EPSC122: DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

EPSC122: DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY WEEK 1&2: INTRODUCTION Development – refers to qualitative changes in behavioural characteristics of the individual leading towards maturity. Development can be inferred from the differentiation and emerging capabilities (functioning) of the individual e.g. cognitive, social, and moral, personality and motor abilities. Growth – refers to quantitative changes in development such as increase in size, weight and height. These changes are physical in nature are gradual and may involve the whole body or its parts. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Child psychology is a recent discipline. The scientific study of children started slightly over a century ago with the pioneering work of Charles Darwin. In his research on infant’s early sensory and perceptual capacities and children’s emotions, Darwin (1972) demonstrated that scientists could study infants and children. Later on John Watson continued the formal analysis of children’s learning capacities. Other psychologist such as Freud, Piaget, Erik Erikson and others whom we shall talk about later in this topic contributed significantly to our understanding of children. Some of the factors that contributed to the scientific study of children include: Social changes and changes of attitude towards children in the 17th and 18th century. Before then, children were treated as miniature adults i.e., as small adults. Intellectual movements reflected in the writings of scholars and philosophers like Plato, Aristotle etc. Their ideas reflected on children - how they should be treated, educated, their rights etc. Early scientists’ advances in research in human behaviour. Development of research methodology appropriate for the study of human development. Advances in biology and medicine. Rising industrialization. Some of the pioneers in Child research include: Charles Darwin 1870s J.B. Watson 1920s Aldous Huxley 1930s Anold Gessel 1930s B.F. Skinner 1950s Jean Piaget 1950s Erik Erikson 1963 Abraham Maslow 1960s-1970s KEY THEORIES IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Theories about the way children grow and mature serve two main functions: To organize and integrate existing information into coherent and interesting accounts of how children develop. To foster research by providing testable predictions about development and behaviour No one theory is able to account for all aspects of children or predictions about human development. Different theories take different positions on the themes of development and account for different aspects of children’s behaviour. By so doing, they complement each other rather than compete with each other. 1.LEARNING PERSPECTIVES Behavioural Theories This approach is exemplified in the work of J. B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B. F. Skinner who developed central ideas of learning, and applied these ideas to children’s development. Behaviourism holds that theories of behaviour should be based on observations of actual behaviour rather than on speculation about motives or other unobservable factors. Behavioural theories view development as a continuous process and not a discontinuous or stage-like process. Learning shapes development throughout childhood and across the entire life span. According to the behaviourists, children play a relatively passive role in their own development. Like computers, which can only do what programmers tell them to do, children do only what the environment directs that they do. In classical conditioning, Pavlov showed that a dog would learn to salivate at the sound of a bell if that sound were always associated with the presentation of food. The dog typically salivated at the appearance of food; if the food was repeatedly paired with the sound of a bell, eventually the dog learned to salivate at the sound of the bell whether or not it was accompanied by the food. Watson used classical conditioning to explain many aspects of children’s behaviour, especially emotions such as fear. For example, he conditioned a young child to peer fury animals, by showing the baby who was easily frightened by noise, a white rat and simultaneously making a loud noise. In operant conditioning, Skinner focused on the consequences of a person’s behaviour. According to this theory, behaviour is modified by the type of rewarding or punishing events that follow it. Positive reinforcement for a particular behavior will increase the likelihood of that behaviour recurring. Punishment will decrease the chances of a behaviour being repeated. This approach has shown how children’s behaviours develop and how we can change such behaviours. For example, children’s aggressive behaviour is often increased rather than decreased by the attention parents pay to such behaviour as hitting and teasing. Cognitive Social Learning Theory According to this theory, children learn not only through classical and operant conditioning but also by observing and imitating others (Bandura, 1989). Bandura showed that if children were exposed to aggressive behaviour of another person, they were likely to imitate their behaviour. Children at play watched a model punch and kick a large inflated doll in unusual ways. Later when they were left alone with the doll and other toys, they imitated the unusual aggressive behaviour, copying exactly what they had seen. Other children who did not watch the aggressive model did not display aggressive behaviour. Children who watch a great deal of television violence are more likely to develop aggressive attitudes and behaviours. The role of cognitive factors in imitation is important because children do not imitate blindly, or automatically but rather select specific behaviours to imitate. Four sets of processes determine how effectively a child will learn by observing the behaviour of others. 2.INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACHES Focus on children’s representations of information and how they operate on information to achieve their goals in a particular situation. Children take in information like computers, process it and produce behaviour (action, insight, verbalization, or a memory that is stored for later use). A child attend to information, change it into a mental or cognitive representation, store it in memory, compare it to other memories, generates various responses, makes a decision about the most appropriate response, and finally, takes some specific action. 3.BIOLOGICAL THEORIES These theories focus on the role of heredity in determining development and behaviour. For example, Lorenz’s study of imprinting behaviour in ducks and geese, (the tendency of goslings and chicks to follow the first moving object they see during the critical period). Ethnologists are biologically oriented scientists who study behaviour in natural situations. Bowlby adapted some of the concepts of ethnology (specifically of imprinting) to explain the development and importance of the attachment bond that forms between the mother and the infant. 4.COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES These perspectives hold that psychological structures and processes within the child help to determine his or her development. In Piagetian Theory, the child plays a significant role in his/her development. Children use their current knowledge of how the world works as a framework for the absorption or assimilation of new experiences. Children modify their existing knowledge by incorporating new information into its framework or mental structures. Through the process of accommodation, they modify these frameworks in response to the new input from their environment. Children actively interpret and make sense of the information and events they encounter. They actively seek experience in order to build their cognitive worlds. The way the child organizes new information depends on his/her level of cognitive development. Piaget proposed that children go through several stages of cognitive development, each characterized by qualitatively different ways of thinking, organizing knowledge, and solving problems. 5.PSYCHODYNAMIC/PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVES This approach proposes that dynamic forces within the individual determine motivation and behaviour. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of development, psychological change and growth are governed by unconscious drives and instincts. He stressed the role of drives such as sex, aggression and hunger in determining behaviour. For Freud, the developing personality consists of three interrelated parts: the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id operates on the pleasure principle, which is oriented toward maximizing pleasure and satisfying needs immediately. It is the irrational part of personality. As the infant develops, the ego or the rational (controlling) part of personality enlarges. The ego attempts to gratify needs through appropriate socially constructive behaviour. The superego which is the third component of personality emerges when the child internalizes (accepts and absorbs) parental or social morals, values, and roles and develops conscience, or the ability to apply moral values in judging his/her own acts. According to Sigmund Freud, development is a discontinuous process (i.e. a process marked by distinct stages of development). He proposed five discrete stages of development. These are; Oral Stage (0 – 1 year), Anal Stage (1 – 3 years) Phallic Stage (3 – 6 years), The Latency Stage (6 – 12 years) and The Genital Stage (12 year onwards). In each of these stages, biological forces orchestrate the relations between the developing child and his/her world. Erikson’s version of psychoanalytic theory emphasizes psychosocial contexts, whereby individual are shaped by the interaction of personal characteristics and social forces. Erikson describes eight successive stages of psychosocial development.