student submission -- gen psych developmental theories

7/29/2019 Student Submission -- Gen Psych Developmental Theories

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Jean Piaget began his career as a biologist -specifically, one that studies mollusks. But hisinterest in science and the history of science

soon overtook his interest in snails andclams. As he delved deeper into the thought-processes of doing science, he became

interested in the nature of thought itself,especially in the development ofthinking. Finding relatively little work done in

the area, he had the opportunity to give it alabel. He called it genetic epistemology,meaning the study of the development ofknowledge.



He noticed, for example, that eveninfants have certain skills in regard to

objects in their environment. Theseskills were certainly simple ,sensorimotor skills, but they directed

the way in which the infant exploredhis or her environment and so how

they gained more knowledge of theworld and more sophisticatedexploratory skills. These skills he

called schemas.



For example, an infant knows how tograb his favorite rattle and thrust it

into his mouth. He’s got that schemadown pat. When he comes acrosssome other object -- say daddy’s

expensive watch, he easily learns totransfer his “grab and thrust” schema

to the new object. This Piaget calledassimilation: The baby assimilates anew object into an old schema.



When our infant comes across anotherobject again - say a beach ball - he will try

his old schema of grab and thrust. This ofcourse works poorly with the newobject. So the schema will adapt to the

new object: Perhaps, in this example,“squeeze and drool” would be anappropriate title for the new schema. This

is called accommodation: The babyaccommodates the old schema to a newobject.



Assimilation and accommodation are thetwo sides of adaptation, Piaget’s term for

what most of us would calllearning. Piaget saw adaptation, however,as a good deal broader than the kind of

learning that Behaviorists in the US weretalking about. He saw it as afundamentally biological process. Even

one’s grip has to accommodate to a stone,while clay is assimilated into our grip. Allliving things adapt, even without a nervous

system or brain.



Assimilation and accommodation worklike pendulum swings at advancing our

understanding of the world and ourcompetency in it. According to Piaget,they are directed at a balance between the

structure of the mind and the environment,at a certain congruency between the two,that would indicate that you have a good

(or at least good-enough) model of theuniverse. This ideal state he callsequilibrium.



As he continued his investigation ofchildren, he noted that there were periods

where assimilation dominated, periodswhere accommodation dominated, andperiods of relative equilibrium, and that

these periods were similar among all thechildren he looked at in their nature andtheir timing. And so he developed the idea

of stages of cognitive development. Theseconstitute a lasting contribution topsychology.



The first stage, to which we havealready referred, is the

sensorimotor stage. It lasts frombirth to about two years old. As

the name implies, the infant useshis or her senses and motorabilities to understand the world,beginning with reflexes and endingwith complex combinations of

sensorimotor skills.



Between one and four months, the child

works on primary circular reactions - justan action of his own which serves as astimulus to which it responds with the

same action, and around and around wego. For example, the baby may suck herthumb. That feels good, so she sucks

some more... Or she may blow abubble. That’s interesting so I’ll do itagain....



Between four and 12 months, theinfant turns to secondary circular

reactions, which involve an actthat extends out to the

environment: She may squeeze arubber ducky. It goes“quack.” That’s great, so do itagain, and again, and again. Sheis learning “procedures that make

interesting things last.”



At this point, other things begin to showup as well. For example, babies becometicklish, although they must be aware thatsomeone else is tickling them or it won’twork. And they begin to develop objectpermanence. This is the ability to

recognize that, just because you can’t seesomething doesn’t mean it’sgone! Younger infants seem to function by

an “out of sight, out of mind”schema. Older infants remember, and mayeven try to find things they can no longer

see.



Between 12 months and 24 months, thechild works on tertiary circularreactions. They consist of the same“making interesting things last” cycle,except with constant variation. I hit thedrum with the stick -- rat-tat-tat-tat. I hit

the block with the stick -- thump-thump. Ihit the table with the stick -- clunk-clunk. Ihit daddy with the stick -- ouch-ouch. This

kind of active experimentation is best seenduring feeding time, when babies discovernew and interesting ways of throwing their

spoons, dishes, and food.



