CHILD DEVELOPMENT THEORIES

AND THEORISTS.
Though many researchers have approached the study of
child development for many years, only the few of the
theories have resulted and stood the test of time and
have proven to be widely influential.
• Freud’s psychosexual stage theory.
• Erikson’s psychosocial stage theory.
• Kohlberg’s moral understanding stage theory.
• Piaget’s cognitive development stage theory.
• Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory.
• Vygosky sociocultural theory.
• Information processing
FREUD’S PSYCHOSEXUAL THEORY [1856-1939].
Sigmund Freud was an Australian neurologist and
the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method
for treating psychopathology through dialogue
between a patient and a psychoanalyst.
Freud was born in 1856 and died in 1939.
According to psychoanalytic perspective, children
move through a series of stages.
In Freud’s view, each developmental stage is
focused on sexual activity.
The pleasure received from particular area of the
body divided in to five stages:
• Oral
• Anal
• Phallic
• Latency
• Genital.
In his theory, Freud a Viennese physician
emphasizes that how parents manage their child’s
sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years
is crucial for healthy personality development.
Freud’s theory has three parts of personality:
• Id- the largest portion of the mind, the source of
basic biological needs and desires.
• Ego- the conscious, rational part of personality,
arises in early infancy to redirect the id’s desires
so they are discharged in an acceptable ways.
• Superego [3-6 years] –conscience that develops
through interactions with parents who insist that
children should conform to the values of the
society.
• Freud’s psychosexual theory: oral stage
In this phase, children are focused on the
pleasures that they receive from sucking and
biting with their mouth.
• Freud’s psychosexual theory: Anal stage
In the Anal phase, this focus shifts to the anus as
they begin toilet training and attempt to control
their bowels.
• Freud’s psychosexual theory: Phallic stage
In the Phallic stage, the focus moves to genital
stimulation and the sexual identification that
comes with having or not having a penis.
During this phase, Freud thought that children
turn their interest and love toward their parent of
the opposite sex and begin to strongly resent the
parent of the same sex.
• Freud’s psychosexual theory: Latency stage
The Phallic stage was thought to be followed by a
period of Latency where sexual needs and
interest were temporarily non-existent/absent.
• Freud’s psychosexual theory: Genital stage
Finally, children were thought to enter and
remain in a final genital stage in which adult
sexual interests and activities come to dominate.
Another part of Freud’s theory focused on
identifying the parts of consciousness.
By today’s precise scientific standards, Freud’s
theory is not considered to be very accurate.
However, it is still impontant because it was the
first stage development theory that gained real
attention, and many other theorists used it as a
starting place.
ERIK ERIKSON – PSYCHOSOCIAL STAGE THEORY
[1902-1994].
• Erik Homburger Erikson was a German-American
developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst
known fof his theory on psychological
development of human beings. Born on 1902
and died on 1994.
• Erik Erikson used Freud’s work as a starting place
to develop a theory about human stage
development from birth to death.
• Erikson focused on how peoples’ sense of
identity develops; how people develop or fail to
develop abilities and beliefs about themselves
which allow them to become productive,
satisfied members of a society.
• It is called psychosocial theory because Erikson’s
theory combines how people develop beliefs
psychologically and mentally with how they
learn to exist within a large community of peple.
• Erikson’s stages are in chronological order in
which they unfold: trust versus mistrust;
autonomy versus shame and doubt; initiative
versus guilt; industry versus inferiority; identity
versus role confusion; intimacy versus isolation,
generativity versus stagnation and integrity
versus despair.
• Each stage is associated with a time of life and
general age span. For each stage, Erikson’s
theory explains what types of stimulation
children need to master and become productive
and well-adjusted members of society.
• It also explains the types of problems and
developmental delays that can result when this
stimulation does not occur.
Trust versus mistrust phase
• It spans from birth to about age one year.
• If children are consistently provided all their
basic needs etc. They will learn that they can
trust other people in their enviroment to love
them and to take care of them, and they will
believe the world is good.
• If infants are neglected and not given these
things consistently they will learn to question
their caretakers and to believe that others will
not always be there to support them it’s needed.
• Learning to trust others is the first necessary
step to learn how to have loving, supportive
relationships with others and to have a positive
self-image.
Autonomy versus shame and doubt
• It spans ages one to three years.
• When the children are autonomous, they feel
confident that they can make their own choices
and secisions and that they will have positive
experiences.
