleasurable

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 Behaviorism:
Classical Conditioning

 Ivan Pavlov: stimulus and response

 John Watson: Conditioning of Fear
Orphan boy “Little Albert”

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 Behaviorism:
Operant Conditioning

 Individual learns the consequences of

“operating” on the environment
 Learned relationship between behavior and
its consequences
 B. F. Skinner formulated original ideas by
working with animals, then applied them to
humans

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 Operant Conditioning:
Reinforcement

 Increaseslikelihood of behavior
reoccurring
 Positive: Giving a reward
 Candy for finishing a task
 Negative: Removing something
aversive
 No chores for getting an A+ on homework

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 Operant Conditioning:
Punishment

 Decreases likelihood of behavior

reoccurring
 Positive: Adding something aversive
 Getting scolded
 Negative: Removing something pleasant
 Taking away car keys
 Getting a “time-out”

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 Social Learning Theory

 Albert Bandura: Development is

“bidirectional”
 Reciprocal determinism—person acts
on world as the world acts on the
person
 Observational Learning or Modeling
 Children choose models to imitate

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 Social Cognitive Theory:
An Update to Modeling

 Emphasizes cognitive processes as

central to development
 Beginning of “self-efficacy”
 People observe models and learn
“chunks” of behavior
▪ Imitating dance steps of teacher and
fellow students to develop new
individual style

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 Perspective 3: Cognitive

 Focuses on thought processes and

behavior that reflects those
processes
 Includes organismic and
mechanistic theories

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 Piaget:
Cognitive Stage Theory

 Clinical Method
 Combining observation with
questioning
 Development begins with an
inborn ability to adapt
 Rooting for a nipple, feeling for a
pebble

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 Piaget: Organization

A tendency to create complex

cognitive structures, or “schemes”
 Schemes
Organized patterns of behavior
used to think and act in a situation
Infants suck bottles AND thumbs

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 Piaget: Adaptation

 How children handle familiar

information
 Two processes:
 Assimilation:Incorporating new
information into existing schemes
 Accommodation: Changing structures
to include new information
 These steps are balanced through
equilibration
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 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

 Stresses children’s active interaction

with social environments
 Zone of proximal development
(ZPD)
 Scaffolding

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 Information Processing
Approach

 Analyzes processes involved in making

sense of incoming information
 Helps children be aware of their own
mental strategies
… and strategies for
improvement!

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Information-Processing Approach:
Computer-Based Models

 Infers what happens between

stimulus and response
 Often uses flowcharts to define steps
of processing that people use
 Unlike Piaget, views
development as continuous

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 Perspective 4: Contextual

 Development can be understood only in

its social contexts
 Urie Bronfenbrenner: bioecological theory
 Describes range of interacting influences
that affect development
 Identifies contexts that stifle or promote
growth
 Home, classroom, neighborhood

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Bronfenbrenner’s Five
Contextual Systems

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 Perspective 5:
Evolutionary/Sociobiological

 Uses Darwin’s evolutionary theory

 Survival of the fittest
 Animals with traits suited to environment survive
 These adaptive traits are passed on to offspring
 Natural selection
 As
environments change, traits change in
adaptiveness

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 Ethology

 Study
of distinctive behaviors that
have adaptive value in natural
contexts
 Innatebehaviors evolved to increase
survival odds
 Think of imprinting
 Squirrels’ burying of nuts

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 Evolutionary Psychology

 How biology and environment interact to

produce behavior and development
 Humans unconsciously strive for personal survival
and genetic legacy
 Result: A development of mechanisms that evolved to
solve problems
 Morning sickness actually protects fetuses

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