Child Growth and Development Sunday June 7 2015 Test 1 Main Theories A theory is an orderly integrated set of statements that describes explains and predicts behavior Continuous or Discontinuous Development One view continuous holds that infants and preschoolers respond to the world the same was as adults Angelo s development is continuous a process of gradually adding more of the same types of skills that were there to begin with EX Little Angelo can sort objects into simple categories recognize whether he has more of one kind than of another and remember where he left his favorite toy at child care the week before The second view discontinuous says that Angelo s thoughts emotions and behavior differ considerably from adults His development is discontinuous a process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at speci c times EX Angelo is not yet able to organize objects or remember and interpret experiences as well as we do Instead he will move through a series of developmental steps each with unique features until he reaches the highest level of functioning The discontinuous perspective regard development as taking place in stages qualitative changes in thinking feeling and behaving that characterize speci c periods of development Like a staircase One Course of Development or Many Stage theorists assume that people everywhere follow the same sequence of development At the same time the eld of child development is becoming increasingly aware that children grow up in distinct contexts unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances that can result in different paths of change Nature vs Nurture 1 Sunday June 7 2015 Are genetic or environmental factors more important in in uencing development This is the age old nature nurture controversy By nature we mean the hereditary information we receive from our parents at the moment of conception By nurture we mean the complex forces of the physical and social world that in uence our biological makeup and psychological experiences before and after birth Additional Major Theories Psychoanalytic perspective Children move through a series of stages in which they confront con icts between biological drives and social expectation How these con icts are resolved determines the person s ability to learn to get along with others and to cope with anxiety Freud s Theory Psychosexual Theory Emphasizes that how parents manage their child s sexual and aggressive drives in the rst few years is crucial for healthy personality development Erikson s Theory Psychosocial Theory Erikson emphasized that in addition to mediating between id impulses and superego demands the ego makes a positive contribution to development acquiring attitudes and skills that ale the individual an active contributing member of society Behaviorism and social learning theory Behaviorism Directly observable events stimuli and responses are the appropriate focus of study Social Learning Theory The most in uential devised by Albert Bandura emphasizes modeling also know as imitation or observational learning as a powerful source of development Piaget s cognitive developmental theory Children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world Piaget s Stages of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Birth 2 years Pre operational 2 7 years 2 Sunday June 7 2015 Concrete Operational 7 11 years Formal Operational 11 years on Information processing The human mind might be viewed as a symbol manipulating system through which information ows Ethology and evolutionary developmental psychology Ethology Concerned with the adaptive or survival value of behavior and its evolutionary history Evolutionary Developmental Psychology It seeks to understand the adaptive value of species wide cognitive emotional and social competencies as those competencies change with age Vygotsky s sociocultural theory Focuses on how culture the values beliefs customs and skills of a social group is transmitted to the next generation According to Vygotsky social interaction in particular cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society in necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community s culture Ecological systems theory Views the child as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment The innermost level of the environment the microsystem consists of activities and interaction patterns in the child s immediate surroundings The second level the mesosystem encompasses connections between microsystems such as home school neighborhood and child care center The exosystem consists of social settings that do not contain children but that nevertheless affect children s experiences in immediate settings Dynamic systems perspective The child s mind body and physical and social worlds form an integrated system that guides mastery of new skills The system is dynamic or constantly in motion A change in any part of it from brain growth to physical or social surroundings disrupts the current organism enviroment relationship When this happens the child actively reorganizes his or her behavior so the various components of the system work together again but in a more complex effective way 3 Types of Research Common Information Gathering Methods Systematic Observation Sunday June 7 2015 Naturalistic Observation Observation of behavior in natural contexts Structured Observation Observation of behavior in a laboratory where conditions are the same for all participants Self Reports Clinical Interview Flexible interviewing procedure in which the investigator obtains a complete account of the participant s thoughts Structured interview questionnaires and tests Self report instruments in which each participant is asked the same questions in the same way Clinical or Case Study Method A full picture of one individual s psychological functioning obtained by combining interviews observations and sometimes test scores Ethnography Participant observation of a culture or distinct social group By making extensive eld notes the researcher tries to capture the culture s unique values and social processes Research Designs General Correctional The investigator obtains information on participants without altering their experiences Experimental Through random assignment of participants to treatment conditions the investigator manipulates an independent variable and examines
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