History, Theories and Methods

Chapter 1

What are the Theories of Child Development?

• 1. Psychoanalytic• 2. Learning• 3. Cognitive• 4. Ecological• 5. Sociocultural

1. Psychoanalytic:• Children are caught in a conflict inside between their

sexual/aggressive drives, and conflict with parental and societal expectations.

• Child’s observable behavior, thoughts and feelings reflect the outcome of this hidden conflict.

• How parents manage child’s sexual/aggressive drives is crucial to their development.

• First to focus on the child-parent interaction in development.There are two Theorists:

a. Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development

• Focus on emotional and social development• Study of the origins of psychological traits such as

dependence, obsessive neatness, and vanity.• Believe our personality has several components that

develop over time. • Theorized that there are 3 parts to the personality.

Parts of the Personality: 1. Id: Unconscious. Biological

demands and instant gratification present at birth

2. Ego: Conscious. The conscious self that seeks gratification, but curbs the id to avoid social disapproval

3. Superego: Conscious. Monitors the intentions and behavior of ego by allowing guilt and shame for behavior. The internalization of society and parental right or wrong.

b. Erikson’s Psychosocial Development

• Extended stages to adulthood. • Focus on our emotional life and psychological traits,

but there is a focus on social relationships rather than sexual/aggressive instincts.

• Emphasis is on the ego, or sense of self• Social relationships and physical maturation

contributes tour our development• Mastery of developmental task/challenge at each

stage needed to move to next stage• Early experiences of parent/child relationship affect

future developments and/or accomplishments

Erickson’s Stages of Personality Development

2. Learning

• Focus on how learning affects a person’s behavior.

• Emphasis on experience and the consequences of our behavior.

a. Behaviorism: • Children are born a blank slate, learning

determines what the child will be:John B. Watson: “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.” (1930)

• Study of development must be more scientific and focus on observable behavior only, not on things like thoughts, feelings, and drives.

Examples of Behaviorism:

Little Albert

Rat in a Skinner Box

Pavlov’s Dogs

b. Social Cognitive Theory

• Developed by Bandura; learning occurs by observing other people, by reading, or by engaging in different media.

• Observational learning occurs through modeling the same behavior of another person (called a model)

• Observational learning can lie latent until the behavior observed is needed or applicable.

• A combination of reward, punishment, and imitation.

Bandura’s Early ExperimentIn Observational

Learning:

BoBo Doll

3. Cognitive Theory

• Focus on peoples mental processes.

• How children perceive and mentally represent the world, how they develop thinking, logic, and problem solving abilities.

• Developed by Piaget; intrigued by children’s wrong answers (pg. 9-10)

Piaget viewed children as mentally assimilatingand accommodating aspects of their environment.

3. Cognitive Theory, cont.

• The way children construct knowledge changes over time depending on their age.

• These changes fall into distinct stages of cognitive development, which change as the child's thinking changes and develops.

Q: What are Piaget’s stages of Cognitive development?

4. Ecological Systems Theory:

• Explains development in terms of the interaction between people and the settings in which they live.

• Each layer of our environment has a powerful effect on our development.

• The developing person is imbedded in a series of complex and interacting systems.

Bronfenbrenner’s Systems Approach

• Microsystem – interactions of the child with other people in the immediate setting such as the home, school or peer group

• Mesosystem – interactions of various settings with the microsystem such as the parent-teacher conference or the school field trip to the zoo

• Exosystem – institutions which indirectly affect the development of the child such as the school board or the parent’s place of employment

• Macrosystem – involves the interaction of the child with the beliefs, expectations, and lifestyle of their cultural setting

• Chronosystem – refers to the influence of environmental changes that occur over the life course.

5. Sociocultural Perspective

• Developed by Vygotsky• Humans are affected by the cultural and social

environment in which they are born• Focus is on the transmission of information and

cognitive skills from generation to generation• Learning consists of social engagement from a more

skilled individual to a lesser skilled individual (example: an older sibling teaching a younger sibling to ride a bike)

• Believed social interaction is necessary for child to acquire cultural skills.

How do we Gather Information about Children for Research?

• Naturalistic observation: Research conducted in the natural setting, out in the field. Observer takes great pains not to disturb the environment. Interference can result in “bias” in the research results.

• Case study: Carefully drawn account of an individual’s behavior; may use diaries, questionnaires, standardized tests, interviews, information from public records.

What are the Two General Research Designs?

• 1. Correlational studies• 2. Experimental studies

1. Correlational Studies

• Correlation: Determines whether one behavior or trait being studied is correlated with, or is related to another behavior or trait.

• Use of a statistical formula to obtain information on the strength and direction of a relationship between two variables.

• The strength and direction of the relationship is expressed as a number called the correlational coefficient.

IMPORTANT: Correlational studies never indicate a cause and effect relationship between variables. This is one of its weaknesses.

Correlation Coefficients: What do they tell us?

Strength• Size of the number

between 0 and 1• Closer to 1 is a stronger

relationship

Direction• Indicated by + or - sign• Positive (+): as one

variable increases, so does the other

• Negative (-): as one variable increase, the other decreases

Correlations:

2. Experimental Method

• A study where one group of subjects receives the treatment and the other group does not. Subjects are then observed to see if the treatment makes a difference in their behavior.

• Most preferred method for investigating cause and effect.

• Experiments are usually conducted to test a hypothesis.

An Experiment Has 2 Variables:

Independent• Experimenter

manipulates directly• Expected to be the

cause for changes in the dependent variable.

(“treatment” or “experimental” group)

Dependent• Experimenter

measures, but does not manipulate

• Expected to be the effect from the independent variable

(“placebo” or “control” group)

Experiments, cont.

• Random assignment – subjects assigned to a group randomly• Ethical/practical consideration – researchers look at the

ethics and practical assignment of participants; sometimes correlational evidence must be settled for rather than experimental.

• Animal subjects – used to generalize findings to humans when it is not ethical or practical to use humans in the experiment

What are the 3 Common Methods Used to Study Children Over Time?

• 1. Longitudinal studies• 2. Cross Sectional

studies

1. Longitudinal Research

• Seeks to study development over time; some subjects’ characteristics such as height, weight, and/or changes in mental capabilities observed repeatedly over time; a larger number of participants is needed for this type of study

• Typically time of study spans months or a few years• Longitudinal researchers have to enlist future

researchers to continue the study.

2. Cross-sectional Research

• Cross-sectional research observes and compares subjects of different ages; a larger number of participants is needed for this type of study

• Cohort effect – group of people born at the same time; experience cultural and other events unique to their age group; children of a particular cohort will have different life experiences than their parents