Child Developmental Theories

Constructivist

Developmental:Constructivist

 • Approach very concerned with socialization and

the lifecycle. (curvilinear) (end point)

• Draws from child psychologists, human development researchers.

•  • Directs attention to the longitudinal career of the

family rather than focusing on one point in time.

Key Assumptions

• 1. Human conduct is best understood through preceding as well as current social milieus.

• 2. Human conduct cannot be understood apart from human development 

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Key Assumptions

• 3. The human is both an actor and a reactor 

• 4. Individual and group development is dependant upon inherent and developed capacities.

• 5. The individual in a social setting is a basic autonomous unit

The Developmental Approach

 • Constructivists approach helps to

understand an individual’s internalization of family from their formation to the various stages of the lifecycle.

• i.e.. courtship, engagement, wedding, divorce or death

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• Besides these there are theories dealing individual rather than the family psychoanalytic, cognitive and learning.

Summary

 

• Taken independently, these theories describe only a portion of the realities of the family.

• They should not be seen as mutually exclusive from one another.

Developmental analysis

• Constructivist/development theories are weak in situational analysis.  

• Heavy emphasis on arbitrary stages in theory, concept and method. 

Concept-

• An abstraction used as a building block for the development of propositions and theories.

Freudian Theory or psychoanalytic tradition.

• Freudian theory essential deals with the ego’s attempts to satisfy the desires of the id while dealing with opposition from both the superego and the real world.

To Freud…

• Children are born with only the primitive element of the psychic structure-the id- sexual and aggressive drives.

Psychic energy

• Freud’s theory essentially shows that the personality functioning was fueled by psychic energy that becomes distributed among the id, ego and superego.

ID =instincts, drives

• All psychological functioning requires energy, and the id was the source of the energy.

• The id is the only psychic structure possessed by children for roughly the first year of their lives.

The pleasure principle

• They are driven by the pleasure principle, they are hedonistic beings who seek pleasure and avoid pain.

• Young infants are wildly unsocialized creatures who seek immediate gratification whenever their sexual and aggressive urges are aroused.

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The Ego

• The ego is the rational, reasonable component of personality. The ego operates on the reality principle -it can plan, delay gratification, and block the irrational choices of the id.

The superego.

• The third aspect of the personality to Frued is the superego.

• Freud maintains that it usually develops within the child between the ages of 3 and 5

   Psycho-Sexual Stages.

• Freud was the first to conceptual child development in a stage pattern based upon a biological foundation:

His stages include:

• Oral -year one

• Anal -year two

• Phallic-years three to five

• Latency- adolescence

• Genital-adolescence

Healthy vs. Pathology

•  • Freud believed that in a healthy

person, sexual energy now becomes focused on a loved person of the opposite sex.

Critique of Fruedian Theory

• The following are the major criticisms:

• A.      shortcoming in his methods used to validate his hypotheses-Freud’s data were the verbal reports of neurotic parents who were asked to free associate -not reliable indicator of the patients real thoughts….an ivory tower approach.

Freud’s concepts-difficult to measure

• B.     Freud’s concepts are not defined in ways that make them amenable to concrete behavior assessment

1. How do you measure a child’s level of psychic energy?

2. How do you measure a child’s strength of ego?

Generalizing

• C.      A third criticism is that although Freud’s theory can explain just about anything, it is difficult to use in making predictions….

• It is weak on relational rules if this happens, then that will happen

Nature more than Nurture

• D. Lastly, it places too much emphasis on intra-psychic determinants of behaviour, paying little attention to environment.

• For example, although he acknowledges parent-child relationships, he believed that internal conflicts and defenses are ultimately responsible for the child’s personality.

Freud’s Legacy

  There is little direct influence on development today, but his concepts have had impact on research directions and issues…

On research and theory-Erikson was student of Freud….. 

-Issues

• -Issues such as Breast feeding can be directly attributed to Frued….Rooted in his notions of the oral stage of development.

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• Freud’s theory is highly criticized by Feminists who argue he is sexist, conservative and monolithic.

• Responsible for `mother blaming’

Unscientific

• Because Freud’s theory is so unscientific and lead to few clear-cut empirical predictions.

• Many other theories have been developed emphasizing child’s formative years

Environment

• Freud does not see the the social environment in influencing development.

• The emphasis is upon socialization of the child becoming adult…

• The Child is placed on the margins 

Superego

• . During this stage, children develop an Oedipal crisis, which they resolve by identifying with the same sex parent, thereby developing a conscience or an external representation of the values and sanctions of society.

Erik Erikson (1902-1994) A student of Frued

• Psychoanalytic Approach- Erikson’s psychosocial theory was one of many developed by followers of Freud.

