Developmental psychology

Developmental psychology

1. What is developmental psychology?

   • The scientific study of human development

2. Different domains of development

   • Physical development
     • Body changes: Height and weight
     • Brain development
     • Motor development
     • Effect of factors such as heredity, hormones and nutrition
   • Cognitive development
     • Cognition refers to how we acquire information about the world by our senses
     • How children come to understand their world
     • Includes perception, learning, memory, decision-making, imagination, creativity, language and intelligence
   • Personality development
     • Personality is the totility of a person's psychological, social, moral and physical characteristics
     • Personality = Unique
     • Parts of personality development
       • Self: Core of personality
       • Self-concept: How a person evaluates him-/herself
       • Identity: The way a person identifies him or herself in relation to other individuals or social groups
   • Social development
     • Development of the individual's interaction and relationships with other people.
     • Influenced by society and significant others
     • Development of attachment between caregiver and child.
     • Expansion of interpersonal relationships
     • Development of relationships between the sexes
     • Moral development
     • Religion and spirituality are learned in the social context

3. Stages of development

   • 1. Prenatal stage
   • 2. Neonatal stage
   • 3. Infancy
   • 4. Early childhood
   • 5. Middle childhood
   • 6. Adolescence

4. Developmental issues

   • Nature vs Nurture
     • Nature = Biological determinants
     • Nurture = Social and physical environment
     • Cause-effect issue
     • Interaction & the effect of interaction, between heredity and environment = more important
   • Continuity or discontinuity
     • Continuity = Gradual / smooth development
     • Discontinuity = Occurs in distinct steps / stages
     • Both is correct, depending on the type of behaviour
   • Active or passive involvement
   • Cultural or universal perspective
     • Do all children in the world follow universal development pathways or are there clear differences along the cultural line?
     • Context = The setting or specific environment where development takes place
     • Culture's influence on development
       • Ensuring that children acquire the necessary attributes and skills to make them competent adults
       • Children are more exposed to cultural influences than universal influences
       • Role of parent practice differs
       • Paths of development differ (Collectivistic vs Individualistic)

5. Developmental theories

   • Cognitive development theory: Development reflects on children's efforts to understand the world
     • Piaget's theory
       • Emphasizes the different stages of thinking that result from children's changing theories of the world.
       • Children naturally try to make sense of the world
       • 4 Stages of cognitive development
         • Stage 1: Sensorimotor
           • Birth - 2 years
           • Infants' understanding of the world is acquired through senses
         • Stage 2: Preoperational
           • 2 - 6 years
           • Children start to use language and symbols to represent ideas and objects
         • Stage 3: Concrete operational
           • 7 - 11 years
           • Logical thinking developes
           • Abstract thinking is still absent
         • Stage 4: Formal operational
           • 12 years and older
           • Adolescent or adult starts thinking abstractly, speculates and reasons about what may be possible
     • Information-processing theory
       • Emphasizes changes in thinking that reflect changes in perception, attention, memory, and problem-solving skills
       • Memory system
         • Sensory memory: Where information is recognized
         • Short term memory: The working memory where information is processed
         • Long term memory: Where information is permanently stored
   • Contextual development theory: Development is influenced by immediate and more distant environment, which typically influence one another
     • Vygotsky's theory
       • Emphasizes the role of parents (and other adults) in developing skills and conveying culture to the next generation
       • Zone of proximal development: Refers to tasks which are too difficult for a child to do alone, but which he or she can manage with the help of an adult
     • Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory
       • Emphasizes the reciprocal influences of the microsystem, mesosystem, ecosystem and macrosystem
     • Super & Harkness' theory
       • Identifies the developmental niche that consists of 3 components in order to incorporate the child's immediate cultural environment
   • African perspective
     • Views development as social ontogenesis because it unfolds within a culture
     • 3 phases of selfhood is identified & 7 phases in the social selfhood are indicated, each consisting of specific developmental tasks
   • Psychodynamic perspective: Development is determined primarily by how a child resolves (mainly unconsciously) conflicts at different ages
     • Freud's theory
       • Psychosexual developmental stages
         • Each stage focus on a different erogenous zone, dominated by sexual instincts
         • Fixation = Problems that result due to permitting too little or too much gratification of these urges
         • 5 Stages
           • Stage 1: Oral
             • 0-2 years
             • Infant achieves gratification through oral activities such as feeding, thumb sucking and babbling
           • Stage 2: Anal
             • 2-3 years
             • The child learns to respond to some of the demands of society (such as bladder control)
           • Stage 3: Phallic
             • 3-7 years
             • The child learns to realize the differences between males and females and becomes aware of sexuality
           • Stage 4: Latency
             • 7-11 years
             • The child continues his or her development but sexual urges are relatively quite
           • Stage 5: Genital
             • 11-adult
             • The growing adolescent shakes off old dependencies and learns to deal maturely with the opposite sex
       • Emphasizes the conflict between primitive biological forces and societal standards of right and wrong
       • Psychoanalysis: Holds that development is largely determined by how well people resolve unconscious conflicts that they face at different ages
       • 3 Components of personality
         • ID: Reservoir of primitive instincts and drives
         • EGO: Practical, rational component of personality
         • SUPER EGO: Moral agent
     • Erickson's theory
       • 8 Stages of psychosocial development
         • Stage 1: Basic trust vs Mistrust
         • Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and doubt
         • Stage 3: Initiative vs Guilt
         • Stage 4: Industry vs Inferiority
         • Stage 5: Identity vs Identity confusion
         • Stage 6: Intimacy vs Isolation
         • Stage 7: Generativity vs. stagnation
         • Stage 8: Integrity vs Despair
       • Emphasizes the challenges posed by the formation of trust, autonomy, initiative, industry and identity
       • Emphasizes the psychological and social aspects of conflict
   • Learning theory: Development is determined primarily by a child's environment
     • Skinner's theory
       • Operant conditioning
         • Emphasizes the role of reinforcement and punishment
     • Bandura's theory
       • Social cognitive theory
         • Emphasizes children's effort to understand their world, using reinforcement, punishment and other's behavior
       • Imitation / Modeling / Observational learning : Children learn by watching those around them
       • Believes self-efficacy plays a role in their decision to imitate others
     • Watson's theory
       • Father of behaviorism
         • Behaviorism: The theory that behavior is primarily learned from one's environment
       • Influenced by Pavlov
         • Classical conditioning: The process of learning through which an initially neutral stimulus, comes to elicit a particular response after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus
       • Little Albert experiment
   • Biological perspective: Development is determined by biological factors
     • Maturation theory
       • Emphasizes development as the natural unfolding of a biological plan
       • Speech, play and reasoning emerges spontaneously
       • Discarded because it had little to say about the impact of the environment on children's development
     • Evolution theory
       • Emphasizes that children and parent's behavior adapt over generations to meet specific environmental challenges
       • Principal of natural selection is applied to human behavior
     • Ethological theory
       • Emphasizes the survival value of many behaviours
       • Behaviors are inherited but some kinds of learning have to occur at certain periods
       • Critical period
         • Stage in development when a specific type of learning takes place
         • Before and after the critical period, the same learning is difficult or even impossible

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