Developmental psychology: Theories

 Contents

Developmental psychology investigates the effects of nature and nurture on the process of human development, as well as changes in context over time. Many researchers are fascinated by the interactions between personal characteristics, behaviour, and environmental factors. This includes both the social and built environments. Biological essentialism vs. neuroplasticity and stages of development vs. dynamic systems of development are two ongoing debates in developmental psychology.

Psychosexual development

• The first stage is the oral stage, which begins at birth and lasts about a year and a half. During the oral stage, the child finds pleasure in behaviours such as sucking or other mouth-related activities. 
• The second stage is the anal stage, which lasts about a year or a year and a half to three years. The child defecates from the anus during the anal stage and is often fascinated by their defecation. This stage of development is frequently associated with the child's toilet training. They become intrigued by faeces and urine. Children start to see themselves as separate from their parents. They start to crave assertiveness and autonomy.
• The third stage is the phallic stage, which occurs between the ages of three and five (by this age, the majority of a person's personality has formed). The child becomes aware of their sexual organs during the phallic stage. The child begins to understand who they are. Finding acceptance and love from the opposite sex is pleasurable. 
• The fourth stage is latency, which lasts from the age of five until puberty. The child's sexual interests are suppressed during the latency stage.
• The fifth stage is the genital stage, which lasts from puberty to adulthood. Puberty sets in during the genital stage. Children have now matured and begin to consider others rather than just themselves. Pleasure is derived from other people's affection.

Freud believed that there is tension between the conscious and unconscious because the conscious attempts to suppress what the unconscious wishes to express. He developed three personality structures to explain this: id, ego, and superego. The id, the most primitive of the three, operates on the pleasure principle: seek pleasure while avoiding pain. The superego is the critical and moralising part, while the ego is the organised, realistic part that mediates between the iand d's superego's desires.

Theories of cognitive development

Piaget believed that intellectual development occurs in a series of stages, which he described in his cognitive development theory. Each stage consists of steps that the child must complete before progressing to the next stage. He believed that these stages are not distinct from one another, but that each one builds on the previous one in a continuous learning process. He proposed four levels of operation: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Though he did not believe these stages occurred at any specific age, numerous studies have determined when these cognitive abilities should occur.

Stages of moral development

He proposed three types of moral reasoning: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. Pre-conventional moral reasoning is common in children and is distinguished by reasoning based on rewards and punishments associated with various courses of action. Conventional moral reasoning occurs in late childhood and early adolescence and is distinguished by reasoning based on societal rules and conventions. Finally, post-conventional moral reasoning is a stage in which an individual perceives society's rules and conventions as relative and subjective rather than authoritative.

Kohlberg applied the Heinz Dilemma to his moral development stages. The Heinz Dilemma involves Heinz's wife dying of cancer and Heinz being faced with the decision of stealing a drug to save his wife. Heinz's situation falls under the purview of preconventional morality, conventional morality, and post-conventional morality.

Stages of psychosocial development

1. The first stage, "Trust vs. Mistrust," occurs during childhood. The infant learning whom to trust and hoping for a supportive group of people to be there for him/her is the positive virtue for the first stage.
2. The second stage is "Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt," with will as the positive virtue. This occurs in early childhood when the child learns to be more independent by discovering what they are capable of, whereas if the child is overly controlled, feelings of inadequacy are reinforced, leading to low self-esteem and doubt.
3. "Initiative vs. Guilt" is the third stage. The benefit of being acquired is a sense of purpose. This is accomplished primarily through play. This is the stage when the child is most curious and interacts with other children. As their curiosity grows, they will have a lot of questions. If a child feels too much guilt, he or she may move more slowly and have a more difficult time interacting with their environment and other children.
4. "Industry (competence) vs. Inferiority" is the fourth stage. The virtue for this stage is competency, which is the result of the child's early school experiences. This is the stage at which the child attempts to gain the approval of others and recognises the value of their accomplishments.
5. "Identity vs. Role Confusion" is the fifth stage. The gained virtue is fidelity, and it occurs during adolescence. This is the stage at which the child should begin to identify their place in society, particularly in terms of their gender role.
6. The sixth stage is "Intimacy vs. Isolation," which occurs in young adults and results in the virtue of love. This is the point at which a person begins to intimately and emotionally share his or her life with another person. Failure to do so can exacerbate feelings of isolation.
7. "Generativity vs. Stagnation" is the seventh stage. This occurs in adulthood, and the virtue gained is a concern. When a person achieves stability, he or she begins to give back by raising a family and becoming involved in the community.
8. "Ego Integrity vs. Despair" is the eighth stage. When one reaches old age, they reflect on their lives and consider their successes and failures. If they resolve this positively, they will gain the virtue of wisdom. This is also the stage at which one can come to terms with the death and accept it without regret or fear.