• Children become autonomous when caregivers
are supportive and give children the safe space
to make their own decision and to experiment
with their bodies and problem solving skills
withought shaming or ridiculing the child.
• When children feel shame and doubt, they
believe that they are not capable of making valid
decision and not capable of doing everyday
tasks. This will begin inhibit a positive self-
esteem as these small children start seeing
themselves as stupid.
Initiative versus guilt
• Spans ages three to six years.
• When children develop initiative, they continue
to develop their self-concept and gain a desire to
try new things and to learn new things while
being responsible for their actions to some
extent.
• If caregivers continue to give children a safe
space to experiment and appropriate stimuli to
learn, the children will continue to to find their
purpose.
• If caregivers try to create too many strict
boundaries around what children can do and to
force too much responsibility on kids, children
will feel extreme guilt for their inability to to
complete tasks perfectly.
Industry versus enferiority
• Spans ages five to twelve years.
• At this time children are at the stage where they
will be learning to read and write, to do sums, to
do things on their own.
• They enjoy learning about new things and ideas
while in inferiority they do not particularly
learning about new things and ideas.
• Reflect a health balance between doing what
they have to do and what they like to do,
inferiority they tend to concentrate on what they
believe they have to do, neglecting what they
like to do.
• Children have a sense of pride in doing at least
one thing well, they have problems taking pride
in their work, believing it is not worth it.
• They take criticism well and use it to improve
their performance, inferiority they take criticism
poorly and use it as a reason to stop trying.
• Children tend to have a strong sense of
persistence, due to inferiority tend to have a
weak sense of persistence.
• They like the recognition that producing things
brings, which reinforces sense of industry, they
would like the recognition that production
brings, but sense of inferiority stands in the way
Identity versus role confusion
• Spans ages 12 to 18 years.
• This is a stage of adolescence, during this stage
the adolescents explore their independence and
develop a sense of self.
• During adolescence the transition from
childhood to adulthood is most important,
children are becoming more independent and
begin to look at the future in terms of career,
relationships, families and housing.
• Erikson believed that, the adolescent mind is
essentially a mind or moratorium, which means
are morality leaned and the ethics to be
developed by the adult.
• This is a major stage of development where the
child has to learn the roles he/she will occupy as
an adult. It is this stage that the adolescent will
re-examine his or her identity.
Intimacy versus isolation
• Spans ages 18 to 40 years.
• This stage takes place during young adulthood.
The major conflict centers on forming intimate
and loving relationships with other people.
• Isolation on the other hand occurs when that
person fails to find a partner. They now feel
alone and might create a feeling of inferiority.
• Generativity versus stagnation
• This stage takes place during middle adulthood
at the age of 40 to 65 years.
• Generativity refers to “making your mark” on the
world through creating or nurturing things that
will outlast them; often by parenting children or
contributing to positive changes that benefit
other people.
• Failure in generativity resulted to stagnation.
Integrity versus despair
• This stage begins at the age of 65 and ends at
death.
• At the integrity versus despair stage the key
conflict centers on questioning whether or not
the individual has led a meaningful, satisfying
life.
• Psychologists, counselors and nurses today use
the concepts of Erikson’s stages when providing
care for aging patients.
KOHLBERG’S UNDERSTANDING STAGE THEORY
[1927-1987].
• Lawrence kohlberg was an American
psychologist best known for his theory of stages
of moral development. He served as a professor
in the psychology department at the University
of Chicago and at the graduate School of
Education at Harvard University.
• Lawrence Kohlberg described three levels of
moral development.
• Pre conventional level
• Conventional level
• Post conventional level
These stages described the process through
which people learned to discriminate right from
wrong and to develop increasingly sophisticated
appreciations of morality.
Kohlberg believed that his stages were increasing;
each built off understanding and abilities gained
in prior stages.
According to Kohlberg, moral development is a
lifelong task, and many people fail to develop the
more advanced stages of moral understanding.
Pre conventional level
• Kohlberg’s first pre conventional level describes
children whose understanding of morality is
essentially driven by consequences.
• Behaviors that result in punishment are viewed
as bad and those that lead to rewards as good.
Stage 1. The punishment and obedience
orientation.
• Children at this stage find it difficult to consider
two points of view in moral dilemma [what is
wrong or right].
• They overlook people’s intentions.
