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Definition of Theory
• A theory is an interrelated,
coherent set of ideas that
helps to explain and to make
predictions.
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The Historical Perspective
•  Original Sin - children were perceived as
being basically bad, born into the world as
evil beings.
•  Tabula Rasa - children are like a “blank
tablet,” and acquire their characteristics
through experience.
•  Innate Goodness - children are inherently
good.
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Psychoanalytic Theories
•  Behavior is primarily unconscious—
beyond awareness.
•  Behavior is heavily colored by
emotion.
•  Behavior is merely a surface
characteristic with symbolic meaning.
•  Early experiences with parents
extensively shape behavior.
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Five Stages of Psychosexual
Development
•  The Oral Stage (Birth to 18 months)
•  The Anal Stage (18 months to 3 years)
•  The Phallic Stage (3 to 6 years)
•  The Latent Stage (6 years to puberty)
•  The Genital Stage (Puberty on)
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Erikson -Psychosocial Theory
•  Crises are not catastrophes but rather
turning points of increased vulnerability
and enhanced potential.
•  The more an individual resolves the crises
successfully, the healthier development will
be.
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Stages of Psychosocial
Development
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Trust vs. Mistrust
Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
Initiative vs. Guilt
Industry vs. Inferiority
Identity vs. Identity Confusion
Intimacy vs. Isolation
Generativity vs. Stagnation
Integrity vs. Despair
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Theory
Map
Perspective: Psychodynamic
Theory: Psychoanalytic Theory
Theorists: Freud
What develops: Focus on inner person, unconscious forces act to
determine personality and behavior
How development proceeds: Behavior motivated by inner
forces, memories, and conflicts
Principles:
Personality has three aspects-id, ego, and superego
Psychosexual development involves series of stages-oral,
anal, phallic, genital
Other key terms: pleasure principle, reality principle, fixation
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Theory Map
Perspective: Psychodynamic
Theory: Psychosocial Theory
Theorist: Erikson
Primary focus: Focus on social interaction with others
How development proceeds: Development occurs through changes in
interactions with and understanding of others and in self knowledge
and understanding of members of society
Principles:
Psychosocial development involves eight distinct, fixed, universal
stages.
Each stage presents crisis/conflict to be resolved; growth and change
are lifelong
Other key terms: trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt,
initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. role diffusion,
intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation, ego-integrity vs.
despair
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Cognitive Theories
•  Piaget’s cognitive development
theory
•  Vygotsky’s sociocultural
cognitive theory
•  The information-processing
approach
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Theory Map
Perspective: Cognitive perspective
Theorist: Jean Piaget
What develops: Focus on processes that allow people to know, understand, and
think about the world
How development proceeds: Human thinking is arranged in organized mental
patterns that represent behaviors and actions; understanding of world improves
through assimilation and accommodation
Principles: assimilation and accomodation
Other key terms: Schemes and schemas
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Piaget’s Cognitive
Development Theory
•  Children actively construct their
understanding of the world.
•  Children progress through four stages
of cognitive development.
•  Two processes underlie development:
assimilation and accommodation.
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How do we learn?
•  Assimilation
•  Incorporating new information into
their existing knowledge
Accommodation
•  Adapting one’s existing knowledge
to new information
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Vygotsky’s Theory of
Development
•  Used a Marxist analysis to create a theory of
intellectual development.
•  Language is central
•  Zone of proximal development – key
concept
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Zone of Proximal
Development
Tasks below the zone the child can
already accomplish with no help. Thus
giving the child this kind of task involves no
new learning.
Tasks above the zone cannot be
accomplished even with help. Thus, giving
the child this kind of task causes frustration
and failure and results in no meaningful
learning.
