Theories of development

Bianca Fourie
 Learning Unit 2
Themes 1 - 4

Theories of development
 Outcomes:

Exploring the four key approaches to developmental psychology and

the key theories that form the foundation of child development namely:
● Biological approach
● Psychodynamic approach(Freud and Erikson).
● Behaviourist approach (Pavlov, Watson and Skinner),
● Cognitive approach (Piaget) and
● Socio-cultural approach (Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner).
Different theories of development
Developmental psychologists are faced with trying to explain how children develop into
adults.

Developmental psychology involves a very broad school of research and psychologists

adopt many different theoretical perspectives to explain empirical data. These
psychologists will never approach this without a theory, these theories shape their
findings.
Different theories of development

These theories include:

● Biological views
● Psychodynamic views
● The behaviourist paradigm
● Cognitive development and learning
Biological views

All development happens

against a biological
backdrop.
 Biological views
● Focus on:

The physical reactions that people experience from psychological processes.

● Example.

If you are afraid your heart starts racing and your mouth becomes dry. This is fear or
nervousness which are both psychological processes but have physical reactions.
 Biological views
● Let us relate this to the child:

Biological theories of development focus on the processes in the brain and central nervous
system and study how these develop.

Should a child have damage to certain parts/portions of the brain it could have a significant
impact on their development.

E.g A child who has had damage to the occipital lobe

(front part of the brain) by falling as a baby, might experience vision problems in the
classroom.
 Biological views
Neuropsychology produced drug therapies to help with certain psychological disorders
related to chemical imbalances.

E.g Depression, Bipolar, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, ADHD, ADD.

Psychodynamic
views
The psychodynamic views
was lead by the famous
psychologist Sigmund Freud
 Psychodynamic views
● Focus on:

Freud stated that much of what people do in their waking life is determined by unconscious
factors.

The unconscious in the part of the mind = not available to a person’s conscious mind, but it
affects our behaviour.
 Psychodynamic views
● Example:

Repression = The psychological process involved in keeping unacceptable impulses hidden

to protect the conscious mind.

Repression fails when symptoms manifest themselves. E.g Anxiety (biting nails, fidgeting,
panic attack.
Psychodynamic view
● Let us relate this to the child:

Freud’s work showed that unconscious conflicts had their origins in a person’s past and
often in a person’s childhood.

Freud’s work also focused on the way children pass through various stages (psychosexual
stages) in order to reach adulthood.
Psychodynamic views
PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES:

Certain conflicts arise and have to be addressed for the child to develop optimally.

Freud proposed that children have to pass through various stages of development and at
each stage children are faced with psychological conflicts that they need to negotiate.
Failure to negotiate the conflict will result in repression. Freud’s theory stated that
instinctual libidinous desires need to be appropriately directed through socialisation and at
each stage the child focuses on deriving pleasure from specific parts of the body.
Psychodynamic views
● Psychosexual Stages:

1. Oral stage: (1st year of life)

Infant’s focus is directed at the mouth, lips and sucking

2. Anal stage: (2-4 years)

Centered around the anus and the bladder

Psychodynamic views
3. Phallic stage: (4-6 years)

Focus is on the penis, vagina, pubic hair, breasts and

differences between adults and children

4. Latent stage: (6 to puberty)

Where sexual feelings are dormant/ relatively quiet.

5. The genital phase: (11 to adult)

Puberty to death when sexual interests mature.

 Psychodynamic views
Erikson’s psychoSOCIAL stages of development

Moved away from largely medical and biological basis to focus more on social and cultural
influences.

Erikson proposed that development did not end at sexual maturity, but carried throughout the
lifespan of a person.

MAIN AIM OF DEVELOPMENT for ERIKSON = The formation of identity, he developed

a theory that said a child passes through stages of development and at each stage a crisis must
be overcome. This develops a person’s identity.
Psychodynamic views
Erikson’s psychosocial stages:

1st year - Trust vs mistrust - The first crisis an infant has to negotiate is how to trust someone to meets his
or her needs.

2nd year - Autonomy vs shame and doubt - Infants have to learn to control their own behavour and failing
to meet the crisis posed here will lead to a child becoming doubtful uncertain about him- or herself.

3-6 years - Initiative vs guilt - A child has to become independent through initiating and enjoying his or her
own activities. Failure to do this leads to feelings of guilt for establishing their own independence.

7 years - puberty - Industry vs inferiority - A child should learn to feel confident in his or her activities
and feel competent in activities valued by others
Psychodynamic views
Adolescence - Identity vs role confusion - In this stage the peer group is extremely important as a child
begins to develop a sense of identity in relation to their peer group.

Early adulthood - Intimacy vs isolation - The challenge here is to find an intimate life partner or risk
loneliness

Middle age- Generativity vs stagnation - Productivity in work enables a person to refine his or her sense
of self and avoid stagnation

Old age - Integrity vs despair - A difficult stage, when a person tries to make sense of the meaning of his or
her life without becoming bitter and despairing over lost opportunities.
 Quick Question……..
Draw a venn diagram to compare
and contrast Freud’s and Erikson’s
theories to development (Use at least
2 sources)
Example
Behaviourist
View
The behaviourist paradigm is
focused on the behavioural
changes of development
Behaviourist view
● Focus on

Classical conditioning (Learning as a function of reinforcement).

