Chapter 2
Prominent Approaches in LifeSpan Development
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As researchers
formulate a problem
to study, they often
draw on theories and
develop hypotheses.
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Definition of a Theory
• A theory is a interrelated, coherent set of
ideas that helps to explain and to make
predictions.
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Definition of Hypothesis
• A hypothesis is a
specific assumption
or prediction that can
be tested to
determine its
accuracy.
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Prominent Approaches in
Life-Span Development
The Psychoanalytic Approach
The Cognitive Approach
The Behavioural and
Social Cognitive Approach
The Ethological Approach
The Humanist Approach
The Ecological Approach
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Psychoanalytic Theories
• Behaviour is primarily unconscious –
beyond awareness.
• Behaviour is heavily coloured by emotions.
• Behaviour is merely a surface
characteristic with symbolic meaning.
• Early experiences with parents shape
behaviour extensively.
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The Psychoanalytic
Approach
Sigmund
Freud
Erik
Erikson
Other
Psychoanalytic
Theories
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Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
• Medical doctor
specializing in
neurology
• Developed ideas
about psychoanalytic
theory from work with
mental patients
• Considered problems
to be result of
experiences early in
life
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Freud’s Three Structures of
Personality
• Id
• Ego
• Superego
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The Id
• Totally unconscious: has no contact with
reality
• Consists of instincts: our reservoir of
psychic energy
• Has no morality
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The Ego
• Deals with the demands of reality
• Called the “executive branch” of
personality: uses reasoning to make
decisions
• Has no morality
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The Superego
• The moral branch of personality
• Takes into account whether something is
right or wrong
• Our “conscience”
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Psychosocial Development
• Five stages.
• Each stage focuses on a part of the body
for experiencing pleasure.
• How conflicts between sources of pleasure
are resolved determines adult personality.
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Definition of Erogenous Zone
• Erogenous zones are parts of the body
that have especially strong pleasure-giving
qualities at particular stages of
development.
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The Five Stages of Psychosocial
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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The Oral Stage
(birth to 18 months)
• Pleasure centres
around the mouth.
• Chewing, sucking,
biting are sources of
pleasure.
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The Anal Stage
(18 months to 3 years)
• Pleasure centres around the anus.
• Elimination functions are sources of
pleasure.
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The Phallic Stage
(3 to 6 years)
• Pleasure focuses on the genitals.
• Self-manipulation is a source of pleasure.
• Oedipus Complex appears.
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Definition of Oedipus Complex
• The Oedipus Complex is Freud’s term for
the young child’s development of an
intense desire to replace the same-sex
parent and enjoy the affections of the
opposite-sex parent.
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Resolution of the Oedipus Complex
• Children recognize that their same-sex
parent might punish them for their
incestuous wishes.
• To reduce this conflict, the child identifies
with the same-sex parent, striving to be
like him or her.
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The Latent Stage
(6 years to puberty)
• The child represses all interest in
sexuality.
• The child develops social and intellectual
skills.
• Energy is channelled into emotionally safe
areas.
• The child forgets the highly stressful
conflicts of the phallic stage.
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The Genital Stage
(puberty on)
• This is a time of sexual reawakening.
• The source of sexual pleasure comes from
outside the family.
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When conflict is not resolved, individuals
may develop a fixation.
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Definition of Fixation
• A fixation occurs when the individual
remains locked in an earlier
developmental stage because needs are
under- or overgratified.
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Examples of Fixations
• Oral – due to parents weaning too early, as an adult the
individual seeks out oral gratification through smoking,
drinking, gum chewing.
• Anal – due to parents being too strict with potty training,
as an adult the individual is excessively neat and orderly
(known as “anal retentive”).
• Phallic – due to parents punishing the child for
masturbating, as an adult the individual seeks out
pornography.
• Genital – due to parents smothering the child with too
much affection, as an adult the individual has difficulty in
romantic relationships, the result of being extremely
“needy.”
