Theoretical Perspectives Flashcards
What is a theory?
A set of interrelated statements that explain a phenomenon in a testable fashion.
What are psychoanalytic theories?
Theories holding that development depends primarily on the unconscious mind and is heavily couched in emotion.
Behavior is merely a surface characteristic, that it is important to analyze the symbolic meanings of behaviour, and that early experiences are important in development.
What is Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) developmental theory?
(Psychoanalytic theory)
Psychosexual development
What was Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) technique?
(Psychoanalytic theory)
Psychoanalysis
Key: Analysis of the psyche
What did psychosexual development theories assume?
People move through an unvarying, maturational-based sequence of stages, driven by libidinal forces, sexual and aggressive drives
(Newman & Newman, 2016).
What is Erik Erikson’s (1950, 1968) psychosocial theory?
(Psychoanalytic theory)
A psychoanalytic theory in which eight stages of psychosocial development unfold throughout the life span. Each stage consists of a unique developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be faced.
What is Lev Vygotsky’s (1896–1934) theory?
(Cognitive theory)
A sociocultural cognitive theory that emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development
What are Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of psychosocial development?
Trust versus mistrust
Autonomy versus shame and doubt
Initiative versus guilt
Industry versus inferiority
Identity versus identity confusion
Intimacy versus isolation
Generativity versus stagnation
Integrity versus despair
What is trust vs mistrust?
(Erik Erikson’s Theory)
1st psychosocial stage (1y)
Trust = lifelong expectation that the world will be a good and pleasant place to live.
What is autonomy vs shame and doubt?
(Erik Erikson’s Theory)
Stage 2 (1-3y)
Autonomy = discovering independence
Shame/doubt = too much restraint and punishment
What is initiative versus guilt?
(Erik Erikson’s Theory)
Stage 3 (4-6y)
Initiative = face new challenges requiring active, purposeful, responsible behaviour
Guilt = feeling irresponsible and anxious
What is industry versus inferiority?
(Erik Erikson’s Theory)
Stage 4 (primary)
Industry = Knowledge and intellect
Inferiority = Feeling incompetent and unproductive
What is identity versus confusion?
(Erik Erikson’s Theory)
Stage 5 (adolescence)
Identity = Positive/healthy
Confusion = Confused Identity
What is intimacy versus isolation?
(Erik Erikson’s Theory)
Stage 6 (early adulthood)
Intimacy = Romantic partners, friendships
What is generativity versus stagnation?
(Erik Erikson’s Theory)
Stage 7 (middle adulthood)
Generativity = helping younger generation to develop
Stagnation = Having done nothing to help the next generation
What is integrity versus despair?
(Erik Erikson’s Theory)
Stage 8 (late adulthood)
Integrity = A life well spent
Despair = Doubt, gloom
What is a psychosocial crisis?
(Erik Erikson’s Theory)
When a person must adjust to the demands of the social environment at a particular stage of development. The process produces a state of tension that must be reduced before the person can move on to the next stage.
What is Jean Piaget’s (1896, 1980) theory?
Cognitive theory.
The theory that children construct their understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development.
What are Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development?
Sensorimotor (0-2y), preoperational (2-7y), concrete operational (7-11y), formal operational (11-adulthood)
What is the sensorimotor piagetian stage?
(Piaget’s theory)
(0-2y)
Coordinating experiences (seeing/hearing) with physical, motor actions
key: sensory - motor
What is the concrete operational piagetian stage?
(Piaget’s theory)
(7-11y)
Children can perform operations that involve objects, and they can reason logically about specific or concrete examples
Cannot complete abstract, advanced equations
key: sensory - motor
What is the formal operational piagetian stage?
(Piaget’s cognitive theory)
(11-15y - adulthood)
Individuals move beyond concrete experiences and think in abstract and more logical terms
key: sensory - motor
What is the preoperational piagetian stage?
(Piaget’s cognitive theory)
(2-7y)
Can represent the world with words, images and drawings.
Cannot perform operations.
What are operations?
(Piaget’s cognitive theory)
Internalized mental actions that allow children to do mentally what they previously could only do physically.
What is the Information-Processing Theory?
A theory emphasizing that individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it. The processes of memory and thinking are central.
Is a continuous process involving small quantitative, rather than large qualitative changes.
(Gordon & others, 2020).
What is a social constructivist approach?
(Vygotsky’s Theory)
A view of cognitive development that emphasizes the social contexts of learning and the principle that knowledge is mutually built and constructed with tools provided by their society.
What is the zone of proximal development (ZPD)?
(Vygotsky’s Theory)
Vygotsky’s term for the zone between mastered tasks and tasks that are too difficult for children to master alone but can be mastered with assistance.
What are some factors that may influence ZPD in a child’s learning and development?
(Vygotsky’s Theory)
Better emotion regulation, secure attachment, absence of maternal depression, and child compliance.
What is scaffolding?
(Vygotsky’s Theory)
Adjusting the level of support or guidance to fit the child’s current performance (Daniels, 2017).
What is B. F. Skinner’s (1904–1990) Operant Conditioning?
A method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behaviour.
Operating = An action
What is Albert Bandura’s (born in 1925) theory?
Social cognitive theory = The theory that behaviour, environment, and person/cognitive factors are important in understanding development.
What is an eclectic theoretical orientation?
Recognising that no one theory can explain human development but that different theories can all contribute to our understanding.
What are the 5 major theories in life-span development?
