Developmental_Theories

Developmental Theories Tijuana Q. Patten Psychology 104 Thomas King April 27, 2009 A child’s development is the most important thing in life. Children develop and learn at many different stages. Children also have many influences that have a great impact on the developmental process, such as family, friends, and the environment in which they live. Psychoanalytic Perspective The psychoanalytic perspective is the view of human development as being shaped by unconscious forces. It is a branch of many different perspectives, models or paradigms in the field of psychopathology. Psychopathology is defined as a study of mental disorders from all aspects. The development of gender roles in different forms of feminism gives us a revealing overview of Freud's personality theory. It is relatively easy, however, to find oneself torn between consenting with Freud's view of personality as a dynamic system of psychological energy is a very complex, yet insightful approach to the development of personality. The nature of the id, ego, and superego, and the psychosexual stages that these three structures focus on during a course of one's development, give a plethora of reasons to believe in the existence of a critical period in gender development. These parts together became the persons whole. The id is the part of the personality that comprises a person’s basic sexual and aggressive impulses; it contains the libido which we are not meant to be aware of and motivates a person to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Because it has its own source of energy it has no need for external influences, therefore it exists for instinct gratification of itself. Freud termed this as the pleasure principle. These urges consisted of the need for food, water, elimination, warmth, affection and sex. The ego according to Freud is the thinking element of personality. It is the mental apparatus responsible for dealing with reality. The ego attempts to meet the needs of the ids pleasure principle while avoiding anxiety provoking situations or situations that are not effective in its quest to maintain life. Freud termed this as the reality principle. The superego which is the portion of the personality that acts as a moral judge, and includes the principles of society and becomes more advanced near the end of early childhood, at about the age of six. While the ego tries to meet the demands of the id, the superego rewards and punishes the ego for its ability to avoid anxieties surfacing from the subconscious. Freud's theory suggests that a child's life will influence the child's emotional attachment to her/his parent of the same sex and, as consequence, the child's gender identification. It is not Freud's belief about the id, ego, and superego that makes us think, but rather his rigid sex-based generalization of gender development. However, Freud's generalization seems to underestimate the impact of genetics and broaden social cues, and to overestimate children's cognitive capabilities during the maturing stage and the impact of the child-parent relationship on children's gender development. However a lot of his work is the foundation of the modern day psychoanalytic perspective. He also gave light to anxiety/stress coping techniques through the use of common defense mechanisms. There are several defense mechanisms such as denial, repression, projection, regression, displacement and rationalization. Denial is behaving as if a problem didn’t exist. An example is when a parent has a child with a disability but the parent fails to get help for that child because they are afraid of the outcome so they choose to ignore the issue. Repression is pushing the memory of something unpleasant into the unconscious. For instance, a child who is constantly teased by classmates may soon forget about the incidents once they are around their real friends. Projection is seeing one’s own behavior or beliefs in others, whether they are actually present. An example of projection is when a woman complains about her boss to a co-worker and comes away from the conversation believing that the co-worker shares her dislike of the boss, even though the co-worker made no comment on what she said. (Boyd & Bee, p. 25) Regression is behaving in a way that is inappropriate for one’s age. Older siblings usually regress when a new or younger sibling comes into the picture. The older child suddenly feels left out and begins to behave inappropriately to get attention. Displacement is directing emotion to an object other than the one that provoked it. A personal experience of this particular defense mechanism was during the time a family member lost their vision. My cousin was not as mobile as before because of her lost vision she had to learn certain things all over again and didn’t like depending on others for help. As a result, she started to display anger toward everyone and often pushed them away. Lastly, Rationalization is offering a reasonable or logical explanation for behavior. Learning Perspective Learning perspective is the viewpoint of human development that holds changes in behavior that result from experience or adaptation to the environment. Freud and other psychoanalysts were different from psychologist John Watson who presented opinions about human development. Through manipulation of the environment, Watson believed