• His theory stretched, rearranged and in many ways improved on Freud’s model.

Erikson (1902-1994)

• Beginning in 1950 he expanded understanding of each stage of Frued’s developmental model.

• Erikson’s, Childhood and Society (1950)

• Identity, Youth and Crisis (1968)

Culture + Personality Erikson

• Firmly rooted in the psychoanalytic tradition

 

• Beginning with Freud-hotly debated -still with us- ie feminists

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Easy to understand : Phases Linear Pattern

• Divide into assumptions re. biological endowment, perception, learning and socialization 

• Proposes a series of stages, specifies adult practices associated with each, postulates the maturation and timing of the child's capacities and proposed some relationships between experiences at each stage and the child's motivation for learning.

Erikson’s theory

•  •  • Eriksons theory goes beyond Freud-more

respect for the individual and his innate ability to meet the challenges of a dynamic society.

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Goes beyond Freud

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• -more respect for the individual and his innate ability to meet the challenges of a dynamic society.

Erikson

• Erikson believed that each stage does not lead to an embattled ego that mediates between the id and the superego. (Freud)

The ego

• The ego is a positive force (Erikson) in development. At each stage the ego acquires skills and attitudes that allow individuals to become positive, functional members of human society.

Three positions:Different from Freud

1. Emphasized the ego over the id-instincts like death wish may have their role but less significant than the individuals capacity to adjust.

• 2. Goes beyond child-mother-father triad-stress family and larger society

• 3. Optimistic view-believes hazards in life and crises are conducive to growth

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Basic Assumptions:

• 1. Unlike Freud dreams do not provide signals to unconscious-play does...if you want to understand a child's ego look at play 

• -emphasis on qualitative research, psychoanalysis alone won't help-look at history, anthropology 

• 2. Child unfolds biologically and psychologically from birth-child learns to survive and promote culture through the culture in him

Individual not evil (Hobbes, Freud)

• 3. Each individual is bad- potentially good or bad must be prevented from being bad by democracy

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• 4. Believes in libido-but man not animal-discards Freud notion of dynasty of drives in favor of flexible modifyable-gives rise to his notion of styles of life

• -One can manage inner and outer forces by adaptive skills-play, speech, though and actions.

Freud/Erikson agree on Libido

 

• 5. Erikson accepts Freud idea that Libido influences all aspects of life…but Erikson believes id, ego and superego can balance through play in a child's development

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Play teaches:

• Play teaches: a. how to organize inner life in relations to the outer world. 

• b. How to educate oneself and heal defeats and pains 

• c. How to master tasks to deal with inner and outer world 

• Play is particularly important when the child does not have language: it helps the child progress in developmental stages

Stages =End Point

• InfantTrust vs Mistrust

Needs maximum comfort with minimal uncertaintyto trust himself/herself, others, and the environment

ToddlerAutonomy vs Shame and Doubt

Works to master physical environment while maintainingself-esteem

Preschooler

• PreschoolerInitiative vs Guilt

Begins to initiate, not imitate, activities; develops

conscience and sexual identity

School-Age Child

• School-Age ChildIndustry vs Inferiority

Tries to develop a sense of self-worth by refining skills

• AdolescentIdentity vs Role Confusion

Tries integrating many roles (child, sibling, student, athlete,

worker) into a self-image under role model and peer pressure

Young Adult

• Young AdultIntimacy vs Isolation

Learns to make personal commitment to another as

spouse, parent or partner

Adult

• Middle-Age AdultGenerativity vs Stagnation

Seeks satisfaction through productivity in career, family, and

civic interests

• Older AdultIntegrity vs Despair

Reviews life accomplishments, deals with lossand preparation for death

Summing Up

• 1. Erikson a cultural determinist, ego psychologist and an optimist

•  • 2. Child development must be understood in

terms of the whole situation involves the child the family and his culture.

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Developing personality

• 3. The potential of a developing personality must be protected against the hazards of instinctual, parental, communal, cultural and environmental pressures to allow innate tendencies to develop successfully.

Stages are Ideal typical-

 

• 4. Explains development within a specific culture North America-assumes a monolith bias-ideal typical-notions of freedom of expression, opportunity, rapid social change and role ambiguity-generation gap underlie his thinking

Piaget's Background:

• 1. A Swiss zoologist, interested in philosophy -wanted to link God with life

• 2. . Career began with a zeal to link biology and psychology...whereas learning theorist sees development as a primary process of learning...

• Piaget saw them as independent -learning cannot explain development, while the stages of development can, at least in part, explain learning.....

Development of cognition

• 3. Piaget's primary concern was to understand the development of cognition not cognitive development...

