The Development Of Developmental Psychology Flashcards
What did John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau say about parenting?
Locke - Human mind at birth is blank slate - all knowledge comes from parenting/environment
Rousseau - natural goodness of man can be nurtured and maintained only according to this highly prescriptive model of education - ‘good’ skates don’t tarnish
What does Compayre say about childhood?
If childhood is the cradle of humanity, the study of childhood is the cradle and necessary introduction to all future psychology - helps understand adult behaviours - know about child = gives insight to what they’ll be like later in life
What did Darwin view children as?
Link to animals - infants and ‘primitives’ as a way to understand ‘normal’ behaviour
Patterns of development across lifetime as across development of species - across development of child go to adolescence saw effects of evolutionary theory until environment played effect
Went in hand with development of empirical method - separate observer from observed
Objectify child in process - only men were thought capable of such objective observation of children
What factors shape the views (in western world) of children/families?
History
Culture
Philosophy of science
History
What was the 16th century view of children?
Lower animals Mewling and puking in nurses arms Sentiment of childhood 17th century discovery - also embodiment of ‘sinlessness’ and revered Property of fathers Not in education til 6/7 - Babylon/Roman
History
What was Aristotelian ethics view towards children?
Human being ethically equal
But justice of master or father is different because son or slave is property and there can be no injustice to property - naturally excluded
History
What was 17th century view?
Hobbes - care for them because they can serve their father and have position of complete dependence
Locke - adults and children have natural rights, parents benevolence is enough to protect them
History
What was it like for children in 18/19th century during industrial revolution?
As young as 4 worked in cotton mills
Worked six days a week with 2.5 days off a year
Child labour laws introduced 1833
New emphasis on education and recognising special needs of children
History
What were the views for corporal punishment?
Still controversy about the use of corporal punishment - understanding of children shifted
Dobson - excessive permissiveness root cause of all problems
Paintal - dehumanising, ineffective and modelling aggression
If punish - decreases behaviour don’t want to do
Opposing - reward behaviours want to do
Culture
How does culture affect way of understanding children?
Children are cultural inventions
Role of culture in how we view families and children
Can’t view ‘self’ independently of cultural-historical existence
View children from traditions of cultures
Philosophy of science
How does philosophy of science come into developmental psychology?
Draws upon biology, anthropology, sociology…largely ignores philosophy of knowledge
Piaget’s focus was epistemology = how children achieve/understand knowledge
Initially dominated by ‘common sense’ to interpret behaviour with attempts to impose order
Route from common sense to science is methodology of science
Philosophy of science
Why does empiricism dominate?
Western world = scientific method - only way to get systematic body of knowledge
Studying children modelled on natural sciences eg chemistry, physics
Search for causes of behaviour - see development in context
Reduce complexity of behaviour to basic components - reduce to establish cause and effect - control by making behaviour simple
What changes occur in development?
Individuals change and grow from conception to death
Development = changes in observed behaviour across age
Change linkage - units of measurement = age and time not uniquely different - measured from time = same
All changes happen ‘in time’ - can’t have change outside of time
Different types of observed behaviour
Can observe behaviour at different levels -> specify which behaviour interested in
- expressive-constitutive person: expressive action; reflects systems (cognitive, affective, motivational systems); constitutive action; creative function of human, action (new behaviours, intentions, meanings) - process through which we come to have the world we have (have all communications)
- instrumental-communicative person: instrumental actions; means to attain an outcome, pragmatic dimension of action (walking around to get food), intersubjective - process through which we order the things in the world (between people)
What is the observed behaviour?
Instrumental perspective - successful/unsuccessful problem-solving activities
Expressive perspective - activity as expression of particular types of cognitive organisation
Any action can be understood as expressive-constitutive or instrumental-communicative function - neither can be directly observed without specifying the focus of inquiry (not specifying what’s being observed = ambiguous)
