CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND AND THEORIES

Child Psychology A Canadian Perspective, 3e Alastair Younger, Scott Adler, Ross Vasta

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Instructor’s Manual Younger, Adler, Vasta Child Psychology, Third Edition 1

CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND AND THEORIES

CHAPTER OUTLINE

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS ROOTS

What is Developmental Psychology?Why Study Children?Early Theorists Pioneers of Child Psychology

ISSUES IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Nature versus Nurture Continuity versus Discontinuity Normative versus Idiographic Development

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT: COGNITIVE -DEVELOPMENTAL MODELS

Piaget's Theory Information-Processing Models

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT: THE SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH

Vygotsky’s Theory Bronfenbrenner’s Theory

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT: ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING APPROACHES

Defining Learning

• F. Skinner

Types of Learning

Research Classic: Little Albert and Little Peter

Social-Learning Theory

Canadian Contributions: Albert Bandura

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT:EVOLUTIONARY AND BIOLOGICAL APPROACHES

Behaviour and Evolution Classical Ethology Applications to Human Development

CONCLUSION

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Instructor’s Manual Younger, Adler, Vasta Child Psychology, Third Edition 2

CHAPTER SUMMARY

The scientific approach to understanding child psychology is little more than 100 years old.Scientific methods have allowed us to be meticulous in our approach so that our conclusions are based on proper evidence. The application of the scientific method to child development is an important contribution by psychologists. This method has elucidated many of the complex processes underlying what may seem to be simple behaviours.

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS ROOTS

What is Developmental Psychology?

Child psychology is the study of behavioural and ability changes occurring during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Specifically, developmental psychology is the study of changes in behaviour and abilities over the course of development, which may include adulthood and old age.Using the scientific method, developmental psychologists conduct research in order to describe children's behaviour at each point in their development and to explain or determine the causes and processes that produce behavioural changes over time.

Why Study Children?

The study of children is fascinating to developmental psychologists for five reasons: childhood is a period of rapid change, early experiences have long-term effects, complex processes are more easily understood during their formation, social policies that improve the lives of children can be influenced by research findings, and children and their experiences are inherently intriguing.

Early Theorists

Four thinkers, Locke, Rousseau, von Herder, and Darwin, are the primary forerunners of contemporary theoretical positions on child development. Locke suggested that children are born with an openness to experience and learning (and without any innate mental structures; the idea of a tabula rasa or “blank slate”) that made them susceptible to environmental influences. Locke advocated using parental attention in response to good behaviours and scolding in response to unwanted behaviour. In contrast, Rousseau argued that children are born with innate knowledge and ideas that emerge in a definite pattern over development. In addition to advancing this notion of predictable stages, adherents of the nativistic view propose that development is a function of innate processes that guide the emergence of behaviours in a predictable pattern; they suggest that development is fostered by encouraging exploration and discovery and attending to the child’s state of developmental readiness. These ideas were later incorporated by Piaget into his theory of cognitive development.

Von Herder anticipated the sociocultural views of Vygotsky, arguing that individuals are born into the definitive cultures, each of which must be considered on its own terms (cultural relativism). He was particularly interested in language as a transmitter of cultural practices and values. The notion of natural selection advanced by Darwin has impacted almost all theories of 3 / 4

Instructor’s Manual Younger, Adler, Vasta Child Psychology, Third Edition 3 development, particularly the ethological view. Natural selection explains the persistence of and change in a species as a function of selective survival among its members as a result of naturally occurring hereditary differences in individual traits that differentially affect reproduction (survival) opportunities and success. (Natural selection is an evolutionary process in which the characteristics of an individual that increase its chances of survival are more likely to be passed along to future generations.) While not a scientifically supported theory, Darwin’s ideas led to the notion of recapitulation among early developmentalists, the idea that the development of an individual replicated the development of the species. Darwin also contributed the method of a baby biography in which a parent studies his or her own child.

Pioneers of Child Psychology

The early history of developmental psychology was strongly affected by the ideas of Hall, Baldwin, Watson, Gesell, Freud, and Erikson. Hall, considered the father of child psychology, contributed little theoretical or empirical material of long-lasting importance, was important in training the first generation of child researchers, founding the APA, and inviting Freud to lecture at Clark University. Baldwin, the first academic psychologist in Canada, was known for his stage theory and the interaction between nature and nurture in development, which later influenced Piaget’s work. While initial thinking in developmental psychology focused on biological contributions, the zeitgeist (spirit of the times, the ideas shared by most scientists in a given time period) shifted to an environmental view as Watson began his work. He established the basic tenets of behaviourism, in particular emphasizing the roles of conditioning and learning processes.Watson objected to the then prevalent method of introspection, believing psychologists should study observable and measurable behaviours, utilize experimentation resting on objective and verifiable measures, and incorporate work with other species in its research protocols. The core of Watson’s approach rested on Pavlovian ideas.

Gesell brought developmental psychology back to an interest in biological phenomena.Using a wide range of methodological innovations, including film and one-way viewing screens, he studied the processes of maturation, or biological process assumed to shape human development and identified patterns of physical development in children. From this work, Gesell defined statistical norms – a timetable of age ranges within which specific growth and behaviours would typically occur – that were useful to researchers and practitioners in evaluating a child’s developmental trajectory. Critics of his work focus on Gesell’s failure to incorporate environmental explanations into his model.

Freud contributed a model of personality, pathology, and treatment, as well as a descriptive, five-stage theory of development. Freud’s theory describes the movement of libidinal energy from one erogenous zone to another as physical development proceeds, emphasizing the complications of fixation. Freud’s notion of the Oedipus complex illustrates the intricacies of his theory, adding the ideas of repression (the process through which desires or motivations are forced into the unconscious) and identification (the process through which a child adopts the characteristics of the same-sex parent in the phallic stage) to the psychological lexicon. Although strongly criticized for his lack of scientific rigor, Freud was the first major proponent of an interactionist perspective (the theory that human development results from the combination of

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