CHAPTER 2

THE SCIENCE OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT

RESEARCH ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Why Research on Child Development Is Important – basing information only on personal experiences reduces objectivity because humans make judgments that protect their ego and self-esteem.

THEORIES OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Psychoanalytic – Behavior is merely a surface characteristic, and it is important to analyze the

symbolic meanings of behavior – early experiences are important in development.

Freud’s Theory – Personality has three structures: (1) id – instincts, psychic energy; (2) ego – manages the demands of reality; (3) superego – the moral branch of personality – conscience. Freud also believed that there are five psychosexual stages of development:

Freud’s Five psychosexual stages of development

Oral Stage – first 18 months of life – pleasure centers around the mouth.

Anal stage – 18 through 36 months – pleasure involves anus or eliminative functions.

Phallic stage – three to six years of age – pleasure focuses on genitals and self-manipulation.

Latency stage – six years to puberty – child represses sexual interest and develops social and intellectual skills.

Genital stage – puberty on – sexual reawakening; source of sexual pleasure becomes someone outside the family

Erikson’s Theory:

Emphasized development through psychosocial stages, each of which

provides a crises for the individual to overcome.

Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages:

Trust vs. mistrust – In infancy, where trust provides physical comfort and a lifetime of expectant trust is begun.Autonomy vs. shame/doubt – one to three years – Begin to discover that their behavior is their own and begin to assert independence – overpunishment could produce shame and doubt.Initiative vs. guilt – preschool years – Begins to assert oneself and assume responsibility – prone to guilt if made anxious.Industry vs. inferiority – elementary school years – Enthusiastic about learning – prone to feelings of incompetence and inferiority if stilted in their industry.

Identity vs. identity confusion – adolescence and role exploration – Hindrance in this exploration or authoritarian demands by parents to assume a chosen role can lead to identity confusion.Intimacy vs. isolation – In early adulthood, achieving a relationship in which one “loses oneself” in another.Generativity vs. stagnation – In middle adulthood, developing meaningful and useful lives versus stagnation in having done nothing for future generations.Integrity vs. despair – In later years, the person retroactively views his or her life positively or negatively, which affects the condition of their psyche in old age.

Cognitive – an emphasis on children’s conscious thoughts

Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory – Children actively construct their understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development. He believed that children adapt thinking to include new ideas through assimilation (incorporating new information into existing knowledge) and accommodation (adjusting to the new information.)

Four Stages of Cognitive Development

Sensorimotor stage – birth to tow years – Infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical action.

Preoperational stage – two to seven years – Children represent the world with words and images, reflecting increased symbolic thinking.

Concrete operational stage – The child now reasons logically and classifies objects into different sets.

Formal operational stage – Reasons in more abstract, idealistic, and logical ways.

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive Theory – Emphasizes developmental analysis, the role

of language, and social relations. The three tenets of Vygotskyian thought are:

The child’s cognitive skills are understood only when developmentally analyzed.

Cognitive skills are mediated by word, language, and forms of discourse.

Cognitive skills have their origins in social relations and are embedded in a sociocultural backdrop.

The Information-Processing Approach – Individuals manipulate information,

monitor it, and strategize about it within the process of memory and thinking. Computers serve as analogies for the information-processing approach: the brain is the computer’s hardware and

congnition is the software.

Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theories – Develoment is observable behavior that can

be learned through experience with the environment.

Pavlov’s classical conditioning – A neutral stimulus (the bell) acquires the ability to produce a response originally produced by another stimulus (food).

Sinner’s operant conditioning – Through inducing rewards and punishments, one can manipulate the environment to emit the desired response in behavior.

Social Cognitive Theory – Behavior, cognition, and environment are key factors in

development. People often cognitively identify with others’ behavior and then model or imitate it. A person’s behavior influences

the environment, which in turn influences behavior.