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Contemporary View of Freud’s
Theory
• Unconscious thought remains a central
theme
• Conscious thought plays larger role
• Less emphasis on sexual instincts
• Greater emphasis on cultural experiences
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Erik Erikson (1902 – 1994)
• Recognized Freud’s contributions
• Believed Freud misjudged some important
dimensions of human development
• Developed the Psychosocial Theory of
Development
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The Psychosocial Theory of
Development
• The primary motivation for human
behaviour is social and reflects a desire to
affiliate with other people.
• Eight stages of development unfold
throughout the entire life span.
• Each stage consists of a unique
development task that confronts
individuals with a crisis that must be faced.
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The Psychosocial Theory of
Development (cont’d)
• Crises are not catastrophes but rather
turning points of increased vulnerability
and enhanced potential.
• The more an individual resolves crises
successfully, the healthier development
will be.
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Stages of Psychosocial
Development
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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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Trust vs. Mistrust
(First Year)
• A sense of trust requires
a feeling of physical
comfort and a minimal
amount of fear and
apprehension about the
future.
• Trust in infancy sets the
stage for a lifelong
expectation that the world
will be a good and
pleasant place.
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Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
(Second Year)
• After gaining trust in their caregivers,
infants begin to discover that their
behaviour is their own.
• They start to assert their sense of
independence or autonomy.
• They realize their will.
• If infants are restrained too much or
punished too harshly, they are likely to
develop a sense of shame and doubt.
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Initiative vs. Guilt
(Preschool Years)
• As preschool children encounter a widening
social world, they are challenged more than
when they were infants and active purposeful
behaviour is needed to cope with these
challenges.
• Children are asked to assume responsibility for
their bodies, behaviour, toys, and pets.
• Guilt may arise if the child is irresponsible and
made to feel anxious.
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Industry vs. Inferiority
(Elementary School Years)
• As children move into middle and late childhood,
they direct their energy towards mastering
knowledge and intellectual skills.
• The danger during this time is the development
of a sense of inferiority – feeling incompetent
and unproductive.
• Erikson believed that teachers have special
responsibility for children’s development of
industry.
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Identity vs. Identity Confusion
(Adolescence)
• Individuals are faced with finding out who they
are, what they are all about, and where they are
going in life.
• Adolescents are confronted with many new roles
and adult status.
• If the adolescent explores roles in a healthy
manner and arrives at a positive path in life, then
positive identity will be achieved.
• If an identity is pushed on the adolescent by
parents, if the adolescent does not adequately
explore many roles then identity confusion
reigns.
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Intimacy vs. Isolation
(Early Adulthood)
• Individuals face the developmental task of
forming intimate relationships with others.
• Intimacy is defined as finding oneself yet
losing oneself in another.
• Intimacy is achieved through the formation
of healthy friendships and an intimate
relationship with another individual.
• Isolation results from failure to achieve the
above.
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Generativity vs. Stagnation
(Middle Adulthood)
• A chief concern is to assist the younger
generation in developing and leading
useful lives (generativity).
• The feeling of having done nothing to help
the next generation is stagnation.
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Integrity vs. Despair
(Late Adulthood)
• This involves reflecting on the past and
either piecing together a positive review or
concluding that one’s life has been well
spent.
• Integrity is achieved through reflecting on
a past deemed worthwhile.
• If the older adult resolved many of the
earlier stages of negativity, looking back
will lead to doubt or gloom (despair).
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Evaluating the Psychoanalytic
Approach
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Contributions of Psychoanalytic
Theories
• Early experiences play an important part in
development.
• Family relationships are a central aspect of
development.
• Personality can be better understood if it is
examined developmentally.
• The mind is not all conscious; unconscious
aspects of the mind need to be considered.
• Changes take place in the adulthood as well as
the childhood years (Erikson).
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Criticisms of Psychoanalytic
Theories
• The main concepts have been difficult to
test scientifically.
• Much of the data used to support these
theories come from individuals’
reconstruction of the past, often the distant
past, and are of unknown accuracy.
• The sexual underpinnings of development
are given too much importance (especially
by Freud).
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Criticisms of Psychoanalytic
Theories ( cont’d)
• The unconscious mind is given too much
credit for influencing development.
