This document contains a comprehensive summary of the chapters to be learned for the course Introduction to Developmental Psychology taught at Leiden University (year 1). I myself got a 10 for this course (also in combination with the summary of the lectures)
Ontwikkelingspsychologie boeksamenvatting
Chapter 1: Themes and contexts
Introduction:
Developmental psychology seeks to identify and describe changes in the way we think and behave,
and to uncover the developmental processes that drive these changes. It also seeks to understand
and explain change in individual’s cognitive, social and other capacities.
Themes of development:
Some of the most important themes are those concerning the origins of human behaviour, the
specificity of generality of change and the individual and contextual forces that define and drive
development.
Origins of behaviour: inheritance and environment
Psychologists have argued very often whether development is shaped by natural (hereditary, genetic)
forces or nurtured ones (upbringing, environment). These nature and nurture positions are referred
to as nativism and empiricism. Often a combination of inherited characteristics and environment
defines the development. Besides that, the interaction between inheritance and environment is an
active dynamic process to which the developing children themselves make an active and vital
contribution. This means children are aware of their inner processes and thus actively try to
understand and become aware of the world.
Describing developmental change:
There are 2 kinds of patterns debated for describing developmental change, namely continuity and
discontinuity.
1. Continuous development = a pattern of development in which abilities change in a gradual
and smooth way. Changes add to or build up on earlier abilities without any abrupt shifts.
2. Discontinuous development = a pattern of development in which changes occur suddenly,
resulting in qualitatively different stages or periods of development.
Critical and sensitive periods:
Some experiences are particularly important at specific ages. A critical period is a period of
development at which specific experiences are vital for development to occur in a typical way. A
sensitive period is a period of development at which particular experiences are important for typical
development. If those experiences do not occur during that period, typical development may still
occur.
Domain-general or domain-specific development:
Developmental psychologists are also curious to know whether development of a new ability or skill
also impacts other domains. Domain-general is the idea that developments can have an impact on a
wide range of abilities. Domain specific is the idea that development of various abilities occurs
independently, separately and has little impact on skills in other domains. Theorists arguing for
innate cognitive abilities characterize them often as domain-specific.
Locus of developmental change:
Levels of explanation is the way in which we choose to describe psychological abilities and the
developments of those abilities. Levels of explanation can include biological, behavioural, social and
emotional. Change is happening at all levels at once, so this explanation is not mutually exclusive. In
order to explain development, we should try to determine at which level the development primarily
takes place. E.g. A child starts to smile when interacting with parent, this can most likely be explained
,at the level of social interaction. This does not undermine the fact that development is probably
caused by a multitude of factors at all levels.
Perspectives on development:
Developmental have sometimes chosen very different ways to explain psychological development.
Individual characteristics and contextual influences:
Different genes and environment can explain individual differences in the way we grow up. Individual
characteristics can also be seen more in the corresponding contextual influences. Individuals can
sometimes also influence a situation in order to make it acceptable to display a certain characteristic.
For example, a child with an aggressive personality may seek out contexts where it can display this
characteristic. The same children who end up in an environment where this behaviour is not
acceptable might be less likely to behave aggressively.
Cultural context:
Examining development across cultures provides information about variation in the range of human
potential and expression that may emerge in different circumstances of growth.
Biological perspective:
Without a biological body, brain and nervous system we could not develop. Biological perspective on
development is crucial, this is because the interaction of our inheritance and environment does
happen at the level of neurons an patterns of functional brain activity.
The ecological perspective:
The ecological perspective is a perspective that stresses the importance of understanding not only
the relationships between organisms and various environmental systems but also the relations
among such systems themselves. This can be seen in Bronfenbrenner’s model which describes the
layers of environmental or contextual systems impacting development. The systems exist of:
Microsystem = setting in which child lives and interacts with people closest to it.
Mesosystem = comprises interrelations among the components of the microsystem
Exo-system = settings that impinge on a child’s development but with which the child has
largely indirect contact
Macrosystem = ideological and institutional patterns of a particular (sub-)culture
Bronfenbrenner refers to these 4 systems as a chronosystem
Lifespan perspective:
The lifespan perspective is a view of development as a process that continues throughout the life
cycle, from infancy through adulthood and old age. This phenomenon is often referred to as age
cohort effect which means people who were born in the same year or during the same historical
period of time. So, these researchers think describing development by only focussing on the early
years is too narrow.
Chapter 2: Theories
The role of theories in developmental psychology:
The 2 key things developmental psychologists undertake are: describing and explaining
developmental change. Developmental theories do 2 important things:
1. They help organize and integrate existing information into coherent, interesting and plausible
accounts of how children develop.
, 2. They generate testable hypotheses or predictions about children’s behaviour.
Some theories outlast others. In general theories last longer and are harder to reject with research
when: it has a broader scope (describes more than one phenomenon), novelty (is the theory
completely new?)
Origins of thought about human development:
An important question in the 17th century was whether people need experience of the world in order
to understand and perceive it.