Around one and a half, the child is clearlydeveloping mental representation, that is, theability to hold an image in their mind for aperiod beyond the immediate experience. Forexample, they can engage in deferredimitation, such as throwing a tantrum after

seeing another child throw one an hourago. They can use mental combinations tosolve simple problems, such as putting down a

toy in order to open a door. And they getgood at pretending. Instead of using a doll assomething to sit on, suck on, or throw, now the

child will sing to it, tuck it into bed, and so on.



The preoperational stage

lasts from about two toabout seven years old. Now

that the child has mentalrepresentations and is able

to pretend, it is a short stepto the use of symbols.



A symbol is a thing that representssomething else. A drawing, a written word,

or a spoken word comes to be understoodas representing a real thing. The use oflanguage is, of course, the prime example,

but another good example of symbol useis creative play, wherein checkers arecookies, papers are dishes, a box is the

table, and so on. By manipulatingsymbols, we are essentially thinking, in away the infant could not: in the absence of

the actual objects involved!



On the other hand, the child isquite egocentric during this stage,

that is, he sees things pretty muchfrom one point of view: his

own! She may hold up a picture soonly she can see it and expect youto see it too. Or she may explainthat grass grows so she won’t gethurt when she falls.

P d d d



Piaget did a study to investigatethis phenomenon: He would put

children in front of a simpleplaster mountain range and seathimself to the side, then ask them

to pick from four pictures the viewthat he, Piaget, would

see. Younger children would pickthe picture of the view theythemselves saw; older kids picked

correctly.



Th t ti t l t



The concrete operations stage lastsfrom about seven to about 11. The

word operations refers to logicaloperations or principles we use whensolving problems. In this stage, the

child not only uses symbolsrepresentationally, but can manipulatethose symbols logically. Quite an

accomplishment! But, at this point,they must still perform theseoperations within the context of

concrete situations.

Th b h



The stage begins with progressivedecentering. By six or seven, most

children develop the ability to conserve number, length, and liquidvolume. Conservation refers to the idea

that a quantity remains the same despitechanges in appearance. If you show achild four marbles in a row, then spread

them out, the preoperational child willfocus on the spread, and tend to believethat there are now more marbles than

before.



B v ight ld



By seven or eight years old,children develop conservation of

substance: If I take a ball of clayand roll it into a long thin rod, oreven split it into ten little pieces,

the child knows that there is stillthe same amount of clay. And hewill know that, if you rolled it allback into a single ball, it wouldlook quite the same as it did - a

feature known as .



B i t th l t f th



By nine or ten, the last of theconservation tests is

mastered: conservation of area. Ifyou take four one-inch square blocks("houses"), and lay them on a six-by-

six cloth together in the center, thechild who conserves will know that

they take up just as much room as thesame blocks spread out in thecorners, or, for that matter, anywhere

at all.



F d 12 t th



From around 12 on, we enter theformal operations stage. Here

we become increasinglycompetent at adult-style

thinking. This involves usinglogical operations, and using

them in the abstract, rather thanthe concrete. We often call this

It is the formal operations stage that allows



It is the formal operations stage that allowsone to investigate a problem in a careful andsystematic fashion. Ask a 16 year old to tell

you the rules for making pendulums swingquickly or slowly, and he may proceed likethis:

A long string with a light weight - let’s see howfast that swings.

A long string with a heavy weight - let’s trythat.Now, a short string with a light weight.

And finally, a short string with a heavy weight.

His experiment - and it is a true experiment -



His experiment - and it is a true experiment -would tell him that a short string leads to afast swing, and a long string to a slow swing,

and that the weight of the pendulum makes nodifference at all! It doesn’t seem that the formaloperations stage is something everyoneactually gets to.

Even those of us who do get there don’toperate in it at all times. Even some cultures,

it seems, don’t develop it or value it like oursdoes. Abstract reasoning is simply notuniversal.



