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 Elia Palomo Olivares
 Seminar B
 Group 71
Learning and development
ELIA PALOMO OLIVARES
Reading 1: Evolutionary psychology
Titulació. Magisteri. Esp. Educació Primària. 2n Curs.
Asignatura: Aprenentatge i Desenvolupament (I)
Professores: Ibis Álvarez i Crista Weise. Curs. 2012-2013
INDEX
Lesson 1. Biological, social and cultural basis of the process of human
development.
1.-Questions that will guide the reading and discussion……………...pages 2-6
1.1.-¿ Is it the development a prerequisite for education?..........pages 2-3
1.2.-¿ Is it the development a result of education?.....................pages 4-5
1.3.- ¿ What are the mechanisms of evolutionary change?............page 6
2.- Bring notes (Text brief summary):
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: BRIEF SYNTHESIS (my
summary)…………………………………………………………………….pages 7-8
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Titulació. Magisteri. Esp. Educació Primària. 2n Curs.
Asignatura: Aprenentatge i Desenvolupament (I)
Professores: Ibis Álvarez i Crista Weise. Curs. 2012-2013
Lesson 1. Biological, social and cultural basis
of the process of human development.
1.-Questions that will guide the reading and discussion:
1.1.-¿ Is it the development a prerequisite for education?
Trough Jesús Palacios reading “Psicología evolutiva: concepto,
enfoques, controversias y métodos” I could notice that development and
education are two complementary concepts with a bidirectional
relationship, therefore, we can assure development trough education and
we need certain level of progressive development in order to achieve a
complete an integral education.
It’s evident that the human maturity limits itself to open certain
possibilities which the context could influence with more or less impact
depending on social determination such as the socio-cultural framework,
the historical moment...
As I could deduce during the reading, the development course, is not
determined by an internal, individual and guided process, but by a huge
social and genetic change which depend on the learning process that
take place in the education agent and through socio-cultural organised
ambits.
It might be said that development is a constant process in the human
being life, which is influenced and conditioned through multiple
socialization agents the primary socialization ones (family which
implements values, language skills...) implying an intuitive knowledge,
and the secondary socialization ones (school, peers...which complete the
primary socialization abilities and implements new personal and
intellectual dimensions) so that provides the individual of structural
knowledge.
Hence, that intuitive knowledge, by the time extension, is transformed to
a structured one, and through this approach I arrived to the conclusion
that for an subject, the exposition to ontogenetic changes is constant and
our personal development drive us to acquire and be subjected to micro
genetic changes. Now it’s obvious that the cognitive psychology (1950)
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Titulació. Magisteri. Esp. Educació Primària. 2n Curs.
Asignatura: Aprenentatge i Desenvolupament (I)
Professores: Ibis Álvarez i Crista Weise. Curs. 2012-2013
has a great impact and meaning in the human development, so the
development level is proportional to the ability of self-regulating, with a
direction to simple actions to more complex actions making the individual
develop strategies and developmental structures along his/her life cycle.
Finally I have to add that, the human being along his/her life is always
developing different dimensions such as physical, social and cognitive
ones by instinctive mechanisms but also through his/her interaction
wealth that conceive individuals as the centre of multiple spheres
(Bronfenbrenner 1970) of socio-cultural tools and influences.
So it’s obvious that as humans, we have our own idiosyncratic and
genetic or inherited traits, but along the history is clearly defined that the
individual is opened to the circumstances influences and that’s one of the
main aspects which determine the human development, so human being
is able to develop by him/herself determinate instinctive developmental
traits, but also needs the influence of the school as a secondary
socialization agent to acquire new structured and strategic knowledge in
order to obtain an integral and complex evolution going up in the life
stages, that’s the reciprocal relation between these two concepts:
education and development, so I could consider the development as a
prerequisite of education but I would choose another word to describe
this connexion: “influential circumstance”.
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Titulació. Magisteri. Esp. Educació Primària. 2n Curs.