Stage 2. The instrumental purpose orientation.
• Children realize that people can have different
views in a moral dilemma, but first this
• They view right action as flowing from self-interest and
understand reciprocity as equal exchange of favor.
• Conventional level
• At this level, individuals continue to regard conformity
to social rules as important, but not for reasons of self-
interest.
Stage 3. “the good boy-good girl” orientation
• Children want to mentain the affection and approval of
friends and relatives by being a good person [loyal,
respectful, trustworthy, helpful and nice]
Stage 4. The social order maintaining orientation
• Moral choices no longer depend on close ties to
others. Instead rules must be enforced in the
same manner to everyone and each member of
society must maintain them.
• In this stage, individual believes that laws should
be obeyed because they are vital for ensuring
societal order and cooperation between
individuals.
Post conventional or principled level
• Individuals at this level move beyond
unquestioning support for the rules and laws of
their own society.
• They define morality as abstract principles and
values that apply to all situations and societies.
Stage 5. The social contract orientation.
• In this stage, individuals regard law and rules as
fixable instrument for furthering human
purpose.
• They can have alternative to their own social
order.
• They emphasize fair procedures for interpreting
and changing the law.
• When laws are consistent with individual rights
and the interests of the majority, each one
follows them because of a social-contract
orientation.
Stage 6. The universal ethical principal orientation
• At this highest stage, right action is defined by
self-chosen ethical principles.
• Individuals in this stage mention abstract
principles as equal consideration of the claims of
all human beings and respect for the worth of
dignity of each person.
PIAGEt’S COGNIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY
[1896-1990].
Jean Piaget was a swiss psychologist known for his
work on child development. Piaget placed great
importance on the education of children
development.
Piaget’s cognitive development theory described
how children’s ways of thinking developed as they
interacted with the world around them.
• Jean Piaget has influenced the field of child
development more than any other
contemporary individual.
• Noth America had been aware of Piaget’s since
1930, but did not grant it much attention until
1960s.
• Piaget did not believe that children’s learning
depends on reinforcers such as rewards from
adults.
• According to his cognitive development theory ,
children actively construct knowledge as they
manipulate and explore their world.
• Piaget’s vew of development was greatly
influenced by his early training in biology.
• Central to his theory is the biological concept of
adaptation
-just as structures of the body are adapted to fit
with the environment, so structures of the mind
develop to better fit with the external world.
-Infants and early childhood, Piaget claimed that
children understand the world much differently than
adults do, and as they play and explore, their mind
learns how to think in ways that better fit with
reality. Eg, children do not realize that an object
hidden from viw still exists.
• He also concluded that preschoolers’ thinking is full
of faulty logic, eg, children under seven commonly
say that the amount of liquid changes when poured
in a different container. i.e liquid in bigger jug is less
than smaller one.
• According to Piaget, children eventually revise
these incorrect ideas in their ongoing effort to
achieve an equilibrium.
• In Piaget’s theory as the brain develops and and
children’s experiences expand they move
through four stages:
• Sensorimotor,
• Preoperational,
• Concrete operational,
• Formal operational.
Sensorimotor stage
• During the sensorimotor stage, which often lasts
from birth to age two, children are just begining to
learn how to learn.
• Though language development, and that thought,
does begin during this time, the more major tasks
occurring during this period involve children
figuring out how to make use of their bodies.
• They do this by experiencing everything with their
five senses, hence”sensory” and by learning to
crawl and then walk point and then grasp, hence,
“motor.”
• Preoperational stage
• During the preoperational stage, which often
lasts from ages two to seven. Children start to
use mental symbols to understand and to
interact with the world, and they begin to learn
language and to ingage in pretend play.
Concrete operational stage
• This stage lasting from ages seven through
eleven, children gain the ability to think logically
to solve problems and to organize information
they learn.
• However, they remain limited to considering
only concrete, not abstract, information because
at this stage the capability for abstract thought
isn’t well developed yet.
Formal operational stage
• Finally, during the formal operational stage,
which often lasts from age eleven on.
Adolescents learn how to think more abstractly
to solve problems and to think symbolically.
 RECENT THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory
[1917-2005]
• Urie Bronfenbrenner was a Russian- born
American psychologist who is most known for
his ecological systems theory.
• In 1917 to 2005 Bronfenbrenner developed the
ecological systems theory to expain how
everything in a child and the child’s environment
affects how a child grows and develops. It’s not a
stage theory.
