Miller, P. H. (2002). Theories of Developmental Psychology. Worth Publishers:
New York.
Chapter 1 – Piaget’s Cognitive Stage Theory and the Neo=Piagetians
Born 1896 in Neuchatel, Switzerland, Jean Piaget first published an article at age
10. He showed a remarkable proclivity for writing academically, and wrote on a
wide variety of topics. Despite a doctorate in malacology achieved at age 21,
Piaget was not satisfied with his efforts in natural sciences, and spent two years at
the Sorbonne studying philosophy and psychology. This led to his work with
Simon (of Binet testing programs) and to the field of his heart: child psychology
and educational development.
Characteristics of the theory:
1) Genetic Epistemology – Piaget believed that humans are wired to desire to
understand the world that surrounds and encompasses them (epistemology). For
him, the issue broke down into a series of questions related to how one learns. His
understanding of the term genetics implies development. Piaget wanted to know
when, in development, humans begin to understand their relationship to knowledge
. . . KNOWLEDGE IS A PROCESS, NOT A STATE! IT IS AN EVENT OR A
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ACTIVE KNOWER AND THE KNOWN.
“Experience is always filtered through the child’s current ways of understanding”
(p. 32).
2) the Biological Approach – He referred to cognitive development as “mental
embryology” meaning that “an organized structure becomes more differentiated
over time” (p. 32), Basically, biology was, and is, and analogous tool for
understanding of intelligence.
3) Structuralism – “Piaget proposed that a small set of mental operations (mental
actions) underlies a wide variety of thinking episodes” (p. 33). An underlying
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structure provides a foundation for a method of learning and knowing. These
fundamental schema become more complex with development, but still, they are
branches of the same tree.
4) the Stage Approach – the idea that cognitive development proceeds through
stages is not unique, and theories abound in developmental psychology. However,
Piaget has five salient characteristics to stages:
-- 1 -- A stage is a structure whole in a state of equilibrium. By the end of the
stage, all aspects are in balance.
-- 2 – Each stage derives from the previous stage, incorporates and transforms the
stage, and prepares for the next stage. While skills from prior stages are retained,
they are now merely a piece of a new whole.
-- 3 – The stages follow and invariant sequence. Since each stage builds on the
former and prepares for the latter, none may be skipped, nor may the order be
altered.
-- 4 – Stages are universal . While people vary in speed of progress through the
stages, all people, in all societies, progress through the same stages in the same
sequence.
-- 5 – Each stage includes a coming-into being and a being. While transition
periods are unstable, there is a structure in reaching the final aspect of each stage.
5) Piaget’s methodology – The same tools of observation and analysis as presented
in his development of malacology are used in his methodology for developmental
psychology. Detailed notes and occasional experimentation led to understanding
and to the compiled theories.
THE STAGES THEMSELVES:
Sensorimotor Period (birth to 2 years) – human life starts with a set of reflexes and
inherited ways of interacting with the environment.
STAGE 1 – Modification of Reflexes (birth to 1 month)
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Babies are born with reflexes, they practice and recognize them. These become
schema – organized patterns of behavior.
STAGE 2 – Primary Circular Reactions (1 – 4 months)
A baby discovers cause and effect – something done leads to something happens.
STAGE 3 – Secondary Circular Reactions (4 – 8 months)
Before the action caused something to happen to the baby, now, the action causes
an environmental effect.
STAGE 4 – Coordination of Secondary Schemes (8 – 12 months)
During this time, the child learns that having and action affect the environment can
lead to something the baby wants.
STAGE 5 – Tertiary Circular Reactions (12 – 18 months)
Deliberate trial and error allows the child to learn the actual affect of their actions.
STAGE 6 – Invention of New Menad Through Mental Combinations (18-24
months)
Faced with a problem that past method do not solve, the child can think through
new methods to provide solutions, frequently without trial and error.
OVERVIEW –
1 – A Child actively learns about properties of objects and relations among them.
2 – Cognitive structures become more tightly organized.
3 – Behavior gradually becomes more intentional
4 – The self is gradually differentiated from the environment.
CONCEPT OF OBJECT PERMANENCE –
Prior to this point, the child accepts that if something is gone from his sight, the
object has vanished. During this period of development, the child seeks the object
– initially where it was, but gradually in a wider area.
PREOPERATIONAL PHASE (2-7 years)
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Semiotic Function – the use of another word or object to signify a “thing” –
swooping hand is an airplane – pointed finger is a gun.
CHARACTERISTICS
1-Egocentrism – it’s all about me.
2-Rigidity of thought – I am always right
3 – Semilogical reasoning – solutions always lead back to me
4 – Limited Social Cognition – the world according to me
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL PHASE (7-11 years)
This is when the concept of wider and deeper can be understood, though not,
perhaps, fully explained.
FORMAL OPERATIONAL PERIOD (11-15 years)
The scientific method applies to everything whether we know it or not.
MEMORY – Short term memory and long term memory are both fallible, but short
term is more fallible than long term.
MECHANISMS OF DEVELOPMENT
Cognitive Organization
Cognitive Adaptation
Assimilation
Accomodation
Cognitive Equilibration
POSITION ON DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES
Human Nature
Organismic
Qualitative Versus Quantitative Development
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Nature Versus Nurture
Physical Maturation
Experience with Physical Environment
Social Experience
Equilibration
Equals Development
APPLICATIONS
“readiness”
EVALUATION OF THE THEORY
Strengths
Recognition of Central Role of Cognition
Discovery of Surprising Features of Children’s Thinking
Ecological Validity
Weaknesses
Inadequate Support for the Stage Notion
Inadequate Account of Mechanisms of Development
Need for a Theory of Performance
Slighting of Social and Emotional Aspects of Development
Underestimation of Abilities
Methodogical and Stylistic Barriers
PIAGET’S OWN MODIFICATIONS
Consideration of development as spiral rather than staged
Assimilation + Accommodation + Feedback => Reflective Abstraction
NEO-PIAGETIANS
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Robbie Case – change is due to increased memory – “executive processing space”
Kurt Fischer – “Variations in developmental level are routing and pervasive and
need to be explained, not ignored.”