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TYPES OF SCAFFOLDING
(EXAMPLES)
Modeling
Thinking aloud
Asking Questions
Cueing (mnemonic devices)
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Theory Map
Perspective: Sociocultural Perspective
Theorist: Lev Vygotsky
What develops: As children play and cooperate with others, they learn what
is important in their society and advance cognitively in their understanding of
the world
How development proceeds: Approach emphasizes how cognitive
development proceeds as a result of social interactions between members
Principles: Development is a reciprocal transaction between people in the
child’s environment and the child.
Other key terms: Social interactions, zone of proximal development (ZPD),
interpsychological and intrapsychologial levels
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The Information-Processing
Approach
•  Analogy to the mind as a computer.
•  Individuals develop a gradually increasing
capacity for processing information.
•  Over time, capacity for complexity
increases.
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Theory Map
Perspective: Cognitive perspective
Theorist: Information-processing approach
What develops: Focus is primarily on memory
How development proceeds: Information is thought to be processed in
serial, discontinuous manner as it moves from stage to stage (Stage theory
model); information is stored in multiple locations throughout brain by means
of networks of connections (connectionistic model)
Principles: Cognitive development proceeds quickly in certain areas and more
slowly in others; experience plays greater role in cognition
Other key terms: Some versions are called neo-Piagetian theory
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Behavioral and Social
Cognitive Theories
•  These theories believe that scientifically
we can only study what can be directly
observed and measured.
•  They also believe that development is
observable behavior that can be learned
through experience with the environment.
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Operant Conditioning
•  B.F. Skinner demonstrated that the
consequences of a behavior produce
changes in the probability of the
behavior occurring again.
•  Consequences can be either rewards
(increasing the likelihood of behavior
recurrence), or punishment (decreasing
this chance).
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Theory Map
Perspective: Behavioral
Theorist: B. F. Skinner
What develops: Focus on observable behavior and outside
environmental stimuli
How development proceeds: Voluntary response is
strengthened or weakened by association with negative or
positive consequences
Principles: Operant conditioning
Other key terms: Deliberate actions on environment;
behavior modification; reinforcement; punishment;
extinguished behavior
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Social Cognitive Theory
•  Albert Bandura and Walter Mischel
believe that cognitive processes are
important mediators of environmentbehavior connections.
•  Learning occurs through observing
what others do, as individuals
cognitively represent what they see and
adopt the behavior themselves.
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Ethological Theory
•  Behavior is strongly influenced by biology.
•  Behavior is tied to evolution.
•  Behavior is characterized by critical
periods.
•  European zoologist Konrad Lorenz
(1903-1989) identified imprinting.
•  John Bowlby theorizes about attachment.
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Definition of Imprinting
•  The rapid, innate learning
within a limited critical period
of time that involves attachment
to the first moving object seen
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Attachment
•  A concept based on principles of ethological
theory.
•  Attachment to a caregiver over the first year
of life has important consequences:
–  Positive and secure attachment results in positive
development.
–  Negative and insecure attachment
results in problematic development.
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Ecological Theory
•  Developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner.
•  Consists of 5 environmental systemssee next slide:
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Theory Map
Perspective: Evolutionary / Ethological Perspective
Theorist: Charles Darwin/Konrad Lorenz
What develops: Through a process of natural selection traits in a species that
are adaptive to its environment are creative
How development proceeds: Behavior is result of genetic inheritance
from ancestors
Principles: Ethological influence (examines ways in which biological makeup
affects behavior)
Other key terms: Behavioral genetics; relationship to psychological disorders
(e.g., schizophrenia)
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go back
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Theory Map
Perspective: Contextual Perspective
Theorist: Urie Bronfenbrenner/Bioecological Approach
What develops: Focus relationship between individuals and their physical,
cognitive, personality, and social worlds
How development proceeds: Development is unique and intimately tied
to a person’s social and cultural context; four levels of environment
simultaneously influence individuals
Principles: Each system contains roles, norms, and rules that can powerfully
shape development
Other key terms: Microsystem; ecosystem; exosystem; macrosystem;
chronosystem