• Bronfenbrenner labeled different aspects or
levels of the environment that influence
children’s development. Including:
• The microsystem,
• The mesosystem,
• The exosystem,
• The macrosystem.
The microsystem
• The microsystem is the small, immediate
environment the child lives in. It also includes
the activities and interaction patterns in the
child’s immediate surroundings.
• How the groups or organizations interact with
the child will have an effect on how the child
grows; the more encouraging and nurturing
these relationships and places are, the better the
child will be able to grow.
• Furthermore, how the child acts or reacts to
these people in the microsystem will affect how
they treat her in return.
• Each child’s special genetic and biologically
influenced personality traits, what is known as
temperament[disposition], end up affecting how
others treat them.
The mesosystem
• The mesosystem encompasses connections
between microsystem such as home, school,
neighborhood and child-care center.
Eg, if a child’s caregivers take an active role in a
child’s school such as going to parent-teachers
conferences and watching their child’s soccer
games, this will help ensure the child’s overall
growth.
The exosystem
• The exosystem level includes the other people and
places that the child herself may not interact with
often herself but that stil have a large affect on her,
such as parents’ workplaces, extended family
members and the neighborhood.
Eg, if a child’s parent gets laid off from work, that
may have negative effects on the child if her parents
are unable to pay rent or to buy groceries; however,
if her parent receives a promotion and a raise at
work, yhis may have the positive effects on the child
because her parents will be in a better position to
The macrosystem
• Bronfenbrenner’s final level is the macrosystem
which is the largest and most remote set of
people and things to a child but which stil has a
great influence over the child. The macrosystem
includes things such as the freedoms permitted
by the national government, cultural values, the
economy, laws, customs and wars.
These things can also affect a child either
positively or negatively.
An ever changing system
According to Bronfenbrenner, the environment is
not a fixed force that affects children in a uniform
way.
Instead it is ever changing.
• Important life events such as the birth of a
sibling. The beging of school, a move to a
different neighborhood, modify existing
relationships between children and their
environments and producing new conditions
that affect development.
• Bronfenbrenner called this temporal dimension
of his model the chronosystem.
VYGOTSKY’S SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY [1896-
1934].
• Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist, the
founder of unfinished maxist theory of human
cultural and bio-social development. Commonly
refered to as cultural-historical psychology.
• Today much research Is examining the
relationship of culturally specific beliefs and
practices to development.
• The contributions of Russian psychologist Lev
Vygotsky have played a major role in this trend.
• His theory focuses on how culture: the values,
beliefs, customs and skills of a social group is
transmitted to the next generation.
• According to Vygotsky, social interaction in
particular , cooperate dialogues between
children and more knowledgeable members of
the society is necessary for children to acquire
the ways of thinking and behaving that make up
a community culture.
• Vygotsky’s theory has been especially influential
in the study 0f children’s cognition.
• Vygotsky agreed with Piaget that children are
active, constructive beings.
• But whereas Piaget emphasized that children’s
independent efforts to make sense of their world,
Vygotsky viewed cognitive development as socially
mediated process in which children depend on
adults’ assistance as they tackle new challenges.
• In Vygotsky’s theory children undergo certain
stagewise changes.
• At the same time Vygotsky stressed that dialogues
with experts lead to continuous changes in
reasoning that vary greatly from culture to
culture.
• Research inspired by Vygotsky’s theory reveals
that children in every culture develop unique
strengths.
• But Vygotsky emphasis on culture and social
experience led him to neglect the biological side
of development.
INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY [1970s-
1980s].
• In the 1970s and 1980s researchers turned to
the field of cognitive psychology for ways to
understand the development of children’s
thinking.
• Among of the founders of information
processing theory was Gorge A. Miller who was
American psychologist. Gorge Miller was one of
the founders of cognitive psychology field.
• The design of digital computers that use
mathematically specified steps to solve problems
suggested to psychologists that the human mind
might also be viewed as a symbol-manipulating
system through which information flows. This
perspective is called information processing.
• From time the information is presented to the
senses at input to the time it emerges as a
behavioral response at output,information is
coded, transformed and organized.
• Information processing researcher often use
flowcharts to map the precise steps individuals
use to solve problems and complete tasks.
• The information processing approach is also
used to clarify the process of social information.
• It views children as active making sense of their
experiences.