Effective socialization

• He explains that effective socialization is the product of three elements: 

• a. Maturation-differentiation of the nervous system

• b. Experience-interaction with the physical world• c. Equilibrium-self regulation, cognitive

adaptation

 Piaget's Concept of the New

Born 

• A newborn is a biological organism with a psychological make-up..

Newborn Drives-sensory-motor

 

• He has a drive for hunger, a drive for balance and a drive for independence.

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Child development

• The child's development takes place in the context of the environment, physical, social and ideational. The environment can promote, retard or change the order of the succession of the individuals growth process. But the sequence of the developmental phases must remain the same.

Linear Course of Development

 

• Piaget explains development in terms of three phases...they are irreversible and denote a course of development...'

• Stages-along a continuum

Piaget’s Phases of Cognition

• Each phase reveals an organizational pattern, potential capacity, probable level of behaviour and moves on to the next with a concern for balancing.

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Sensory-Motor Stage

• 1. Sensory-Motor (0-24 mos. -with six sub phases)

• Use of reflexes through repetition and adaptation... 

• Voluntary movements- coordination- Imitation- Play -Affect

• Continuous experimentation, greater mobility, cyclical repetition

Preparation for Conceptual Thought

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• 1. Preconceptual2-4 2. Intuitive 4-7 3.Concrete Operations(7-11)

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Pre-conceptual phase

• During the pre-conceptual phase events are explained and experienced in terms of their outward appearance without any logic.

•  • He does not perceive any connections

between relationships i.e.. quantity and quality.

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Intuitive phase

• During the Intuitive phase, he learns to balance between assimilation and accommodation. i.e. he does not think in a whole but in parts i.e.. parts of a house not the whole house.

•  • Play becomes more social, language helps to

foster intuition, child reflects on events, projects into the future

Concrete operations

• During the Concrete operations phase, the child can consider several points of view simultaneously...he can work out solutions, he can establish systems of classification, he can move from inductive to deductive reasoning.

Phase of Formal Operations (11-15)

• It is in this phase that childhood ends, around 14 and youth is reached, with the maturation of cerebral structures.

Formal Operations

• He moves in a world of ideas: The growing youth possesses:

• 1. Qualitative understanding of objects and events

•  • 2. Knowledge of metrical activities•  

Deductive reasoning

• 3. Deductive reasoning develops to a point where he is able to establish personal rules and values...His personality is crystallizing.....

 • His/her interests center around weighing,

classifying and reevaluating....(this is why adolescents are so critical)

At 15,

• 4. At 15, he/she has the following developmental accomplishments:

•  • a. Sees the social world as an organic unit-laws,

roles social functions•  • b. Egocentricity is dissolved by a sense of moral

solidarity•  

Formal Operations complete

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• 5. Personality has developed through intra-communication

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• 6. Submission to adult authority is related by a sense of equality

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Summary

• Piaget's developmental framework, provides a model for individual potentiality-a frame of reference

• Regular patterns of cognitive development bound to be experienced by everyone 

• We are able to predict an individuals mode and range of comprehension along a developmental plane 

Robert Sears: The Learning Theory

• Sears, an empiricist and an experimentalist.

• Taught at Stanford-Social Learning Psych Department

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Stimulus/Response

• Explains child development through the S.R. (stimulus-response) sequence.

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• SR-the effect of an action can be the learned cause of future behaviour.

• Many of his ideas were formed with the help of a colleague-Clark Hull who stressed reinforcement-secondary drive, motivation and frustration and aggression hypothesis advanced by Dollard, Miller and others.

SR and Behaviour

•  • For example, -hunger (stimulus) activates the

individual and determines how he/she (will respond) thus producing an action sequence and a goal.

•  • Behaviour to Sears, is the cause and effect of

other behaviour –Behaviour is Learned•  

Learning Theory

• Behaviour is self motivated towards tension reduction 

• Behaviour is reinforced by goal achievement producing secondary motivational systems

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Concept of Development in Phases

Constructivist•  

• For Sears, development is a continuous chain of events, some of which replace previous acquisitions.

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• The development of the child occurs in three phases:

Stages of Learning

•  • 1. Rudimentary behaviour (1-16 months)•  • 2. Secondary motivational systems- family

cantered learning (1.5 years to 5 years)•  • 3. Secondary motivational systems- extra

familial learning (5-)•  

Phase One: Rudimentary Behaviour

•   Like Freud’s Id, and Piaget’s Sensory Motor Phases,

• Sears’ Rudimentary Stage

• -Phase of gratification of immediate needs

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• -Primary drives = the cry

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• -Environmental learning -fulfilment of needs =reduction of tension=rewards, experience (crying and the breast)

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• the child learns he/she can manipulate the environment-learns that he is not only controlled but can control

•  • -child begins to learn techniques for cooperation•  • Child development to Sears occurs in dyadic

units of behaviour..

