Developmental Psychology: module notes (1st year Psychology BSc)

REVISION: C81IND

LECTURE ONE: THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

- Are Children All mini adults?


BEHAVIOURISM: YES!



 Radical empiricism
 Denial of nativism
 Irrelevance of cognitive processes
 “Black Box” and Pavlov’s dogs.
 Reinforcement – positive & negative
 Shaping behaviour
 Successive approximations
 The value of comparative psychology
 Shaping – how new actions are incorporated into behaviour. e.g. Language – parents
respond positively to babies making certain sounds so they repeat them.



N A T I V I S M & M A TU R I S M




 Genetically determined behaviour
 Innate reflexes – babble, crawling, walking, talking?
 Language, perception, permanence and solidarity of the mind?
 Abilities and temperament
 Intelligence, motivation, placidity
 Noam Chomsky
 Showed infants who experiences minimal levels of language yet still learnt to talk
 Adults find it v. Difficult to learn second language – so how do children manage?
 Chomsky said infants are born with basic innate knowledge of language,
 Deep structure of language is innate and universal – same for all languages
 The kind of processing carried out by an adult is the same as a child, just better.
 Humans born with innate abilities, which take time to mature. I.e. Walking
 Maturational stages – transforms us from a baby to an adult.
 Lorenz – imprinting.
 Bowlby – said humans formed a bond of attachment with their parents and as it is a
natural process, any disruption could be detrimental to development.
 Onset of separation distress is 8 or 9 months.