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The Science of Child Development
What is a theory?
A theory is a coherent set of ideas that helps explain data and make predictions. It
contains hypothesis, assumptions that can be tested to determine their accuracy.
The scientific method:
An approach that can be used to discover accurate information about behaviour and
development that includes the following steps:
1.
2.
3.
4.
identify and analyze the problem
collect information/data
draw conclusions
revise the theory
Overview of the theories of Child Development
1.
Psychodynamic
Development is primarily unconscious – beyond awareness and is heavily coloured
by emotion. Psychodynamic theorists believe that behaviour is merely a surface
characteristic and that to truly understand development, we have to analyze the
symbolic meanings of behaviour and the deep inner workings of the mind. They
stress that early experiences with parents extensively shape our development.
Freud’s Theory (1856-1939)
Three structures of personality

The Id: - the Freudian structure of personality that consists of instincts,
which an individual’s reservoir of psychic energy. (Unconscious and has
no contact with reality).

The ego: - deals with the demands of reality. It is called the executive
branch of personality because it makes rational decisions. (the id and ego
have no morality- they do not take into account whether something is right
or wrong).

The superego: - the moral branch of personality. We often refer to it as
our ‘conscience.’
kgayphell – PGCE & B.Ed. I
The anxiety of the conflict of these structures of personality according to
Freud is reduced through repression, which is the most powerful and
pervasive defense mechanism.
Freud’s five stages of psychosexual development
1. The oral stage
(first 18 months of life)
The infant’s pleasure centers around the mouth.
Chewing, sucking and biting are the chief sources of
pleasure.
2. The anal stage
(between 18 mths. and 3 years)
The child’s greatest pleasure involves the anus or the
eliminative functions associated with it. Freud
believes that the exercise of anal muscles reduces
tension.
3. The phallic stage
(between 3 and 6 years)
-Pleasure is mainly focused on the genitals as the
child discovers that self-manipulation is enjoyable.
(Oedipus complex).
4. The latency stage
(approx. between 6 and puberty)
The child represses all interest in sexuality and
develops social and intellectual skills.
5. The genital stage
(from puberty on …..)
The source of sexual pleasure becomes someone
outside of the family. It is a time of sexual
reawakening.
Erickson’s Theory (1902-1994)

He argues that we develop in psychosocial stages, in contrast to Freud’s
psychosexual stages.

Emphasizes developmental change throughout the human life span, where as
Freud argued that our basic personality is shaped in the first 5 years of life.

Eight stages of development unfold in Erickson’s theory.
kgayphell – PGCE & B.Ed. I
Erickson’s eight stages of psychosocial development
Erickson’s stages
Developmental
period
Characteristics

Trust vs Mistrust
(the first year of
life)


Autonomy vs
Shame
Initiative vs Guilt
Late infancy –
toddler (1 to 3
years)
(Preschool years)




Industry vs
Inferiority
(approx. elementary
school years)
(during the
Identity vs
Identity confusion adolescent years)




A sense of trust requires a feeling of
physical comfort
a minimal amount of fear and anxiety
about the future
infant’s basic needs are met by
responsive, sensitive caregivers.
begin to discover and own their behaviour
assert their sense of autonomy or
independence and realizes their will.
children are challenged more and need to
develop an active, purposeful behaviour to
cope with challenges
assume responsibility for their bodies,
their behaviour, their toys, and their pets.
enthusiastic about learning
they direct their energy toward mastering
knowledge and intellectual skills.
confronted with new roles and adult
statuses (an important dimension is the
exploration of alternative solutions to
roles)
finding out who they are, what they are all
about, and where they are going in life
(career exploration is important)
Intimacy vs
Isolation
(early adulthood
years)

face the developmental task of forming
intimate relationships with others.
Generativity vs
Stagnation
(Middle adulthood)

Integrity vs
Despair
(late adulthood)

