Theories of Development
Chapter 2
Psychoanalytic
Theories
Freud’s Psychosexual
Personality develops in
five stages from birth to
adolescence; in each
stage, the need for
physical pleasure is
focused on a different
part of the body.
Strengths
- Emphasizes the
importance of
experiences in infancy
and early childhood;
provide psychological
explanations for mental
illness.
Weaknesses
- Sexual feelings are not as
important in personality
development as Freud
claimed.
Erikson’s
Psychosocial
Theory
•Personality develops through
eight life crises across the entire
lifespan; a person finishes each
crisis with either good or poor
resolution.
Strengths
- Helps explain the role of culture in
personality development; important in
lifespan psychology; useful description
of major themes of personality
development at different ages
Weaknesses
- Describing each period in terms of a
single crisis is probably an
oversimplification
LEARNING
THEORIES
Pavlov’s Classical
Conditioning
learning happens when neutral
stimuli becomes so strongly
associated with natural stimuli
that they elicit the same
response.
Strength- Useful in explaining
how emotional response such
as phobias are learned.
Weakness- explanation of
behavior change too limited to
serve a comprehensive theory.
Skinner’s
Operant
Conditioning
Development involves
behavior changes that
are shaped by
reinforment and
punishment.
Strength- Basis of many useful
strategies for managing and
changing human behavior.
Weaknesses- Humans are not
as passive as Skinner claimed;
the theory ignores hereditary,
cognitive, emotional, and
social factors in development.
• People learn from models; what they learn
from model depends on how they interpret
the situation cognitively and emotionally.
Bandura’s
Social
Learning
Theory
Strength
• Helps explain how models influence
behavior; explains more about
development than other learning
theories do because of addition of
cognitive and emotional factors.
Weaknesses
• Does not provide an overall picture
of development.
COGNITIVE
THEORIES
Piaget’s Theory of
Cognitive
Development
Reasoning develops in four
universal stages from birth through
adolescence; in each stage, the
child builds a different kind of
scheme.
• Strengths- Helps explain how children
of different ages think about and act
on the world.
• Weaknesses- Stage concept may
cause adults to underestimate the
children’s reasoning abilities; there
may be additional stages in
adulthood.
The computer is used as a model
for human cognitive functioning;
encoding, storage, and retrieval
processes change with age,
Informatio causing changes in memory
function; these changes happen
n because of both brain
maturation and practice.
Processing
Theory
Strengths
• - Helps explain how much information
people of different ages can manage at one
time and how they process it; provides a
useful framework for studying individual
differences in people of the same age.
Weaknesses
• - Human information processing is much
more complex than that of a computer; the
theory does not provide a overall picture of
development
Vygotsky’s
Sociocultural Theory
Emphasizes linguistic and
social factors in cognitive
development.
Strengths Weaknesses
- Incorporates group learning - Insufficient evidence to support
processes into explanations of most ideas.
individual cognitive development.
The Ecological Systems
Approach
Ecological Theory
From branch of Biology
Dealing with the relation of living things to
their environment and to one another
Human development is inseparable from
the environmental contexts in which a
person develops
Urie Bronfenbrenner
Best-known proponent of this approach
Assumed that natural environments are the major
source of influence on developing persons
Proposed that the developing person is embedded
in a series of complex and interactive system
Microsystem
Consists of the people
and objects in an
individual’s immediate
environment
Innermost of the
Bronfenbrenner’s
environmental layers
Children’s own biologically and
socially influenced
characteristics- their habits,
temperaments, physical
characteristics, and capabilities-
influence the behavior of
companions (their microsystem)
as well
• Provides connections across
microsystems, because what
happens in one microsystem
is likely to influence others
• Development is likely to be
optimized by strong,
supportive links between
microsystems
• The second of
Brofenbrenner’s
environmental layers
Mesosystem
Exosystem
Refers to social settings that a person may
not experience firsthand but that still
influence development
Social systems that children and adolescents
do not directly experience but that may
nonetheless influence their development
Third of Bronfenbrenner’s environmental
layers
Macrosystem
• The larger cultural or
subcultural context in
which development
occurs
• Values differ across
cultures and can greatly
influence the kinds of
experiences children
have in their homes,
neighborhoods,
schools, and all other
contexts that affect
them, directly or
indirectly
Chronosystem
A temporal dimension
Emphasizes that changes in the child or in any of the
ecological contexts of development can affect the direction
that is likely to take
This include changes in family structure, place of residence,
or employment
According to
Bronfenbrenner, a person is
not merely an outcome of
development but is also a
shaper of it.
Family
“Two or more persons related by birth, marriage, adoption, or choice” who have emotional ties and
responsibilities to each other (Allen, Fine, & Demo, 2000)
• Children influence the behavior and
childrearing practices of their parents
• Families are complex social systems-
that is, networks of reciprocal
relationships and alliances
(microsystem) that are constantly
evolving (chronosystem) and are
greatly affected by community
(exosystem) and cultural influences
(macrosystem.
• Holistic structure
• Reciprocal influence
Family as Social • One implication of viewing the family as a system in that interactions
System between any two family members are likely to be influenced by attitudes
and behaviors of a third family member.
• Fathers influence the mother-infant
relationship
• Mothers influence the father-infant
relationship
• Child-to-mother effect, mother-to-child
effect
• Effect of the child’s impulsivity on the
husband-wife relationship
Selective Optimization with
Compensation
Selective Optimization
with Compensation
• The three processes form a system of
behavioral action that generates and
regulates development and aging.
Selection
Can involve the continuation of previous
goals on a lesser scale, or the substitution of
new goals, and be proactive or reactive
• Elective selection- Chooses to reduce
one’s involvement to fewer domains
as a result of new task
• Loss-based selection- Result of
anticipated losses in personal &
environmental resources
Compensation
• When a person can no longer
function well in a particular
domain because the necessary
skills have been lost or have fallen
below the level necessary for
adequate functioning.
• The person will look for an
alternative way to accomplish the
goal
• It differs from selection in that the
task or goal is maintained but
other means are used to achieve it
Optimization
• The minimization of losses and
maximization of gains
• Best matching one’s resources and one’s
desired goals
• Balancing process between selecting the
right goals and compensating, when
possible, to help them maximize the odds
of achieving them.