The theory is stemmed from behaviourists like John B Watson: He also took on the notion
that A child is born as a blank slate ‘tabula rasa’ on which life will draw and a person’s
experiences are central in the development of his or her psychology.
Behaviourist view
Classical conditioning:

Ivan Pavlov (founder of behaviourism). Classical conditioning involves pairing a neutral

stimulus with an unconditional stimulus. This was made famous by the experiment that
Pavlov did with dogs.
Behaviourist view
● Let’s relate this to the classroom

Teachers can apply classical conditioning in the class by creating a positive classroom
environment to help students overcome anxiety or fear of a specific subject/ situation.
Pairing this subject/ situation, such as performing in front of a group, with pleasant
surroundings helps the student learn new associations.
Behaviourist view
B.F Skinner and John B. Watson

Skinner focused more on operant conditioning (rewarding certain behaviours that a

person wants to see repeated- creates an association between a behaviour and the
consequence of the behaviour).

● Let’s relate this to the classroom:

Confiscating a phone if a student is caught using = positive punishment. This is a classic

operant conditioning example in the classroom.
Cognitive view
Most of schooling is based on this. How
children think, explore and figure things
out.

The development of knowledge, skills

and problem solving which help children
to think about and understand the world
around them.

Brain development is part of cognitive

development
Cognitive development and learning
● Focus on

How children construct knowledge through interacting with the world instead of unconscious
conflicts.

Jean Piaget.

QUESTION: How does a child develop cognitively?

Children learn through a process of biological adaptation of their world. Piaget hypothesised that
people are born with certain functions which help them to adapt to their environment and termed these
functions assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation = incorporating information into existing knowledge

Accommodation = adjusting thinking as a result of new knowledge.

Cognitive view
1. Sensorimotor stage ( birth-2 years)
Construction of knowledge based on action.

2. Pre-operational stage (2-7 years)

Construction of knowledge moves away from just action to symbolic representation (Using blocks or
Legos to represent something within the child’s real world e.g a table or chair). .

The following are central features of the pre-operational stage:

○ Symbolic understanding - Understanding based on symbols.

○ Egocentrism - This is a child’s inability to see a situation from a perspective other than his
or her own.
○ Centration - A child can only focus on one aspect of situation to the exclusion of others
Cognitive view
3. Concrete operational stage (7-11 years)

The big shift from the Pre-operational stage to the concrete operational stage is best
captured in what Piaget called ‘conservation experiments’. Conservation refers to a
child’s ability to recognise that some properties of an object can remain consistent even
across physical transformations.

Central features of the concrete operational stage:

● Egocentrism is absent
● Children can classify and conserve, they are not misled by visual appearance
● Children can conserve because they can mentally reverse actions
Cognitive view

3. Formal operational stage (older than 11)

This stage is characterised by a child’s ability to reason abstractly and to think in a

“scientific way”.

These children are able to think theoretically (based on theories rather than practical
considerations).
 Quick Question……..

What is the difference between

assimilation and accommodation?
Provide examples of each.
Cognitive development and learning
Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory:

● Focus on

How cognitive development occurs through social interactions.

General genetic law = Higher cognitive functions (thinking, reasoning and problem-
solving) begin as relationships form between individuals.

IMPORTANT: The child’s mind develops first a relationship between the child and
significant other (inTERpsychologically) before turning inward and becoming part of the
child’s psychology (inteRApsychologically).

Interaction is therefore very important. How a child is taught something will lead to how
that child comes to think about that thing.
Cognitive development and learning

Mediation = the process whereby external meanings become internal.

● Let us relate this to the child:

The active guidance of a more expert peer or teacher which moves a child from a state of
NOT KNOWING to a state of KNOWING.

This develops higher cognitive functioning (HCF).

HCF will not develop unless a child is actively involved and taught.
Cognitive development and learning
Zone of proximal development:

This is where TRUE learning takes place. This is the space between what a child can
accomplish on their own and what they can accomplish with the help of a culturally
knowledgeable peer/ teacher.

Therefore, MEDIATION and structured guidance takes place in the zone of proximal
development.

Important: What is developed in the zone of proximal development is a very specific kind
of conceptual knowledge = Scientific concepts.
Cognitive development and learning
Scientific concepts:

Are developed in school and require specific forms of instruction for a child to learn them.
 Quick Question……..

Group Discussion: Why do you

think Vygotsky’s theory is potentially
useful for South Africa today?
Bronfenbrenner’s ecosystemic theory
● Focus on

Explanation regarding the influence of the social environment on the child.

Bronfenbrenner’s ecosystemic theory

Let’s relate this to the child/ school environment:

School: is composed of different parts (students, parents, teachers, management,

administration)

For the system to function well, all elements must function well. E.g if students disrupt
classes, they impact on the entire school’s functioning.

A system may also interact with other systems outside of it. E.g a school being affiliated
with a University.
Bronfenbrenner’s ecosystemic theory

At the core of systemic theory = relationships are cyclical. (If one part of the system
impacts another part of the system).

E.g. A student blaming the teacher when the student fails their subject/ course , this
unidirectional way of thinking does not take into account the student’s role in failing test
(he or she may have not studied the necessary work).
Bronfenbrenner’s ecosystemic theory
Given its focus on viewing the child as part of the larger system, this theory is particularly
popular in family therapy circles.

E.g A child presenting with oppositional behaviour will be engaged with as part of a larger
system of family or community . In this sense, systems thinking is non-blaming, as it
looks at multiple factors that impacts behaviour rather than looking to blame one isolated
cause. This emphasizes that locating blame in any one space is futile. A consequence of
this type of view of relationships as interactive and circular (rather than linear) is the
understanding that interventions must be more complex, multi-level, holistic and
preventive.
 Quick Question……..

Use the ecological systems theory to

map your own social ecosystem.
Let’s recap.