a chief concern is to assist younger
generation in developing and leading
useful lives.
Individuals look back and evaluate what
they have done with their lives. The
retrospective glances can either be
positive (integrity) or negative (despair).
kgayphell – PGCE & B.Ed. I
Cognitive Theories
Cognitive theories emphasize the importance of children’s conscious thoughts.
Two important cognitive theories are Piaget’s cognitive theory and information
processing.
Piaget’s cognitive development theory
Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
Piaget stressed that children actively construct their own cognitive worlds. He believes
that children adapt their thinking to include new ideas because additional information
enhances their understanding.
Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development
Stages
Sensorimotor
Age Range
Birth to
2 yrs.
Preoperational 2 to 7 yrs.
Concrete
Operational
Formal
operational
7 to 11 yrs.
11 to 15
yrs.
Description
An infant progresses from reflexive, instinctual action at
birth to the beginning of symbolic thought. The infant
constructs an understanding of the world by coordinating
sensory experiences with physical actions.
The child begins to represent the world with words and
images reflect increased symbolic thinking and go beyond
the connection of sensory information and physical action.
The child can now reason logically about concrete events
and classify objects into different sets.
The adolescent reasons in more abstract and logical ways.
Thought is more idealistic.
Information Processing
Information processing is concerned with how individuals process information about
their world – how information enters the mind, how it is stored and transformed, and how
it is retrieved to perform such complex activities as problem solving and reasoning.
A model of cognition
Information
from the
environment
Sensory and
perceptual
processes
Memory
Thinking
Language
kgayphell – PGCE & B.Ed. I
Cognition begins when children detect information from the world through their sensory
and perceptual processes. Then children store, transform, and retrieve the information
through the processes of memory. The model above does not represent sharp, distinct
stages in processing information. However, it is designed to illustrate the main cognitive
processes and their interrelations. For example, information can flow between thinking
and sensory and perceptual processes and between language and memory as well.
Behavioural and Social Learning Theories
Behaviourism emphasizes that we should examine only what can be directly observed
and measured. The belief that development is observable behaviour, learned through
experience with the environment grew out of the behavioural tradition (emphasizing the
scientific study of observable behaviour responses and their environmental determinants).
Three versions of the behavioural tradition
 Pavlov and classical conditioning
 Skinner and operant conditioning
 Bandura and social learning theory
Classical conditioning
Classical conditioning is a learning process in which a neutral stimulus acquires the
ability to produce a response originally produced by another stimulus.
Reflexes are automatic stimulus-response connections.
E.g. shivering in response to low temperature, pupil constriction in response to light.
An unconditioned stimulus (US) is a stimulus that produces a response without prior
learning. An unconditioned response (UR) is an unlearned response that is
automatically associated with the US. (E.g. the saliva from the dog’s mouth in response
to the food.)
Conditioned stimulus (CS) is a previously neutral stimulus that eventually elicits the
conditioned response after being paired with the unconditioned stimulus. Conditioned
response (CR) is the learned response to the conditioned stimulus that occurs after CSUS pairing.eg. Bell and the salivation of a dog for the food.
Operant conditioning (Instrumental conditioning)
B.F. Skinner (1938)
Operant conditioning is a form of learning in which the consequences of behaviour
produce changes in the probability of the behaviour’s occurrence. In operant
conditioning, an organism acts, or operates, on the environment to produce a change in
the probability of the behaviour’s occurrence.
.
kgayphell – PGCE & B.Ed. I
The consequences-rewards or punishments-are contingent on the organism’s behaviour.
Reinforcement (rewards) is a consequence that increases the probability behaviour will
occur. By contrast, punishment is a consequence that decreases the probability that
behaviour will occur.
Social learning theory
Albert Bandura
Social learning theorists emphasize behaviour, environment, and cognition as the key
factors in development. Bandura and Mischel believe that cognitive processes are
important mediators of environment-behaviour connections. Bandura focused heavily on
observational learning, learning that occurs through observing what others do.
For example, a young boy might observe his father’s aggressiveness outburst and hostile
interchanges with people, and then with his peers, display a style of interaction that is
highly aggressive, showing the same characteristics as his father’s behaviour.
Ethological Theory
Konard Lorenz (1930-1989)
Ethology emerged as an important view because of the work of European zoologists,
especially. Ethology stresses that behaviour is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to
evolution, and is characterized by critical or sensitive periods. Unlike behaviourism,
ethologists believe that laboratories are not good settings for observing behaviour; rather,
they meticulously observe behaviour in its natural surroundings, in homes, playgrounds,
neighbourhoods, so on (Hinde, 1992).
Lorenz studied a behaviour pattern that was considered to be programmed within the
bird’s genes. He observed that a newly hatched gosling seemed to be born with the
instinct to follow its mother. Lorenz called this process imprinting, the ethological
concept of rapid, innate learning within a limited critical period of time that involves
attachment to the first moving object seen.
However, classical ethological theory was weak in stimulating studies with humans. In
particular, there was little or nothing in the classical ethological view about the nature of
social relationships across the human life span.
Ecological Theory
Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917--) has proposed a strong environmental view of children’s
development that is receiving increased attention. Ecological theory is Bronfenbrenner’s
sociocultural systems ranging from the fine-grained inputs of direct interactions with
social agents to the broad based inputs of culture.
kgayphell – PGCE & B.Ed. I
Bronfenner’s ecological model

The microsystem is the setting in which an individual lives. This context includes
the person’s family, peers, school, and neighbourhood.

The mesosystem involves relationships between Microsystems or connections
between contexts. (eg. The relation of family experiences to peer experiences).

The exosystem involves when experiences in a social setting – in which the
individual does not have an active role – influence what the individual
experiences in an immediate context. For example, work experiences can affect a
woman’s relationship with her husband and their children.

The macrosystem involves the culture in which individual lives. Culture refers to
the behaviour patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group of people that are
passed on from generation to generation.

The chronosystem involves the patterning of environmental events and
transitions over the life course and sociohistorical circumstances.
Source: Santrock, J. W. (1998). Child Development (8th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill.
kgayphell – PGCE & B.Ed. I