Psychoanalytic = Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson
Cognitive = Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky
Behavioural and social cognitive = Albert Bandura
Ethological = Konrad Lorenz, John Bowlby
Ecological = Urie Bronfenbrenner
What is the ethological theory? (Ethology)
An approach stressing that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, tied to evolution, and characterized by critical or sensitive periods.
Who is Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)?
European zoologist who helped bring ethology to prominence
What is Konrad Lorenz’s (1965), best-known research?
Ethology. The behaviour of greylag geese.
Lorenz called this process imprinting—the rapid, innate learning that involves attachment to the first moving object seen.
What is John Bowlby’s (1969, 1989) ethological theory?
Bowlby stressed that attachment to a caregiver over the first year of life has important consequences throughout the life span.
Positive and secure vs negative and insecure
What is Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (1917–2005) theory?
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory of Development
What 5 environmental systems are identified in the Bronfenbrenner theory?
- Microsystem
- Mesosystem
- Exosystem
- Macrosystem
- Chronosystem
What is the microsystem?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
A pattern of activities, roles, and interpersonal relations experienced by the developing person in the context in which the individual exsists. e.g. family, peers, school, and neighbourhood.
Key: Microhomes
What is the mesosystem?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
The relations between 2 or more microsystems or connections between contexts.
e. g. family experiences to school experiences, school experiences to church experiences, and family experiences to peer experiences
* key: Jefferey Mesos connects his wife to his work*
What is the exosystem?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
The links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role or immediate context.
e. g. husband influenced by wife’s experience at work
* key: exiled, extra*
What is the macrosystem?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
The culture in which individuals live.
key: counting macros = diet culture
What is the chronosystem?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
The patterning of environmental events, transitions, and sociohistorical circumstances.
e. g. divorce is a transition, opportunities for women in the workforce has increased since the 60s
* key: chronological order of ‘events’*
What is contextualism?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
Contextualism is a philosophical worldview that holds that behaviour has meaning and can only be explained in terms of its sociohistorical context (Miller, 2011)
What are developmentally instigative characteristics?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
(a) personal attributes and qualities of the person (e.g. sociability or physical attractiveness) that elicit responses from the environment that either foster or hinder development, and
(b) the repertoire of belief systems held by those such as parents, teachers, church and community leaders in a particular culture to prescribe the ways in which the next generation should be raised.
What is ecology?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
Ecology is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment
What are some examples of ecological transitions?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
The birth of a younger sibling, starting school, leaving home, starting or leaving a job, getting married or divorced, having a child, or retiring from the workforce.
What are proximal processes?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
The interaction between children and their caregivers (parents, teachers, counselors, grandparents, nanny or objects).
e.g. Feeding or comforting a baby; playing with a young child; child-child activities; group or solitary play; reading; learning new skills; athletic activities; problem-solving; caring for others; making plans; performing complex tasks; and acquiring new knowledge and know-how (Bronfenbrenner, 2005c, p. 6)
What is a dyad?
(Bronfenbrenner theory)
Something that consists of two elements or parts.
e.g. parent-child at home, teacher-student at school
Two-year-old Julia is learning to talk, and her parents would say that her favourite word is “no.” This would be considered normal for a child in Erik Erikson’s life-span stage of:
autonomy versus shame and doubt
Dr. Jacobs studies identical twins from birth to two years old to learn about similarities and differences in their development. Dr. Jacobs is interested in the development issues of:
Nature and nurture
In contrast to Freud, Erikson…
Emphasized the lifespan nature of development.
The cross-sectional approach to developmental research compares individuals of different ages:
At one time
While ethological theory stresses _____ factors, ecological theory emphasizes _____ factors.
Ethological = Biological
Ecological = Environmental
Key: Ethos = people, eco = environment
True or false: the macrosystem encompasses connections between microsystems
False
What is equilibrium?
(Piaget)
A balanced state of being
What is assimilation?
(Piaget)
Taking a new piece of information and dropping it into a schema we already have
What is an accommodation?
(Piaget)
Creating a new schema to fit a new piece of information
What is a disequilibrium?
(Piaget)
Frustration, disarray over not understanding an attempted assimilation
Order of the learning process adaptation according to Piaget?
According to Piaget, how a child _____—not how much the child ____—determines the child’s stage of cognitive development?
According to Piaget, how a child thinks—not how much the child knows—determines the child’s stage of cognitive development.
What was B. F. Skinner’s theory?
Behavioural cognitive theory
In Piaget’s theory, the process of __________ is made up of two complementary activities: ___________ and ______________.
Adaptation; assimilation; accommodation
An approach in which children acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community’s culture through interaction with more knowledgeable members of society is called
sociocultural cognitive theory
What is the behavioural cognitive theory?
Theories holding that development can be described in terms of the behaviours learned through interactions with the environment
What is a schema?
(Piaget)
A pattern of thought or behaviour that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them.
What is operant conditioning?
(B.F. Skinner)
a process by which humans and animals learn to behave in such a way as to obtain rewards and avoid punishments.
What is social cognitive theory?
(Bandura)
The theory that behavior, environment, and person/cognitive factors are important in understanding development.
What is observational learning?
(Bandura)
The process of learning by watching the behaviors of others.
The targeted behavior is watched, memorized, and then mimicked.
(Also known as shaping and modeling)
What are the three corners of Bandura’s Social Cognitive Model
What is imprinting?
(ethology)
—the rapid, innate learning that involves attachment to the first moving object seen
What is a critical period?
(ethology)
imprinting needs to take place at a specific, very early time in the life of the animal, or else it will not take place.
