1.5 Lectures
Lecture 1
There is no normal or abnormal, but typical age ranges. Development means change in a variety of areas such
as physical, social, emotional, cognitive, etc. Change is a life-long process which focus between prenatal and
18 years. Development psychology identifies or describes what is normal, comprehend or explain the behavior
of children, and predict or change how the child will be. Hemes central in the course:
Nature versus nurture
Development in stages or continuous process
Universal development or culturally determined
Think about what do the theories propose about the influences on the behavior of the child.
History of developmental psychology
John Locke thought all children was a blank slate. He thought that careful instructions, example of parent, and
reward good behavior would lead to a good adult. Later, Jacques Rousseau believed the child was tabula rasa
but a noble savage. In other words, they knew deep down every child had a moral compass so to say. Parents
were the ones that either did a good job and the child became a normal adult or they screwed up their children.
The similarities of both guys are that children were instinctly curious. Then, Charles Darwin was the first to talk
about the emotional development of children.
The person who really started developmental psychology was Stanley Hall. He took a normative approach by
collecting objective data on a large number of children. He stated that only child had a disease because they
couldn't socialize with their siblings at a small age. Alfred Binet developed the Stanford-Binet intelligence test.
Freud developed the psychosexual theory so depending on the interaction with the parents, the child would
be a normal or abnormal adult. Some useful aspects of his theory are free association (talk about whatever a
person is thinking which leads to the problems they have) and transference (transfer to whatever you are
thinking to your patient or vice versa). Some criticism include that it was unaffordable, doesn’t have a
theoretical basis, women are inferior, and not everything related to sex.
Eric Erikson came along and included cultural influence. He created the psychosocial theory. John B Watson
started a new approach called behavioralism since he believed that we should only study what can be
observed. He thought that we learned by experience and thus, the surroundings were a strong influence on
ones the development. Pavlov then came up with classical conditioning which states that at one point a new
stimulus leads to existing behavior 0; association. Overall, all this theories led to more current theories:
Operant conditioning (Skinner): rewards and punishment. After a person shows a random behavior a
reward would lead to repetition of that behavior, while if the behavior is punished then it doesn’t
happen again.
Albert Bandura: modeling. We copy what we see.
Piaget: cognitive development.
Vygotsky: culture and social learning is important. Cognitive development
Lorenz: innate behavior to see follow our first care taker.
Lecture 1
There is no normal or abnormal, but typical age ranges. Development means change in a variety of areas such
as physical, social, emotional, cognitive, etc. Change is a life-long process which focus between prenatal and
18 years. Development psychology identifies or describes what is normal, comprehend or explain the behavior
of children, and predict or change how the child will be. Hemes central in the course:
Nature versus nurture
Development in stages or continuous process
Universal development or culturally determined
Think about what do the theories propose about the influences on the behavior of the child.
History of developmental psychology
John Locke thought all children was a blank slate. He thought that careful instructions, example of parent, and
reward good behavior would lead to a good adult. Later, Jacques Rousseau believed the child was tabula rasa
but a noble savage. In other words, they knew deep down every child had a moral compass so to say. Parents
were the ones that either did a good job and the child became a normal adult or they screwed up their children.
The similarities of both guys are that children were instinctly curious. Then, Charles Darwin was the first to talk
about the emotional development of children.
The person who really started developmental psychology was Stanley Hall. He took a normative approach by
collecting objective data on a large number of children. He stated that only child had a disease because they
couldn't socialize with their siblings at a small age. Alfred Binet developed the Stanford-Binet intelligence test.
Freud developed the psychosexual theory so depending on the interaction with the parents, the child would
be a normal or abnormal adult. Some useful aspects of his theory are free association (talk about whatever a
person is thinking which leads to the problems they have) and transference (transfer to whatever you are
thinking to your patient or vice versa). Some criticism include that it was unaffordable, doesn’t have a
theoretical basis, women are inferior, and not everything related to sex.
Eric Erikson came along and included cultural influence. He created the psychosocial theory. John B Watson
started a new approach called behavioralism since he believed that we should only study what can be
observed. He thought that we learned by experience and thus, the surroundings were a strong influence on
ones the development. Pavlov then came up with classical conditioning which states that at one point a new
stimulus leads to existing behavior 0; association. Overall, all this theories led to more current theories:
Operant conditioning (Skinner): rewards and punishment. After a person shows a random behavior a
reward would lead to repetition of that behavior, while if the behavior is punished then it doesn’t
happen again.
Albert Bandura: modeling. We copy what we see.
Piaget: cognitive development.
Vygotsky: culture and social learning is important. Cognitive development
Lorenz: innate behavior to see follow our first care taker.