• Psychoanalytic theories present an image
of humans that is too negative (especially
Freud).
• Psychoanalytic theories are culture- and
gender-biased.
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The
Cognitive
Approach
Piaget;’s
Cognitive
Developmental
Theory
Lev Vygotsky’s
Socio-cultural
Cognitive
Theory
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InformationProcessing
Approach
Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980)
• Swiss psychologist
• Observed his own
children to develop
theory of cognitive
development
• Changed how we
think about the
development of
children’s minds
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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
– Accommodation
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Definition of Assimilation
• Incorporating new information into their
existing knowledge.
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Definition of Accommodation
• Adapting one’s existing knowledge to new
information.
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Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive
Development
•
•
•
•
Sensorimotor Stage (0 – 2 years)
Preoperational Stage (2 – 7 years)
Concrete Operational Stage (7 – 11 years)
Formal Operational Stage (11 and up)
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Sensorimotor Stage
(0 – 2 years)
• Infants construct an understanding of the
world by coordinating sensory experiences
with physical motor actions.
• At the beginning, newborns are limited to
reflexive patterns.
• By the end, 2-year-olds are beginning to
operate with primitive symbols.
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Preoperational Stage
(2 – 7 years)
• Children begin to
represent the world
with words, images,
and drawings.
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Definition of Operations
• Internalized mental actions that allow
children to do mentally what they
previously did physically.
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Concrete Operational Stage
(7 – 11 years)
• Children can perform
mental operations.
• Logical reasoning
replaces intuitive
thought, as long as
reasoning can be
applied to concrete
examples.
• Algebra is too
abstract for this stage.
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Formal Operational Stage
(11 and up)
• Individuals move beyond concrete
experiences and think in the abstract,
more logical terms.
• Problem solving is more systematic and
involves hypotheses.
• Adolescents develop images of ideal
circumstances.
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Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Cognitive
Theory
• Shares Piaget’s view that children actively
construct their knowledge.
• Emphasizes developmental analysis, the
role of language, and social relations.
• Like Piaget, Vygotsky’s ideas were not
introduced in America until the 1960s.
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Vygotsky’s Three Basic Claims
about Children’s Development
• The child’s cognitive skills can be
understood only when they are
developmentally analyzed and interpreted.
• Cognitive skills are mediated by words,
language, and forms of discourse.
• Cognitive skills have their origins in social
relations and are embedded in a sociocultural backdrop.
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The Information-Processing
Approach
• Emphasizes that individuals manipulate,
monitor, and strategize about information.
• Central are the processes of memory and
thinking.
• Individuals develop a gradually increasing
capacity for processing information.
• This enables the acquisition of
increasingly complex knowledge and
skills.
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Evaluating the Cognitive
Approach
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Contributions of the Cognitive
Theories
• They present a positive view of development,
emphasizing individuals’ conscious thinking.
• They emphasize the individual’s active
construction of understanding.
• Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories underscore the
importance of examining developmental
changes in children’s thinking.
• The information-processing approach offers a
detailed description of cognitive processes.
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Criticisms of the Cognitive Theories
• There is skepticism about the pureness of
Piaget’s stages.
• They do not give adequate attention to individual
variations in cognitive development.
• Information processing doesn’t provide
adequate description of developmental changes
in cognition.
• Psychoanalytic theorists argue that the cognitive
theories do not give enough credit to
unconscious thought.
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Behavioural 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 behaviour that can be learned
through experience with the environment.
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The Behavioural and
Social Cognitive Approach
Pavlov’s
Classical
Conditioning
Skinner’s
Operant
Conditioning
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Social
Cognitive
Theory
Classical Conditioning
• In the early 1900s,
Russian physiologist
Ivan Pavlov
discovered the
phenomenon in which
a neutral stimulus
acquires the ability to
produce a
behavioural response
originally produced by
another stimulus.
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Operant Conditioning
• B. F. Skinner demonstrated that the
consequences of a behaviour produce
changes in the probability of the behaviour
occurring again.
• Consequences can be either reward
(increasing the likelihood of behaviour
recurrence) or punishment (decreasing
this chance).