Asignatura: Aprenentatge i Desenvolupament (I)
Professores: Ibis Álvarez i Crista Weise. Curs. 2012-2013
1.2.-¿ Is it the development a result of education?
As it’s said before, the individuals development take place within all the
life cycle but this development is not only a result of education, because
there are other agents that influence and surrounds the subject
proportioning different kind of developmental structures procedent from
different situations and conditions.
Therefore, since our birth we’re changing physically but also acquiring
certain personal development mainly through the primary socialization
agents that provides the individual with an instinctive and intuitive
strategies such as language, his/her first steps...which are linked to
genetic traits and inheritance.
Obviously, after these instinctive first developments, the cognitive one
prevails in the human life stage which provides the aforementioned
structural and strategic knowledge making it developing certain abilities
such as memory, competences, social skills and an important inflection
point in his/her personal identity definition and finding "A medida que la
educación plantea nuevos interrogantes, la persona en desarrollo se ve
obligada a ir construyeno respuestas nuevas consiguiendoo niveles de
adaptación más elaborados, fruto de una tendencia continua a la
equilibracion”. 1
Hence, the integral and complete development is not only fixed by the
educational action, also by the aforementioned instinctive and genetic
processes which the individual acquire during the early childhood and
within the primary socialization agent "Para asegurarse de la proximidad
y afecto de los adultos, los pequeños adquieren toda suerte de
conductas que saben que lesa agradan (obedencia…). Las actitudes y
practicas educativas de los padres constituyen el elemento central en la
configuración de la personalidad infantil.”2
So, development is not only a result of education, it has also roots in the
genetic and sensitive-instinctive traits which denote certain hints of the
organicism models dated from the first half of S XX in Europe “plan de
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PALACIOS.J, Desarrollo psicológico y educación, 1.-Psicología evolutiva: concepto, enfoques, controversias y
métodos. Alianza Editorial 2ª edición
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PALACIOS.J, Desarrollo psicológico y educación, 1.-Psicología evolutiva: concepto, enfoques, controversias y
métodos. Alianza Editorial 2ª edición
5
Titulació. Magisteri. Esp. Educació Primària. 2n Curs.
Asignatura: Aprenentatge i Desenvolupament (I)
Professores: Ibis Álvarez i Crista Weise. Curs. 2012-2013
desarrollo innato inscrito en su organismo que se ira desplegando a
través de estadios evolutivos”.3
To conclude, I could add that reading this text, I extracted the fact that as
humans we have certain individual internal traits that make us different
but there are always external factors such as school that shape this
internal part.
3
PALACIOS.J, Desarrollo psicológico y educación, 1.-Psicología evolutiva: concepto, enfoques, controversias y
métodos. Alianza Editorial 2ª edición
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Titulació. Magisteri. Esp. Educació Primària. 2n Curs.
Asignatura: Aprenentatge i Desenvolupament (I)
Professores: Ibis Álvarez i Crista Weise. Curs. 2012-2013
1.3.-¿ What are the mechanisms of evolutionary change?
As I could read in Jesús Palacios text, the main mechanism of
evolutionary change is mainly the Darwin’s natural selection theory far
from deterministic approaches.
That theory as the author said “… constituye uno de los ingredientes
básicos de las modernas concepciones de la naturaleza humana” 4 so
here, the species that adapt themselves better to the environment
circumstances, will survive, this fact denotes that development and
evolutionary change are keys for improvement and adaptation to the
context and without them the individual couldn’t be capable to live
without acquire enough autonomy in order to live among his/her life
cycle.
Human beings as it’s said before are subjected to continuous life-long
changes and in this case the ontogenetic changes over the individual
lifetime, so this changes, genes and inheritance which are also important
concepts in Charles Darwin approach, conform also another important
mechanism or tool in the evolutionary change.
“La evolución no es algo privativo de la especie, sino que se extiende
también al individuo,…cada individuo experimentará luego una
evolución ontogenética que le habrá de llevar de la madurez inicial a la
madurez adulta.”5
The migration and the genetic drift which is another evolutionary source
that acts in a parallel way with the natural selection.