John Locke: The child is a “tabula rasa”, they have been unable to learn of the outside world
and that is why new born infants understand nothing of it.
Rationalists: The mind imposes some kind of order on the environment in order to be able to
comprehend it (argument against Locke)
William James: New born infants perceive only a blooming buzzing confusion
Maturationists: Because of human evolution and natural selection development is shaped
more by a genetic blueprint than the environment
Behaviourism was a school of psychology prominent in the 20 th century which emphasizes the role of
learning in human behaviour and attempted to describe behaviour in such terms. The key is thus that
behaviour is driven by experience and that the changes happen gradually and continuously. The two
key learning forms they advocated were: operant and classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is
a type of learning in which to stimuli are repeatedly presented together until individuals learn to
respond to the unfamiliar stimulus in a similar way. Operant conditioning is a type of learning that
depend on the consequences of behaviour. Rewards increase the likelihood that a behaviour will
recur, whereas punishment decreases that likelihood.
Maturational theory:
In the 20th century the opposition to behaviourist school of thought was the maturational approach.
They said that an infant’s and children’s abilities are largely determined by genetic inheritance and
not so much by experience. They argued that there are biological timetables of development that
are set out in advance by the genes of our species.
Important is to mention that both behaviourists and maturationists acknowledge that nature and
nurture play a role, but do not agree on how much importance is placed on those relative roles.
The psychodynamic approach:
Psychodynamics was introduced by Freud in early 1900, it states that development occurs in discrete
stages and is determined largely by biologically based drives shaped by encounters with the
environment and through the interaction of the personality’s three components: id, ego and
superego. It is about internal motivations and personalities of individuals. Besides that, he thought
that adults’ motivations and personalities were largely shaped by experiences in childhood. Id is
someone’s instinctual drive which operates in the pleasure principle. Ego is the rational and
controlling component of personality which wants to satisfy needs through socially acceptable
behaviour. Superego internalizes parental and societal morals, values and roles and develops a
conscience or the ability to apply moral values to her own acts. Freud said development of
personality, which are thus the changes in id, ego and superego, are realised by the “five stages of
change”. Not going through a stage properly causes fixation with that stage.
Erikson was a follower of Freud but made his own theory. The psychosocial theory of development
sees children’s development through a series of stages largely through accomplishing tasks that
involve them in interaction with their social environment.
, Ethological theory and John Bowlby:
Ethological theory is a theory which hold that behaviour must be viewed and understood as
occurring in a particular context and as having adaptive or survival value. An example imprinting
which was discovered by Lorenz. Imprinting is a biologically primed form of attachment and involves
a critical period. Central to the ethological line of thought is the necessity to view and understand the
behaviour and mental processes of an organism in relation to its biology and the ecosystem within it
functions. The area of development that has been influenced most by the ethological approach is the
study of early relationships by John Bowlby. He proposed the maternal deprivation hypothesis, which
states that attachment bonds between parent and child are vital in the first few years in order for
well-adjusted socioemotional development.
Social learning theory:
The social learning theory is a theory that stresses the importance of observation and limitation in
acquisition of new behaviours, with learning mediated by cognitive processes. This learning does not
only happen by conditioning but also by observing and imitating others, also called observational
learning. Cognition is important here, children do not blindly or automatically imitate behaviour,
instead they select specific behaviours to imitate. According to Bandura 4 cognitive processes
governs how well a child will learn new behaviour by observing:
1. Attention = experience, personality characteristics, situational variables
2. Retention = rehearsal, organization, memory, recall, other cognitive skills
3. Reproduction = capacity to physically and mentally reproduce behaviour
4. Motivation = its own reason to wanting to reproduce behaviour
Piaget’s constructionism:
The most famous theoretical account of cognitive development was proposed by Jean Piaget.
Piaget’s theory is a theory of cognitive development that sees the child as actively seeking new
information. He introduced a constructionist theory. Piaget believed children’s thinking changes
qualitatively with age and it differs from the way adults think. He also thought children’s cognitive
development comes from coming up with theories and actively testing them. He proposed all
children go through 3 periods of cognitive development
Vygotsky and sociocultural development:
The sociocultural theory is a theory of development, proposed by Vygotsky, that sees development
as emerging from children’s interactions with more skilled people, and the institutions and tools
provided by their culture. His theory proposes that a child’s development is best understood in
relation to social and cultural experience, especially social interaction is seen as a critical force.
Nativist theories of cognitive development:
Nativist account of cognitive development owe a lot to Darwin’s theory of evolution, as the argument
is that our knowledge and/or mental structure has been provided through evolutionary selective
forces. An example is Chomsky who said we are born with an innate mental structure and innate
knowledge about specific aspects.
Information processing and computational accounts:
Information processing approaches are theories of development that focus on the flow of
information through the child’s cognitive system and particularly on the specific operations the child
performs between input and output phases
Neo-Piagetian information processing accounts:
Neo-Piagetian theories are theories of cognitive development that reinterpret Piaget’s concepts from
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