Ethological Theory – Behavior is strongly influenced by biology, tied to evolution, and

therefore characterized by critical or sensitive periods. This theory produced the concept of

imprinting – when an offspring innately attaches itself to the first moving object seen

because it is in a critical period.

Ethological Theory – Five environmental influences developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner.

Microsystem – where the child lives, involving family, peers, school, and neighborhood.Mesosystem – relationships within the miscrosystem, such as family and school experiences.Exosystem – the influences of factors over which one has no control, such as divorce, parents’ work stress.Macrosystem – the culture in which one lives, its beliefs and value systems.Chronosystem – the sequence of patterning of events that impact the child’s life; divorce may affect the child differently at different times in his or her life.

An Eclectic Theoretical Orientation – An approach that

selects concepts from one or more of the various theories in

analyzing a child’s development.

RESEARCH METHODS: Measures

Observation – Involves control of bias, accurate record keeping and categorizing, and effective communications on what was observed. They are made either in the laboratory, a controlled environment, or in natural settings, behavior within the subject’s environment.Interviews and Questionnaires – Need to be authentic, unambiguous, sensitive, specific, and appropriate to the study.Standardized Tests – Commercially prepared, easily graded, and amenable to comparisons with other groups or cohorts.Case Studies – An in-depth look at an individual. These are unique sources of information but are not effective in generalizing to larger audiences.

Experimental and Correlational Methods

Correlation research – Describes the strength of the relationship between two or more events or characteristics. A strong correlation provides a basis for prediction relative to one or the other; however, correlation is not causation.Experimental method – A regulated procedure in which one or more of the factors believed to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated and all other factors are controlled. The independent variable is the “cause” being manipulated, while the dependent variable is the “effect” or the behavior that changes.

Time Span of Research – When subjects are studied has an impact on

results

Cross-section research – Studying subjects all at one time. The downside is that it does not consider how a person or persons might change over time.

Longitudinal research – Studying subjects over a period of time usually several years, to determine long-range effects and to what degree a behavior is modified.

RESEARCH CHALLENGES

Ethics – The American Psychological Association (APA) has established a code of ethics by which

researchers abide in order to protect the subject and the researcher and to provide authenticity to the study. Informed consent means that participants are aware of the circumstances of their involvement. Researchers must maintain the confidentiality of the participants and conduct debriefing where the participants are informed of the purpose and methods used in the

study.

Gender – Researchers must be cautious concerning gender bias in their studies. They must consider:

How gender influences questions, hypotheses, and research design.

How research on topics such as relationships, feelings, and empathy challenge existing theory.

How previous research exaggerating gender influence may now affect views on gender.

Ethnicity and Culture – Children of minorities have been

excluded in research on child development or have been victims of ethnic gloss, where an ethnic group is labeled by virtue of a

stereotype relative to their ethnicity.

Being a Wise Consumer of Information About Children’s Development

Be cautious about what is reported in the popular media. Media often retrieve information from research studies but tend to generalize or misinterpret the results. This can cause public assumption relative to issues that may impact how child development is viewed.

Don’t assume group research applies to an individual. A common error is to assign a research study conclusion completed on a group to an individual. A statistically significant study may include some members from the group who do not demonstrate the variable being reported.

Don’t over generalize about a small or clinical sample. What might be found true for the studied group cannot necessarily be generalized to persons with the variable in the larger population. Not all children of divorced families have low self-esteem.

Don’t generally take a single study as the defining word. One study revealing a startling fact about a particular group cannot necessarily apply to all who may demonstrate that variable – and, conflicting results.

Don’t accept casual conclusions from correlation studies. Correlation is a finding about variables concerning specific groups. Only in experimental test where the subjects are made to assume certain characteristics can there be anything close to a causality; and since it is impossible (not to mention unethical) to legislate behavior, correlation cannot breed causality.

Always consider the source of the information and evaluate its credibility. It is wise to note where the research was published and reported. Studies funded by agencies and /or businesses that have a stake in the outcome of a study, and who report those outcomes in the media, should be viewed cautiously.