Stages based on the model of hierarchical complexity

The stages are as follows: 

1. Calculatory; 
2. Sensory & Motor; 
3. Circular sensory-motor; 
4. Sensory-motor; 
5. Nominal; 
6. Sentential; 
7. Preoperational; 
8. Primary; 
9. Concrete; 
10. Abstract; 
11. Formal; 
12. Systematic; 
13. Metasystematic; 
14. Paradigmatic; 
15. Crossparadigmatic; 
16. Meta-Cross-paradigmatic.
    The order of hierarchical complexity of tasks predicts how difficult the performance is, with a R ranging from 0.9 to 0.98.

There are three main axioms in the MHC that an order must meet in order for the higher order task to coordinate the next lower order task. Axioms are rules that govern how the MHC orders actions to create a hierarchy. These axioms are as follows:
a) defined in terms of tasks at the next lower order of hierarchical complexity task action;
b) defined as the higher-order task action that organises two or more less complex actions; that is, the more complex action specifies how the less complex actions combine; and
c) defined as the lower order task actions must be carried out non-arbitrarily.

Ecological systems theory

Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory specifies four types of nested environmental systems with bi-directional influences within and between the systems. Microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem are the four systems. Each system contains roles, norms, and rules that can have a significant impact on development. The microsystem is our immediate environment, such as our home and school. The mesosystem connects relationships to the microsystem. Exosystem refers to a larger social system in which the child has no role. The term "macrosystem" refers to society's cultural values, customs, and laws.

The microsystem refers to the immediate environment that surrounds and influences the individual (example: school or the home setting). The mesosystem is the combination of two microsystems and their interactions (example: sibling relationships at home vs. peer relationships at school). The exosystem is the interaction of two or more settings that are indirectly linked (for example, a father's job that requires more overtime affects his daughter's school performance because he can no longer help her with her homework). The macrosystem is more comprehensive, taking into account social and economic status, culture, beliefs, customs, and morals (example: a child from a wealthier family sees a peer from a less wealthy family as inferior for that reason). Finally, the chronosystem refers to the chronological nature of life events and how they interact and change the individual and their circumstances as they progress (example: a mother losing her own mother to illness and no longer having that support in her life). 

Bronfenbrenner's major statement of this theory, The Ecology of Human Development  has had a wide influence on how psychologists and others approach the study of humans and their environments since its publication in 1979. As a result of this development conceptualization, these environments—from the family to economic and political structures—have come to be regarded as a part of the life course from childhood to adulthood.

Zone of proximal development

This technique is known as "scaffolding" because it combines existing knowledge in children with new knowledge that adults can help the child learn. Vygotsky was a strong believer in the role of culture in determining a child's developmental pattern, arguing that development moves from the social to the individual level. In other words, Vygotsky argued that psychology should be concerned with the advancement of human consciousness through the interaction of an individual and their environment. He believed that if scholars continued to ignore this connection, it would impede full comprehension of human consciousness.

Constructivism

Jean Piaget, a Swiss developmental psychologist, proposed that learning is an active process because children learn by doing, making mistakes, and solving problems. Piaget proposed that learning be holistic by assisting students in understanding that meaning is constructed.

Evolutionary developmental psychology

From an evolutionary standpoint, EDP considers both the reliably developing, species-typical features of ontogeny (developmental adaptations) and individual differences in behaviour. While most evolutionary views regard most individual differences as the result of random genetic noise (evolutionary byproducts) and/or idiosyncrasies (for example, peer groups, education, neighbourhoods, and chance encounters), EDP contends that natural selection can favour the emergence of individual differences through "adaptive developmental plasticity." According to this viewpoint, rather than following a species-typical pattern of development, human development follows alternative life-history strategies in response to environmental variability.

EDP is closely related to the theoretical framework of evolutionary psychology (EP), but it differs from EP in several ways, including research emphasis (EDP focuses on ontogenetic adaptations rather than adult adaptations) and consideration of proximate ontogenetic and environmental factors (i.e., how development occurs) rather than more ultimate factors (i.e., why development occurs), which are the focus of mainstream evolutionary psychology.

Attachment theory

John Bowlby's attachment theory emphasises the importance of open, intimate, emotionally meaningful relationships. Attachment is defined as a biological system or a powerful survival instinct that evolved to ensure the infant's survival. A threatened or stressed child will gravitate toward caregivers who provide physical, emotional, and psychological safety. Body contact and familiarity feed attachment. Later, Mary Ainsworth created the Strange Situation protocol and the secure base concept. The Strange Situation Test and the Adult Attachment Interview are two tools that have been discovered to help understand and monitor attachment. Both of which play a role in determining attachment styles. The Strange Situation Test can help identify "disturbances in attachment" and whether certain characteristics are found to contribute to a specific attachment issue. The Adult Attachment Interview is a tool similar to the Strange Situation Test, but it focuses on adult attachment issues. Both tests have assisted many researchers in learning more about the risks and how to identify them.