4
PALACIOS.J, Desarrollo psicológico y educación, 1.-Psicología evolutiva: concepto, enfoques, controversias y
métodos. Alianza Editorial 2ª edición
5
PALACIOS.J, Desarrollo psicológico y educación, 1.-Psicología evolutiva: concepto, enfoques, controversias y
métodos. Alianza Editorial 2ª edición
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Titulació. Magisteri. Esp. Educació Primària. 2n Curs.
Asignatura: Aprenentatge i Desenvolupament (I)
Professores: Ibis Álvarez i Crista Weise. Curs. 2012-2013
2.- Bring notes (Text brief summary)
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: BRIEF SYNTHESIS
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: The evolutionary psychology is the one
which studies the changes along the time basing it in the human behaviour
changes and transformations during periods of time.
 The changes that this psychology studies, have a normative character
(processes are applicable to all the human beings or groups of them.)
EX: in all human beings is normative the fact that they’re being cared by
someone in the first childhood stage.
 The changes that the evolutionary psychology studies have a relation
with the age factor (changes linked with age and with the period in the
human life where the individual is placed) so that implies the acquisition
of personal identity.
Along the history, this discipline was in the centre of the confluence of multiple
theories which change the vision and perspective respect the development and
evolution concepts.
S XVII-XVIII: J.Locke and JJ.Rousseau
Locke: all the intelligence passes through the experience of the individual with
his/her context. When we born we are like a “tabula rasa” empty of experiences
and psyche without content.
Rousseau: Innatism (the individual has certain innate traits and because of
that there’s an innate development plan.
XIX CENTURY: W.T Preyer, A.Binet, G.S.Hall with the analysis of the
evolutive psychology and childish development through the experimental
method (memory, intelligence and creativity studies).
J.M.Baldwin: observation of the conductual development.
HALF OF XIX CENTURY: Charles Darwin
Darwin: Natural selection (the survival of the individual more capable to the
adaptation)
FIRST HALF OF XX CENTURY: Prevailment of mecanicism (the behaviour is
originated and shaped through the experience).
J.B. Watson: emotional conditioning “experiment with baby Albert” the
emotional answer is a product of the conditioning and learning controlling
stimulus.
Skinner: the behaviour consequences are not always related with the
instinctive needs, also by the affect and approval needs.
1950: Cognitivism notions start to appear
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Titulació. Magisteri. Esp. Educació Primària. 2n Curs.
Asignatura: Aprenentatge i Desenvolupament (I)
Professores: Ibis Álvarez i Crista Weise. Curs. 2012-2013
To 1960: organicism and mechanicism: Freud and Piaget; the maxim
exponents of the organicism approaches.
1970: Bronfenbrenner’s ecologic perspective which conceives the context as
a succession of dimensions which exerts a combined influence among
development. So there’s the establishment of four analysis levels:
(Microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem).
ENDING OF S XX: The evolutionary psychology was influenced by Vygotsky’s
and Neovygotskyan approaches in different ambits such as cognitive and
linguistic development. Also it was a crescent interest about socio-cultural
aspects.
CONTEMPORARY EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: Different perspectives
with different levels of reciprocal relation between them, so there’s a diversity of
methodologies, approaches. In this phase there’s an evident pluralism with a
high amount of aspects of development and multiple contexts.
Obviously, there were controversies
Different controversies in
the evolutive psychology
Synchrony
Inheritanceenvironment
Continuity-discontinuity
This one base it in the
ineritance concept studying
the individual’s maturative
profile
Could we predict an
individual developmen if
we know his/her
development before?
There are qualitative
changes along
developmentin every stage
the contents are
developed in a synchronic
way and the highest stages
need the integration of the
precedent achievements
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Titulació. Magisteri. Esp. Educació Primària. 2n Curs.
Asignatura: Aprenentatge i Desenvolupament (I)
Professores: Ibis Álvarez i Crista Weise. Curs. 2012-2013
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