Kohlberg's Theory

Traditionally psychology has avoided studying



Traditionally, psychology has avoided studyinganything that is loaded with valuejudgments. There is a degree of difficulty involved

in trying to be unbiased about things that involveterms like "good" and "bad!" So, one of the mostsignificant aspects of human life - morality - hashad to wait quite a while before anyone in

psychology dared to touch it! But LawrenceKohlberg wanted to study morality, and did sousing a most interesting (if controversial)technique. Basically, he would ask children and

adults to try to solve moral dilemmas contained inlittle stories, and to do so out loud so he couldfollow their reasoning. It wasn't the specificanswers to the dilemmas that interested him, but

rather how the person got to his or her answer.

There are simple reasons why



There are simple reasons whyHeinz should or should not have

stolen the drug, and there are verysophisticated reasons, and

reasons in between. After lookingat hundreds of interviews usingthis and several other stories,

Kohlberg outlined three broadlevels and six more specific stages

of moral development.

Level I: . While infants



Level I: Pre-conventional morality. While infantsare essentially amoral, very young children are moralin a rather primitive way, as described by the twopreconventional stages.

Stage 1. We can call this the reward and punishment stage. Good or bad depends on the physicalconsequences: Does the action lead to punishment orreward? This stage is based simply on one's own painand pleasure, and doesn't take others into account.

Stage 2. This we can call the exchange stage. In thisstage, there is increased recognition that others havetheir own interests and should be taken intoaccount. Those interests are still understood in a very

concrete fashion, and the child deals with others interms of simple exchange or reciprocity: "I'll scratchyour back if you scratch mine." Children in this stageare very concerned with what's "fair" (one of theirfavorite words), but are not concerned with real justice.

Level II: Conventional morality. By the time children



Leve : . By the t me ch d enenter elementary school, they are usually capable ofconventional morality, although they may often slip backinto preconventional morality on occasion. But thislevel is called conventional for a very good reason: It isalso the level that most adults find themselves in most ofthe time! Stage 3. This stage is often called the goodboy/good girl stage. The child tries to live up to theexpectations of others, and to seek their approval. Now

they become interested motives or intentions, andconcepts such as loyalty, trust, and gratitude areunderstood. Children in this stage often adhere to aconcrete version of the Golden Rule, although it islimited to the people they actually deal with on a day-to-

day basis. Stage 4. This is called the law-and-order stage. Children now take the point of view that includesthe social system as a whole. The rules of the societyare the bases for right and wrong, and doing one's dutyand showing respect for authority are important.

Level III: Post-conventional morality. Some adolescents and



e e e e eadults go a step further and rise above moralities based onauthority to ones based on reason. Stage 5. The socialcontract stage means being aware of the degree to whichmuch of so-called morality is relative to the individual and to

the social group they belong to, and that only a very fewfundamental values are universal. The person at this levelsees morality as a matter of entering into a rational contractwith one's fellow human beings to be kind to each other,respect authority, and follow laws to the extent that they

respect and promote those universal values. Social contractmorality often involves a utilitarian approach, where therelative value of an act is determined by "the greatest goodfor the greatest number." Stage 6. This stage is referred to asthe stage of universal principles. At this point, the person

makes a personal commitment to universal principles ofequal rights and respect, and social contract takes a clearback-seat: If there is a conflict between a social law orcustom and universal principles, the universal principles takeprecedence.



Bronfenbrenner's Theory

- Another psychologist unafraid totackle morality was UrieBronfenbrenner. He is famous for

his studies of children and schoolsin different cultures.

five moral orientations:



five moral orientations:

1. Self-oriented morality. This isanalogous to Kohlberg's pre-conventional morality. Basically, thechild is only interested in self-gratification and only considersothers to the extent that they can helphim get what he wants, or hinder him.

The next three orientations are allforms of what Kohlberg calledconventional morality:



2. Authority-oriented morality. Here, the child, oradult, basically accepts the decrees of authorityfigures, from parents up to heads of state andreligion, as defining good and bad.

