The five basic issues in human development
1. Goodness/Badness: underlying good and evil
2. Nature/Nurture: heredity or environment most influential
3. Activity/Passivity: Development- self determination or by others
4. Continuity/Discontinuity: stages or gradual
5. Universality/Context Specificit
Psychoanalytic theory
proposes that people are driven by motives and emotional conflicts of which they are largely unaware and that they are shaped by their earliest experiences in the family
Freud
-psychoanalytic theorist
- instincts and unconscious motivation
-psychic energy: id, ego, and superego
Instincts
inborn biological forces that motivate behavior
Unconscious motivation
the power of instincts and other inner forces to influence our behavior without our awareness
Id
the impulsive, irrational, and selfish part of the personality whose mission is to satisfy the instincts
Ego
the rational side of the individual that tries to find realistic ways of gratifying the instincts; begins in infancy
Superego
the individuals internalized moral standards
Dynamic system
regular conflicts within
Libido
Freud's term for the psychic energy of the sex instinct
Frued's Psychosexual Development
- child moves through five stages: oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital
-Stages result from conflict between Id and Superego
- Conflict creates anxiety
- Ego defends against anxiety with defense mechanisms
- early experiences have long-term effects on
Oral stage (birth-1)
libido is focused on the mouth as source of pleasure
Fixation
arrested development in which part of the libido remains tied to an earlier stage of development
Anal stage (1-3)
focused on toilet training which can create conflicts between the childs biological urges and the societys demands
Phallic stage (3-6)
Centered on the genitals; development of the superego occurs
Identification
involves taking on or internalizing the attitudes and behaviors of another person
Oedipus complex
a boy experiencing love for his mother
Electra complex
a girl experiencing desire for her father
Latent period (6-12)
sexual urges are tamed; energy is invested in school work and play with same-sex friends
Genital period(12+)
puberty rewakens the sexual instincts; seek to establish mature sexual relationships
Defense mechanisms
unconsicous coping devices the body creates to defend itself against anxiety
Repression
removing unacceptable thoughts or traumatic memories from consciousness
Regression
retreating to an earlier, less traumatic stage of development
Projection
seeing in others the motives we fear we possess
Reaction formation
expressing motives that are just the opposite of ones real motives
Strengths and weaknesses of Freuds theory
Strengths- awarness of unconscious motivation and emphasized important early experience
Weaknesses- ambiduous, inconsistent, not testable, and not supported by research
Erikson: Neo-freudian psychoanalytic theory
- most influential neo-freudian theorist
- like freud, concerned himself wit hthe inner dynamics of personality and proposed that the personality evolves through systematic stages
- differences from freud: less emphasis on sexual urges, more emphasis on r
8 Psychosocial stages (conflcits)
1. Trust vs. mistrust (birth-1yr)-
2. Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (1 to 3)
3. Intiative vs. guilt (3-6)
4. Industry vs. inferiority (6-12)
5. Identity vs. role (12-20)
6. Intimacy vs. isolation (20-40)
7. Generativity vs. stagnation (40-65)
8. Integrity
Trust vs. mistrust stage
infants must learn to trust their caregivers to meet their needs
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
children must learn to be autonomous
Initiative vs. guilt stage
preschoolers develop initiative by devising and carrying out bold plans, but they must learn not to impinge on the rights of others
Industry vs. inferiority stage
children must master important social and academic skills and keep up with their peers
Identity vs. role confusion stage
adolescents ask who they are and must establish social and vocational identites
Intimiacy vs. isolation Stage
young adults seek to form a shared identity with another person, but may fear intimacy and experience loneliness and isolation
Generativity vs. stagnation stage
middle-aged adults must feel that they are producing something that will outlive them, either as parents or as workers
Integrity vs. despair stage
older adults must come to view their lives as meaningful to face death without worries and regrets
Strengths and weaknesses of Erikson's theory
Strengths: focus on identity crisis of adolescence still most relevant, emphasis on rational and adaptive nature, interaction of biological and social influences
Weaknesses: sometimes vague and difficult to test, and does not explain how development comes
Behaviorism
consclusions should be based on observable beavior
Watson
behaviorist that created classical conditioning
Classical conditioning
a simple form of learning in which a stimulus that initially had no effect on the individual comes to elicit a response through its association with a stimulus that already elicits the response
Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
built-in; unlearned stimulus
Unconditioned response
automatic, unlearned response
Conditioned stimulus
stimulus causes learned response
Conditioned response
learned response
Tabula rasa
environmental view
Skinner: Operant conditioning
a learner's behavior becomes either more or less probable depending on the consequences it produces
Positive reinforcement
a desirable event that when introduced following a behavior makes that behavior more probable
Negative reinforcement
occurs when a behavioral tendency is strengthened because something unpleasant or undesirable is removed from the situation or is avoided after the behavior occurs
Positive punishment
an unpleasant stimulus is applied or added to the situation following a behavior
Negative punishment
when a desirable stimulus is removed following the behavior
Badura: social cognitive theory
-formally called social learning theory
- claims that humans are cognitive beings whoe active processing of information plays a critical role in their learning, behavior, and development
- people think about their connections between their behavior and it
Observational learning
simply learning by observing behavior of other people
Latent learning
learning occurs but its not evident in behavior
Vicarious reinforcement
a process in which learners become more or less likely to perform a behavior based on whether consequences experienced by the model they observe are reinforcing or punishing
Reciprocal determinism
the flow of incluence between people and their environments is a two-way street; the environment may affect the person, but the person's characteristics and behavior will also influence the environment
Strengths and weaknesses of learning theory
Strengths: precise and testable, carefully controlled experiments, practical applications across lifespan
Weaknesses: inadequate account of lifespan changes, and ignored genetic and maturational processes
Piaget: Cognitive Development
- Intelligence: ability to adapt to environment (IQ test)
- Constructivism: children construct new understandings of the world based on their experiences
Interactionist
both biological maturation and experince required for developmetnal progress
Piaget's Stage theory
At each new stage, children think in a qualitatively different way
Piaget's four stages of cognitive development:
1. Sensorimotor: senses and motor actions
2. Preoperational: symbolic thinking (language)
3. Concrete operational: acquire logical operations
4. Formal operations: think about abstract concepts and hypothetical possibilities
Strengths and Weaknesses of cognitive development
Strengths: well-accepted by developmentalists, well-researched, and influenced education and parenting
Weaknesses: igonores motivation and emotion and stages are not universal, especially the last one
Ethological theory: Karl Lorentz
- Imprinting (attachment)
- Ethological theory: strongly influenced by biology and tied to evolution
- Bowlby's attachment theory
- Critical period: 3 months-using eyes
Pros and cons to Lorentz
Pros- emphasis on biology and evolution, sensitive periods of development, and careful observations
Cons- emphasis on biological foundations, inadequate attention to cognition, and emphasis on animal behavior
Lev Vygotsky: Sociocultural perspective
- cognitive development is a social process
- problem solving aided by dialogues
Gottlieb: Evolutionary/epigenetic systems
- genes, neural activity, behavior, and environment are mutually influential
- we are predisposed to develop in certain kinds of ways
- current behavior results from past adaptation
Epigenesis
- the process through which nature and nuture, genes and environment, jointly bring forth development in ways that are dificult to predict at the outset
- genes alone don't influence behavior
Ethology
the study of evloved behavior of various species in their natural environment
Strengths and weaknesses of Gottlieb
-Strengths: stresses the interaction of nature and nuture
- Weaknesses: only partially formulated and tested, and no coherent developmental theory