Theories of Development Flashcards
Outline the two developmental theories.
Continuous development - development occurs throughout childhood to adulthood.
Stage development - children develop through the succession of stages. Undergo progression through psychological stages to develop into adults.
Explain the difference between the knowledge of children according to developmental theories
continuous = children described as ‘mini-adults’. No qualitative differences between knowledge, only quantitative.
Stage like = qualitative and quantitative difference between knowledge.
Behaviourism assumption? Nature or Nurture? Different reinforcements?
Nurture.
Development through behaviour and environment in which it occurs with no reference to the mind.
+ reinforcement = behaviour that is rewarded and therefore more likely to occur again
- reinforcement = avoidance of something unpleasant (punishment) / punishment removed following good behaviour.
Successive approximation - behaviourism? Give an example. What developmental theory is this consistent with?
Children shaped through selective reinforcement - explains how children incorporate new behaviours into repertoire.
Children praised with babble, eventually children only praised with words.
Consistent with continuous development as infants are capable of learning the same things that adults are, only difference being less knowledge.
Assumption of language learning through the nativist approach? What theory of development is this consistent with?
Infants born with an innate knowledge of languages deep structure. (universal grammar that underpins all natural languages)
Continuous development - assumption that faculties that underlie behaviour are innate indicates that they exist in infants. Adults become better at utilising innate capacities - matures with age.
Who was the psychologist who proposed the nativist approach to learning within theories of development, and what paradox did he resolve.
Language learning can still occur even when children experience minimal levels of language - suggesting that it is innate - paradox.
However only deep structure is innate - Chinese child brought up in English family does not start speaking Chinese.
What does maturational approach suggest about development? What developmental theory?
Characteristics are innate but not always evident from birth and results from maturational unfolding.
Stage - maturation of different faculties transforms us, step by step, from childhood to adulthood. Adults knowledge is qualitatively different and more sophisticated as more faculties have matured. When learn something new = psychologically different to stage before therefore discontinuous learning.
Two ways that maturation can have an effect
- Faculty unfolds naturally and is maturational independent of experience and learning
- Readiness to learn. For example, ‘language acquisition devise’ in brain which is activated at certain maturational age. This means that when activated the child is biologically prepared to learn.
Ethology as evidence for biological preparedness by Lorenz
Lorenz research on goslings imprinting. Imprinted on boot, this began to form 10 hours after hatching in incubator with peak at 30 hours. Critical period for learning attachment, the capacity for learning stops after this time - specific biological preparedness.
Maturation helps link biological factors and learning through experience. Example: If goslings don’t have the boot = nothing to attach to - biological preparedness amounts to nothing.
Implications for lack of attachment on humans evidence
Humans form attachments naturally under maturational control, and any disruptions will effect emotional development. Bowlby found that babies that were separated from maternal figure for long periods has devastating effects and developmental delays physically, intellectually and emotionally.
What does Stage theorist Freud suggest? What are the stages to personality development?
Children undergo psychological metamorphosis through innate factors (maturation) and experiential (environment)
Developed stages of personality development through sexual fixations:
- oral - erratic gratification from feeding
- anal - erratic sensation from withholding and expulsion of faeces
- phallic - gratification from touching genitals and contemplating differences between male and female.
Stage theorist Piaget suggests
Children cognitively develop through cognitive revolution (not gradual) Child changes to more sophisticated plane of intelligence + sheds old cognitive limitations.
Egocentrism stands in way of learning - inability to see world through other perspectives / understand other’s viewpoints. - overcome through stages.
Each successive stage is an adaptation to the state of egocentrism. Infancy = most severe, inability to distinguish self from rest of universe, next stage only subtle form of egocentrism survives.
What is Siegler’s adaptation to Piaget’s theory?
Piaget = new stage renders older stage obsolete
Siegler’s overlapping stage theory = during transition from old to new stage they coexist + vacillate between them. Eventually the new stage, being better adaptation takes precedence.
- microgenetic approach to research - repeated testing at time of transition. If testing separated by months, may not see the overlap.