3. Peer-oriented morality. This is basically amorality of conformity, where right and wrongis determined not by authority but by one's

peers. In western society, this kind of moralityis frequently found among adolescents, as wellas many adults.

4. . In this orientation,



4. Collective-oriented morality. In this orientation,the standing goals of the group to which the childor adult belongs over-ride individual

interests. Duty to one's group or society isparamount.

The last orientation is analogous to Kohlberg's post-conventional level:

5. Objectively oriented morality. By objectively,Bronfenbrenner means universal principles thatare objective in the sense that they do not dependon the whims of individuals or social groups, but

have a reality all their own.



Movement from 2, 3, or 4 to 5

occurs when a person isexposed to a number of

different moral systems whichat least partially conflict with

each other, a situation he callsmoral pluralism.



Erik Erikson - Erikson is a Freudian ego-psychologist.This means that he accepts Freud's ideas

as basically correct, including the moredebatable ideas such as the Oedipal crisis,and accepts as well the ideas about theego that were added by other Freudianssuch as Freud's daughter, Anna. However,Erikson is much more society and culture-oriented than most Freudians, and he

often pushes the instincts and theunconscious practically out of the picture.Perhaps because of this, Erikson ispopular among Freudians and non-

Freudians alike

The epigenetic principle



- He is most famous for his work in refining andexpanding Freud's theory of stages.Development, he says, functions by theepigenetic principle. This principle says that wedevelop through a predetermined unfolding ofour personalities in eight stages. Our progressthrough each stage is in part determined by oursuccess, or lack of success, in all the previousstages. A little like the unfolding of a rose bud,each petal opens up at a certain time, in acertain order, which nature, through genetics,

has determined. If we interfere in the naturalorder of development by pulling a petal forwardprematurely or out of order, we ruin thedevelopment of the entire flower.

Each stage has a certain as



Each stage has a certain optimal time aswell. It is no use trying to rush childreninto adulthood, as is so common amongpeople who are obsessed with success.You can see, for example, the damage

done to many child stars by the adultdemands placed upon them. Neither is itpossible to slow the pace or to try to

protect our children from the demands oflife. There is a time for every purposeunder heaven!

is the worse of the two



Malignancy is the worse of the two,

and involves too little of the positive

and too much of the negative aspect ofthe task, such as a person who can'ttrust others.

Maladaptation is not quite as bad

and involves too much of the positiveand too little of the negative, such as aperson who trusts too much.



Children and adults

Perhaps Erikson's greatest innovation wasto postulate not five stages, as Freud haddone, but eight. Erikson elaboratedFreud's genital stage into adolescenceplus three stages of adulthood. Wecertainly don't stop developing -especially psychologically - after our

twelfth or thirteenth birthdays; It seemsonly right to extend any theory of stagesto cover later development!



Erikson also had some things to say

about the interaction of generations,which he called mutuality.

Stage one



The first stage is the infant, approximately the first

year or year and a half of life. The task is todevelop trust without completely eliminating thecapacity for mistrust.

Stage two

The second stage is the toddler, from abouteighteen months to three or four years old. Thetask is to achieve a degree of autonomy while

minimizing shame and doubt.

Stage three



Stage three is the preschooler. From three or four

to five or six, the task confronting every child is tolearn initiative without too much guilt.

Stage four

Stage four is the school-age child from about six totwelve. The task is to develop a capacity for

industry while avoiding an excessive sense ofinferiority. Children must "tame the imagination"and dedicate themselves to education and tolearning the social skills their society requires of

them.



Stage six

If you have made it this far, you are in thestage of the young adult, which lasts (inmodern society) from about 20 to about

30. The ages in the adult stages are muchfuzzier than in the childhood stages, andpeople may differ dramatically. The task is

to achieve some degree of intimacy, asopposed to remaining in isolation.



Stage seven

The seventh stage is that of the middleadult. It is hard to pin a time to it, but itwould include the period during which we

are actively involved in raising children.For most people in our society, this wouldput it somewhere between 30 and 60. The

task here is to cultivate the proper balanceof generativity and stagnation.