that children could be taught to do or become anything they wanted. (Boyd & Bee, p. 29) Behaviorism is a specific word invented by Watson. Behaviorism is psychology concentration on observation and changes of behavior. Albert Bandura’s social-learning theory argues that learning takes place through observation. Observational learning is a type of learning that results from seeing a model reinforced or punished for behavior. Small children generally absorb everything that they either see or hear and eventually act on it. For instance, my younger son over heard my husband and I speaking to our older son about keeping his art supplies pick up and put away. Shortly after my younger son who is only two years of age goes to his brother and repeats everything that he over heard as if were the parent. Cognitive Perspective Cognitive perspective is the viewpoint that thought process is central to development. An individuals thoughts, knowledge, interpretation, understanding and ideas focuses on how a persons past experience stored in memory, relates to their current experiences together with how they form and make sense of them. Theorists have suggested that children are unable to understand the world until they reach a particular stage of cognitive development. No theory of cognitive development has had a more strong effect than the cognitive stages presented by Jean Piaget. Piaget, a psychologist, proposed that children go through four separate stages in a secure order that is universal in all children. Piaget announced that these stages differ not only in the quantity of information obtained at each, but also in the quality of knowledge and understanding at that stage. Piaget also expressed that movement from one stage to the next happened when the child reached an appropriate level of maturation and was revealed to significant types of experiences. Without experience, children were assumed incapable of reaching their highest cognitive ability. Piaget’s four stages are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational stages. The sensorimotor stage is from birth until the child is about two years old. During this stage the infant builds an understanding of himself or herself and reality (and how things work) through interactions with the environment. An infant has no awareness of objects or people that are not immediately present at a given moment. According to Piaget this is called object permanence which is the awareness that objects and people exist even if they cannot be seen. Preoperational stage is from ages two to four this is when children focus on the use of language. Children develop the ability to think in a more logical manner and they begin to overcome some of the egocentric characteristics of the preoperational period. One of the major ideas learned in this stage is the idea of reversibility. This is the idea that some changes can be undone by reversing an earlier action. An example is that in this stage children can understand that if a roll of clay is divided into pieces that it can easily be put back together. The concrete operational stage is between the ages of seven and eleven. During this stage a child begins creating logical structures that explain his/her physical experiences. The formal operation stage begins at ages eleven and fifteen. During this stage the child no longer needs concrete objects to make rational judgments. At this point he/she has produced a new kind of thinking that is logical, abstract and formal. At this stage a child doesn’t have to connect with things that can be observed. Information-processing theory is a theoretical perspective that uses the computer as a model to explain how the mind manages information. (Boyd & Bee, p. 37) The information-processing theory explains the amount of information a child of different ages can retain at one time and how it is processed. However, the weakness of information-processing is that human information is much more difficult to analyze than that of a computer. In conclusion, the developmental process in childhood throughout adolescence is rather essential. As we age we begin to develop in different ways. Our behavior changes, and the way we think improves and our personalities mature. Without the above perspectives into play, human development simply would not make any sense. Outline I. Psychoanalytic Perspective- view of human development as being shaped by unconscious forces. A. Freud’s psychosexual theory B. Hypothetical parts of personality 1. id 2. ego 3. superego C. Common defense mechanisms 1. denial 2. repression 3. projection 4. regression 5. displacement 6. rationalization II. Learning Perspective- view of human development that holds changes in behavior result from experience or adaptation to the environment. A. Behaviorism 1. classical conditioning 2. operant conditioning B. Social Learning theory (Bandura) III. Cognitive perspective-view that thought processes are central to development. A. Piaget’s cognitive development theory B. Piaget’s developmental stages 1. sensorimotor 2. preoperational 3. concrete operational 4. formal operational C. Information processing Reference Papalia, D.E., Olds, S.W., Feldman, R.D. (2008).  A Child’s World Infancy through Adolescence. (11th Edition) New York:  McGraw-Hill Boyd, D. & Bee, H. (2006). Adult Development Feldman, Robert S. (2009). Understanding Psychology