Developmental Psychology: 2110 E

Professor Scott Adler

adler@yorku.ca

333 BSBhttp://www.psych.yorku.ca/adler/

What is psychology?

The scientific study of behavior

Types of behavior:

Includes social, cognitive, emotional,

physical, abnormal, etc.

What is developmental psychology?

The scientific study of change in

behavior as the organism grows,

matures and gains experience with

the world around them.

Rapid Development Long-term Effects Window into Adult Behavior Real World Applications Interesting Subject Matter The Starting Point

Why is research focused on infants and children?

The Starting Point

Themes of Development Both biology and the social and physical

environment affect our development, although they may influence different aspects of development to different degrees.

Biological versus Environmental Influences:To explore how biological and environmental factors interact to produce developmental variations in different children.

Themes of Development The Active versus the Passive Child:The Active versus the Passive Child:

Modern developmentalists believe that children are usually active agents who shape, control, and direct the course of their own development.

Continuity versus Discontinuity: Recently, suggested that our judgment

of continuity or discontinuity depends on the power of the lens we use in examining changes across development

Early Theorists Descartes - Cartesian Dualism

Known as the Mind-Body Problem

John Locke (17th) - Tabula Rasa

Rousseau (18th) Born with knowledge and ideas Develop according to innate timetable

Early Theorists Darwin (19th)

Evolutionary Theory and Natural Selection

Recapitulation Theory - ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

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Recapitulation Theory Haeckel (1866)

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Early Child Psychology Wundt - Development (and evolution)

proceeds through 3 steps:

Impulsive Acts - innate drives Voluntary Acts - several motives but one

predominates Selective Acts - conscious choice

Early Child Psychology G. Stanley Hall

First scientific study of the child Believed in recapitulation theory

Watson - returns to Locke’s environmentalism Behaviorism - changes in behavior occur through

conditioning Little Albert - conditioned reflex method

Used by Pavlov to make dog salivate to a bell

Early Child Psychology

Freud - Theory of psychosexual development

Stage theory Repression of desires Believed in interaction of innate and

environment

Early Child Psychology Gesell

Development due to biological mechanisms Focused on motor skills Found regular pattern and developed age norms

Piaget Interested in qualitative issues of children’s

knowledge Used tasks and verbal problems instead of

questionnaires Stage theory of cognitive development

Early Child Psychology Erikson

Personality Development Epigenetic approach - personality is in genes In stage theory, a positive characteristic is in

conflict with a negative one Vygotsky

Sociocultural approach to cognitive development Contrasts with Piaget, who believed in a common

cognitive development

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