Attachment styles are classified into four types by theorists: secure, anxious-avoidant, anxious-resistant, and disorganised. A healthy attachment between the infant and the caregiver is referred to as secure attachment. It is distinguished by trust. An anxious-avoidant attachment is an insecure attachment between a child and a caregiver. This is characterised by the infant's lack of interest in the caregiver. Anxious-resistant attachment is an insecure attachment between the infant and the caregiver that is characterised by the infant's distress when separated and anger when reunited. Disorganized is an attachment style in which there is no consistent pattern of responses upon the parent's return.

A child's natural tendency to form attachments can be hampered. Some babies are raised without the stimulation and attention of a regular caregiver, while others are locked away due to abuse or extreme neglect. Anger, despair, detachment, and a temporary delay in intellectual development are possible short-term consequences of this deprivation. Long-term consequences include increased aggression, clinging behaviour, detachment, psychosomatic disorders, and an increased risk of adult depression.

Attachment is formed in early childhood and continues into adulthood. When it comes to intimate relationships, adults' ability to handle relationship issues is determined by their attachment styles, which were formed during their childhood. When a person feels confident and capable of meeting their own needs, this is an example of secure attachment continuing into adulthood. A secure attachment enables the adult to maintain a healthy, trusting relationship. When an adult chooses a partner with anxious-avoidant attachment, this is an example of anxious attachment during adulthood. An adult's trust issues in a committed relationship can be impacted by having an anxious/ ambivalent attachment style. Understanding an individual's attachment style with their caregiver as a child allows us to better understand their interpersonal relationships as adults.

Nature vs nurture

An empiricist would argue that those processes are learned through interaction with the environment. Nowadays, developmental psychologists rarely take such polarised positions on most aspects of development; instead, they study the relationship between innate and environmental influences, among other things. In recent years, the emerging field of evolutionary developmental psychology has been used to investigate this relationship.

Language acquisition research is one area where the innateness debate has been prominently displayed. A major question in this field is whether certain properties of human language are genetically determined or can be learned. The empiricist viewpoint on language acquisition proposes that language input provides the necessary information for learning the structure of language and that infants acquire language through a statistical learning process. Language, according to this viewpoint, can be learned using general learning methods that also apply to other aspects of development, such as perceptual learning.

The nativist viewpoint contends that language input is insufficient for infants and children to learn language structure. Linguist Noam Chomsky claims that there is a universal grammar that applies to all human languages and is pre-specified, as evidenced by the lack of sufficient information in the language input. This has given rise to the notion that there is a special cognitive module suited to language learning, dubbed the language acquisition device. Many consider Chomsky's critique of the behaviourist model of language acquisition to be a watershed moment in the decline of behaviourism theory in general. However, Skinner's concept of "Verbal Behavior" has not died, possibly because it has resulted in successful practical applications.

Continuity vs discontinuity

One of the most important debates in developmental psychology is whether development is discontinuous or continuous. Discontinuous development is qualitative, whereas continuous development is quantifiable and quantitative. "Quantitative estimations of development can include measuring a child's stature as well as their memory or consideration span." Metamorphoses, such as the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, are particularly dramatic examples of qualitative changes.

Those psychologists who support the continuous view of improvement propose that improvement entails slow and progressive changes throughout one's life, with behaviour in earlier stages of development providing the foundation for abilities and capacities required in later stages. "The concept of continuous, quantifiable measurement appears to many to be the essence of science."

However, not all psychologists agree that advancement can be a continuous process. Few people consider progress to be a continuous process. They accept that advancement includes unmistakable and segmented stages with various types of behaviour occurring in each organisation. This implies that the development of specific capacities in each arrange, such as specific feelings or ways of thinking, has a distinct beginning and end point. Regardless, there is no right or wrong time for a capacity to appear or disappear. Although some types of thinking, feeling, or carrying on may appear to be sudden, it is more than likely that they have been developing gradually for some time.

Stage theories of development are based on the suspicion that development may be a discontinuous process with distinct stages distinguished by subjective behavioural contrasts. They also assume that the structure of the stages isn't variable according to each individual, but that the time of each arrangement can change independently. Stage theories are distinct from never-ending hypotheses, which assert that development is an incremental process.

Stability vs change

This issue concerns the extent to which people become older versions of their early experiences or whether they develop into someone different from who they were at a previous stage of development. It examines the extent to which early experiences (particularly infancy) or later experiences are important determinants of a person's development.

The majority of lifespan developmentalists agree that extreme positions are risky. As a result, the key to a comprehensive understanding of development at any stage necessitates the interaction of multiple factors rather than just one.