Stage eight



This last stage, referred to delicately as late

adulthood or maturity, or less delicately as oldage, begins sometime around retirement, afterthe kids have gone, somewhere around 60 yearsold in our society. Some older folks will protestand say it only starts when you feel old and soon, but that's an effect of our youth-worshipping culture, which has even old people

avoiding any acknowledgement of age. InErikson's theory, reaching this stage is a goodthing, and not reaching it suggests that earlierproblems retarded your development!



Aging

Strokes



The most common cause of psychologicalproblems among older people is strokes. Most

strokes are blood clots that get stuck in thesmall blood vessels (capillaries) in the brainthat supply neurons with oxygen and othernecessities. When this happens, many neurons

die from lack of oxygen. If this happens oftenenough, the person may develop what is calledmulti-infarct dementia. They may becomeconfused and disoriented; some may take to

wandering off and getting lost; some havedifficulty forming new memories; many developemotional problems such as anxiety anddepression.

Besides the cumulative effect of minor strokes, there



are also situations where there is a more massiveinterruption of blood flow to the brain caused by a

large clot in a major blood vessel (ischemic stroke)or the bursting of a blood vessel in the brain(hemorrhagic stroke). These are the kinds of strokeswe usually think of, and the consequences are much

more obvious: The person may feel dizzy, numb andweak, often on one side of the body or the other;some will have obvious problems with producing orunderstanding speech, or trouble with vision. Inaddition to these problems, they also develop thecharacteristics of dementia mentionedabove: Confusion, disorientation, memory lapses,

anxiety, and depression.



lzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease, a disorder of pivotal

importance to older adults, strikes 8 to 15 percent of people over the age of 65 (Ritchie & Kildea,1995). Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most feared mental disorders because of its gradual,

yet relentless, attack on memory. Memory loss,however, is not the only impairment. Symptoms extend to other cognitive deficits in language,object recognition, and executive functioning.3 Behavioral symptoms — such as psychosis,agitation, depression, and wandering — are common and impose tremendous strain on caregivers. Diagnosis is challenging because of the lack of biological markers, insidious onset,

and need to exclude other causes of dementia.... The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease not only

i th f i i t b t



requires the presence of memory impairment but also another cognitive deficit, such as language disturbance or disturbance in executive

functioning. The diagnosis also calls for impairments in social and occupational

functioning that represent a significant functional decline (DSM-IV). The other causes of dementia that must be ruled out include cerebrovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease,subdural hematoma, normal-pressure

hydrocephalus, brain tumor, systemic conditions (e.g., hypothyroidism, vitamin B12 or folic acid deficiency, niacin deficiency, hypercalcemia,neurosyphilis, HIV infection), and substance-

induced conditions.... A further challenge in the identification of

Al h i ’ di i th id d i t l



Alzheimer’s disease is the widespread societal view of “senility” as a natural developmental stage.Early symptoms of cognitive decline may be excused away or ignored by family members and the patient, making early detection and treatment difficult. The clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease relies on an accurate history of the patient’s symptoms and rate of decline. Such information is often impossible to obtain from the patient due to the prominence of memory

dysfunction. Family members or other informants are usually helpful, but their ability to provide useful information sometimes is hampered by denial or lack of knowledge about signs and

symptoms of the disorder....

There may be genetic factors involved inAl h i ' d i i f ili A



Alzheimer's, and it can run in families. Areduction in the amounts of acetylcholine in the

brain seems to play a part. Autopsies revealreal physical changes,including "neurofibrillary tangles" and "neuriticplaques." On the other hand, there are several

things that appear to delay (but not cure)Alzheimer's, including having certain genes andcontinued education. A great deal of researchis being done on Alzheimer's, and we lookforward to a day when it no longer looms overthe last years of people's lives.



a brain ravaged by Alzheimer's



“END”

student submission -- gen psych developmental theories

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