Chapter 1 - Developmental Psychology: Themes and Contexts
Developmental Psychology= a field of study that seeks to understand and explain change in
individuals’ cognitive, social and other capacities, first by describing changes in the child’s
observed behaviours and second by uncovering the processes that underlie these changes.
Nature vs. Nurture
Nativism= the idea that development is primarily determined by inherited factors (i.e.
genetics).
Empiricism= the idea that development is primarily determined by environmental influences.
The combination of the child's inherited characteristics, the way they express these
characteristics behaviourally and the abusive environment itself, puts a particular child at
risk.
Continuity vs. Discontinuity
Continuous Development= a pattern of development in which abilities change in a gradual
and smooth way.
Discontinuous Development= a pattern of development in which changes occur suddenly
resulting in qualitatively different stages (periods) of development.
Critical and Sensitive Periods
Critical Period= a period of development (age range) at which specific experiences are vital
for development to occur in a typical way.
Sensitive Period= a period of development (age range) 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 Development= the idea that development can have an impact on a wide
range of abilities.
Domain-Specific Development= the idea that various abilities occurs independently
(separately) and has little impact on skills in other domains.
Level of Explanation= 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.
Perspectives on Development
- Cultural Contexts: different cultures influence experiences.
- Biological Perspective: development and the interaction of our inheritance and
environment does happen at the level of neurons and patterns of functional brain
activity.
, - Ecological Perspective (Bronfenbrenner)= stresses the importance of understanding
not only the relationships between organisms and various environmental systems but
also the relations among such systems themselves.
Microsystem= the setting in which the child
lives and interacts with the people and
institutions closest to them.
Mesosystem= comprises the interrelations
among the components of the microsystem.
Exosystem= composed of settings that
impinge on a child’s development but with
which the child has largely indirect contact.
Macrosystem= represents the ideological
and institutional patterns of a particular
culture or subculture.
Chronosystem= the process of these four
systems changing over time.
- The Lifespan Perspective= a view of development as a process that continues
throughout the life cycle, from infancy through adulthood and old age.
Age Cohort= people born within the same generation, who share the same historical
experiences.
Chapter 2 - Theories in Developmental Psychology
Empiricists (John Locke (1632-1704), William James (1890))= argued that infants are born
into the world tabula rasa (as a ‘blank slate’). Emphasizes nurture and the role of the
environment.
Rationalists (Charles Darwin)= argued that the mind imposes some kind of order on the
environment in order to comprehend it. Emphasizes nature and inheritance.
Behaviourism and Maturationism in the Early Twentieth Century
Behaviourism= a school of psychology prominent in the early twentieth century, which
emphasized the role of learning in human behaviour and attempted to describe behaviour in
such terms. ‘Changes in behaviour are driven by experience and these changes happen
gradually and continuously‘.
Classical Conditioning= a type of learning in which two stimuli are repeatedly presented
together until individuals learn to respond to the unfamiliar stimulus in the same way they
respond to the familiar stimulus.
Operant Conditioning= a type of learning that depends on the consequences of behaviour;
rewards increase the likelihood that a behaviour will recur, whereas punishment decreases
that likelihood.
Maturational Approach= an early approach to explaining development in terms of
maturational timetables, predetermined by genetic inheritance.
Psychodynamics and Ethology
Psychodynamics Theory (Sigmund Freud)= view of development, derived from Freudian
theory, 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: the id, the ego and superego. Personality development
involves 5 stages: the oral (mouth), anal (toilet training), phallic (sexual urges), latency
(sexual urges repressed) and genital stage (sexual desires emerge).
Id= the person’s instinctual drives; the first component of the personality to evolve, the id
operates on the basis of the pleasure principle.
Ego= the rational, controlling component of the personality, which tries to satisfy needs
through appropriate, socially acceptable behaviours.
Superego= the personality component that is the repository of the child’s internalization of
parental or societal values, morals and roles. A conscience, or the ability to apply moral
values to your own acts.
Psychosocial Theory (Erik Erikson)= Erikson’s theory of development, which sees children
developing through a series of stages largely through accomplishing tasks that involve them
in interaction with their social environment. There are 8 stages: infancy (trust), early
childhood (self-control and autonomy), play age (initiative), school age (industry),
adolescence (identity), young adulthood (intimacy), adulthood (generativity) and mature age
(integrity). There are risks if the individual fails to proceed through the stages successfully.
Ethological Theory= a theory which holds that behaviour must be viewed and understood as
occurring in a particular context and as having adaptive or survival value. Views and
understands the behavior and mental processes of an organism in relation to its biology and
the ecosystem in which it functions.
John Bowlby (1944)= famous psychoanalyst, ‘maternal deprivation in early life leads to
socioemotional difficulties, particularly in forming relationships with others’.
Grand Theories of Cognitive Development
Social Learning Theory= a learning theory that stresses the importance of observation and
imitation in the acquisition of new behaviours, with learning mediated by cognitive
processes.
Observational Learning= learning that occurs through observing the behaviour of others.
Albert Bandura= ‘Four cognitive processes govern how well a child will earn a new behaviour
by observing another person.’
Attention= attending to a model’s behaviour (experience, personality characteristics,
relationship with model, situational variables).
Retention= retaining the observed behaviours in memory (rehearsal, organization, recall,
other cognitive skills).
Reproduction= the capacity, physically and intellectually, to reproduce the behaviour
(cognitive representation, concept matching, use of feedback).
Motivation= a reason to reproduce the behaviour (external incentives, vicarious incentives,
self-evaluation & incentives, internalized standards, social comparison).
Piagetian Theory= a theory of cognitive development that sees the child as actively seeking
new information.
Constructionist Theory (Jean Piaget)= proposes that children’s thinking changes qualitatively
with age and that it differs from the way adults think.
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