Dyadic relationships

• The prime dyad is between mother and child-the mother looks after the biological needs of the child, enforcing dependency, regulating appropriate behaviour on the part of the child seeking gratification

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• This dyadic relationship eventually serves to control and modify behaviour because as mothers permissiveness becomes more discriminately offered it give rise to frustration and aggression

The second dyad

•  • The second dyad is child-environment-child's sex,

position in the family structure, mother's personality, social status and education

•  • In brief, it is in the rudimentary phase that the

child bonds with the mother and is introduced to the environment, which leads to ever increasing interaction with it...

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Learning Primary

• Sears gives little consideration to the role of punishment and more to reward

• The child learns positive roles and relationship from primary agents, significant others…mother, father, siblings

Phase II: Secondary Motivational System-Family

Centered Learning • During this phase the child's primary needs

continue to motivate, but these are incorporated into social learning and secondary drives

•  • ie. before child would cry because the stomach

contracts, now cry might occur because of the sight of the bottle or the refrigerator

Learning and Affection

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• Learning occurs and depends upon affection and learned dependency- mere permissiveness reinforced the status quo so direction teaches the child and serves to protect him/her

Second year

• In the second year the child shows successful partial withdrawl from the care of mother.

•  • The child begins to see there is a larger world

around him/her gratification, affection, esteem can come from other sources-father, siblings and family friends and relatives

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Weaning-

• Sears places a great deal of interest in factors such as weaning-weaning has four aspects:

• 1. new food intake

• 2. solid food

• 3. learning to handle food orally

• 4. to eat without being held

Toilet Training-

• All of these must occur within 20 months to avoid setbacks-can start as early as six months

•  • Another developmental phenomenon is toilet

training. For Sears, it is vital to behavioural learning-associated with reward and punishment and maternal rejection

Sexual modesty

• A third vital aspect of development is sexual modesty -to Sears parental attitudes shape the conscience of children

 • If parents are too restrictive may lead to the

feminization of boys, sex anxieties, aggressiveness.

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 Social aggression

• A less restrictive attitude will lead to the encouragement of masculine qualities in both boys and girls.

•  • Social aggression, for Sears is not learned

by accident-it is learned in the family-can be avoided by careful balance of permissiveness and restraint.

Third year

• In the third year identification and role playing are significant characteristics of development... a child remembers gratifying experiences in infancy and in the absence of mother, begins to reproduce mother's caring activities.

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A child’s upbringing

• To Sears involves five clusters of dependency: • 1. negative attention seeking-defiance, disruption,

aggressiveness• 2. reassurance- seeking protection, apologizing

because of high demands • 3. positive attention- seeking praise,  • 4. touching- holding and clutching others • 5. being near-

Summary Phase Two

• Thus, Sears hold that this second phase is vital for the child's social development.

•  • The progression from parental control to partial

self control affects the child's ability to give affection, identify with adults, deal with criticism and cope with adult role and sex-appropriate behaviour.

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Phase Three: (extra-familial learning)

• At age 5 the child's dependency on parents of both sexes begins to give way because of participation in the outside world.

• Teachers, peers and other adults reinforce operate dependency behaviour. 

• The child's ability to identify with extra familial role models is rooted in the previous stage of his/her development.

Learning through phases

•  • As the child matures permissiveness grows

narrower and controlled areas become expanded, defined and reinforced by various adults...

•  • Thus, for Sears, the learning theorist, a child's

development is the product of his interaction with the social world...

•  His behaviour is the product of environmental experiences and child rearing practices...

Sears: The Learning Theorist

• The most open-ended of the developmental theorists’

• A constructivist-he adopt the phase concept of socialization and development

• Sears places the most emphasis on social environment compared to Piaget, the Cognitive Theory, and the Psychoanalytic theorists, Freud and Erikson.

Innate Aggression

• Aggression is an innate drive that may be aroused when an individual encounters frustration or threat.

• The individual is automatically directed towards the goal of injuring or destroying the source of irritation. Furthermore, when the aggressive drive is aroused energy is

Ecological Systems Theory

•  • -Developed by Urie Bronfrenbenner, is a classical psycholical model emphasizing how certain biological dispositions combine with environmental forces to mould development.

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Systems micro meso, exo

• His theory looks at the micro system, mesosystem, and mesosystem.

•  • The microsystem-refers to the child's immediate environment

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• The mesosystem -encompasses broader agents of socialization such as home, neighbourhood, daycare center.

•  • The exosystem- involves social settings beyond the childs environment that effect the child in some way. These might include work schedules, maternity leaves, sick pay etc.

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