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Chapter 2 – Freud’s and Erikson’s Psychoanalytical Theories
FREUD – born 1856, Freiberg, Moravia. “A man who has been the indisputable
favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror, that confidence of
success that often induces real success”
GENERAL ORIENTATION TO THE THEORY
Dynamic Approach – “economics of nervous energy”
Structural Approach – Id/Ego/Superego
Topographic Approach – Unconsciou/preconscious/conscious
Stage Approach – Normal-Abnormal Continuum/Methodology
Description of Stages
Oral (Birth to 1 year)
Anal (1-3 years)
Phallic (3-5 years) (Oedipus complex)
Period of Latency (5-12 years)
Genital Stage (adolescence)
Case Study – “Little Hans”
CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH ON RELATIONSHIPS
MECHANISMS OF DEVELOPMENT
Maturation
External frustrations
Internal conflicts
Personal inadequacies
Anxiety
POSITION ON DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES
Human Nature
Qualitative Versus Quantitative Development
Nature versus Nurture
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What Develops
APPLICATIONS
EVALUATION OF THE THEORY
Strengths
Discover of Central Development Phenomena
Focus on Non-Logical Thought
Weaknesses
Uncertain Testability of Central Claims Concerning Development
Overemphasis on Childhood Sexuality
ERICKSON – born 1902 near Frankfurt, Germany
GENERAL ORIENTATION TO THE THEORY
Psychosocial Stages
Emphasis on Identity
Expansion of Psychoanalytic Methodology
DESCRIPTION OF THE STAGES
Basic Trust versus Basic Mistrust (birth to 1 year)
Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt (2-3 years)
Initiative versus Guilt (4-5 years)
Industry versus Inferiority (6-12 years)
Identity and Repudiation versus Identity Diffusion (adolescence)
Intimacy and Solidarity versus Isolation (young adulthood)
Generativity versus Stagnation and Self-absorption (Middle Adulthood)
Integrity versus Despair (Late Adulthood)
CONTEMPORARY ERICKSONIAN RESEARCH
MECHANISMS OF DEVELOPMENT
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POSITION ON DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES
The existential human is in the process of “becoming” throughout life
APPLICATIONS
EVALUATION
Strengths
Expansion of Psychoanalytic theory
Broad Perspective
Weaknesses
Lack of Systematicity
Lack of Specific Mechanisms of Development
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CHAPTER 3 – SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
Mark Twain: “Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond;
cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
HISTORY OF THE THEORY
Henri Bergson (1911): “The present contains nothing more than the past, and what
is fround in the effect was already in the cause.”
Behaviorism - Watson considered children, “lumps of clay” to be shaped by their
environment.
Early Research on Children’s Learning – Learning seemed to be under cognitive
control (169) . . .
Skinner believed only in operant conditioning – positively reinforce desired
behavior; negatively reinforce undesired behavior.
Social Learning – Dollard & Miller – “The ultimate goal is to combine the vitality
of psychoanalysis, the rigor of the natural-science laborartory, and the facts of
culture. – Bandura and Walters carry the concept further demonstrating that new
behaviors can be acquired by simply watching a model.
GENERAL ORIENTATION TO THE THEORY
Emphasis on Learning (TLT), Especially Observational Learning (SLT)
Traditional Learning Theory (TLT) – environmental, nonbiological influences
Modern Social Learning Theory (SLT) – the socialization of children involves the
shaping of behaviors directed toward other people.
Models initiate behaviors:
1-Teaching New Behaviors
2-Strengthening or Weakening Children’s Inhibitions
3-Drawing Attention to Particular Objects and Their Use
4-Increasing Emotional Arousal
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EXAMPLES OF DEVELOPMENTAL RESEARCH: MORAL JUDGMENTS
AND GENDER ROLES
Moral Judgments – Change in judgment due to change in criteria for judgment
Gender-Role Development-collectove efficacy can bring about social change
MECHANISMS OF DEVELOPMENT
Children can formulate hypotheses about physical or social events and test them.
POSITION ON DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES
Human Nature-reciprocal causation – people act on the environment, just as the
environment acts on them.
Qualitative Versus Quantitative Development – primarily qualitative
Nature Versus Nurture-Children are malleable, within limits
What Develops-universally developed skilled ability to learn by observing
EVALUATION OF THE THEORY
Strengths-Focus on Situation Influences on Behavior -- Testability
Weaknesses-Inadequate Account of Cognitive Development – Inadequate
Description in Natural Settings
THREE KEY CONCEPTS (Bandura)
1-Observational learning can be much broader than mimicking another
person’s behavior
2-Children are self-regulatory
3-Triadic reciprocal causation provides a model of behavior change
FIVE SKILLS (Perry)
1-symbolization
2-vicarious learning
3-self-regulation
4-self-efficacy
5-see future consequence of present behavior
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SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY TODAY
Indirectly responsible for much of the current research on children’s social
behavior – particularly aggression, gender, peers, prosocial, and media influence.
SUMMARY –
Social Learning retains the spirit of the behaviorist movement.
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