Theories of Development Flashcards
Developmental Psychology is?
Lifespan developmental psychology is the scientific study of the links between chronological age and human behaviour, together with the patterns of change in psychological functioning that arise in predictable ways as human beings grow up and grow older
Lifespan Developmental Psychologists
Lifespan developmental psychologists strive to understand the continuities and changes that punctuate an individual’s lifelong development course from conception to old age
Concept of Development
- Genuinely developmental changes o Permanent o Qualitative (and quantitative) o Generalizable o Progressively enhancing
Multiple Domains of Development: Psychosocial
-Changes in continuities in personal and interpersonal aspects
Multiple Domains of Development: Physical
-The growth of the body and its organs
Multiple Domains of Development: Cognitive
-Changes in continuities in perception, language, memory, learning etc
Psychodynamic Theories
- Sigmund freud
- People are driven by motives and emotional conflicts of which they are largely unaware
- People’s lives are shaped by their earliest experiences
Psychosexual Stage: Oral
Birth to 1 year
The sex instinct centres on the mouth because infants derive pleasure from such oral activities as sucking, chewing and biting. Feeding activities are particularly important for example, an infant weaned to early or abruptly may later crave close contact and become overdependent on spouse
Psychosexual Stage: Anal
1 to 3 years
Voluntary urination and defecation become the primary methods of gratifying the sex instinct. Toilet training produces major conflicts between children and parents. The emotional climate that parents create can have lasting effects. For example, children who are punished for toileting “accidents” may become inhibited, messy or wasteful
Psychosexual Stage: Phailic
3 to 6 years
Pleasure is now derived from genital stimulation. Children develop an incestuous desire for the opposite-sex parents. Anxiety stemming from this conflict causes children to internalise the sex-role characteristics and moral standards of their same-sex parental rival
Psychosexual Stage: Latency
6-11 Years
Traumas of the phallic stage cause sexual conflicts to be repressed and sexual urges to be rechanneled into school work and vigorous play. The ego and superego continue to develop as the child gains more problem-solving abilities at school and internalises societal values
Psychosexual Stage: Genital
Age 12 Onward
Puberty trigger are reawakening of sexual urges. Adolescents must now learn how to express these urges in socially acceptable ways. If development has been healthy, the mature sex instinct is satisfied by marriage and raising children
Psychodynamic Theories: Psychosocial development
- Erik erikson
- Dialectical conflict as the basic mechanism of development
- Stages in identity development emphasis on social influences, such as peers, family, school etc
- Emphasis on rational and active resolution conflicts
Learning Theories: Classical Conditioning
- Ivan pavlov
- Studied the digestive system of dogs
- Classical conditioning – a stimulus that initially had no effect on the individual comes to elicit a response because of its association with a stimulus that already elicits the response
- John B. Watson
- Emotional responses can be learned
- Little albert experiment
Operant conditioning
- B.F. Skinner
- Operant conditioning – behaviours (operants) become more or less probable depending on the consequences they produce
- Reinforcement (positive or negative) strengthens response
- Punishment (positive or negative) weakens response