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Social Cognitive Theory
• Albert Bandura and Walter Mischel
believed that cognitive processes are
important mediators of environmentbehaviour connections.
• Learning occurs through observing what
others do, as individuals cognitively
represent what they see and adopt the
behaviour themselves.
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Evaluating the Behavioural and
Social Cognitive Approach
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Contributions of Behavioural and
Social Cognitive Theories
• They emphasize the importance of
scientific research.
• They focus on the environmental
determinants of behaviour.
• They underscore the importance of
observational learning (Bandura).
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Criticisms of Behavioural and
Social Cognitive Theories
• Pavlov and Skinner put too little emphasis
on cognition.
• They put too much emphasis on
environmental determinants.
• They give inadequate attention to
developmental changes.
• They are too mechanical and give
inadequate consideration to the
spontaneity and creativity of humans.
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Ethological Theory
• Behaviour is strongly influenced by
biology.
• Behaviour is tied to evolution.
• Behaviour is characterized by critical
periods.
• European zoologist Konrad Lorenz (1903
– 1989) identified imprinting.
• John Bowlby theorizes about attachment.
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The Ethological
Approach
Charles
Darwin
Konrad
Lorenz
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John
Bowlby
Definition of Critical Period
• A fixed time period very early in
development during which certain
behaviours optimally emerge.
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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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Evaluating the Ethological
Approach
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Contributions of Ethological Theory
• It has an increased focus on the biological
an evolutionary basis of development.
• It uses careful observations in naturalistic
settings.
• It emphasizes critical periods of
development.
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Criticisms of Ethological Theory
• The critical period concept may be too
rigid.
• It places too strong an emphasis on
biological foundations.
• It gives inadequate attention to cognition.
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The Humanist
Approach
Carl Rogers
Abraham Maslow
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The Humanist Approach
• Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow
believed that people work hard to become
the best they can possibly become.
• Acknowledged the role of values,
intentions, and meaning in understanding
human behaviour.
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Carl Rogers (1902 – 1987)
• Best known for his contribution to therapy
by introducing client-centred therapy.
• Actualizing tendency is Rogers’s term for
people’s ability to become the best they
can become.
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Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970)
• Self actualization is Maslow’s term for
ability for people to become the best they
can become.
• Developed a Hierarchy of Needs that
helps to explain human motivation.
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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
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Physiological Needs
• Maslow believed that
our physiological
needs must be met
first.
• Examples include
oxygen, water, food,
sleep, etc.
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Safety and Security Needs
• Once our physiological
needs are met, we are
motivated to the second
level of need: safety and
security.
• Safety and security may
be realized by job
security, economic
stability, savings for
retirement, insurance,
etc.
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Love and Belonging Needs
• Once we feel safe we
look for love and a
sense of belonging.
• We are motivated
towards behaviours
that encourage our
acceptance by family
and friends.
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Esteem Needs
• Once our belonging and love needs are
met, we strive for recognition.
• If our esteem needs are not met, most of
us will suffer from varying degrees of low
self-esteem and inferiority.
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Self-Actualization
• Realizing our
potential or being the
best we can possibly
be.
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Evaluating the Humanist
Approach
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Contributions of Humanist
Approach
• Reflects a positive regard for human
nature.
• Influenced and reshaped the nature of the
therapist-client interaction.
• Considers the role of the environment on
development.
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Criticisms of Humanist Approach
• Interpretation is too subjective.
• Approach lacks scientific rigor of other
approaches.
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The Ecological Approach
• Emphasizes environmental factors.
• Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory of
development consists of five
environmental systems, ranging from
direct interactions with people to broadbased inputs of culture.
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Evaluating the Ecological
Approach
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Contributions of Ecological
Approach
• A systematic examination of macro- and
microdimensions of environmental
systems.
• Attention to connections between
environmental settings.
• Consideration of socio-historical influences
on development.
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Criticisms of Ecological Approach
• Even with the added discussion of
biological influences in recent years, there
is still too little attention to biological
foundations of development.
• Inadequate attention to cognitive
processes.
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