Developmental Psychology Theoretical Perspectives (Feldman 4e)

Copyright © 2018, 2015, 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Discovering the Life Span
Fourth Edition
Chapter 1
Introduction
Module 1.2
Theoretical Perspective on
Lifespan Development

Theoretical Perspectives
•Psychodynamic
•Behavioral
•Cognitive Perspectives
•The Humanistic
•Contextual Approach
•Evolutionary Perspectives

The Psychodynamic Approach –
Focusing on the inner person
Behavior is motivated by inner focus, memories, and conflicts of which a
person has little awareness or control.
• Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
• Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory

Freud’s
Psychoanalytic Theory
• Suggests unconscious forces
determine personality and behavior
• Personality has three aspects:
– Id (pleasure principle)
– Ego (reality principle)
– Superego (conscience)
• Psychosexual development
– Series of stages
– pleasure, or gratification, is focused on a particular biological
function and body part
– Fixation might occur

Erikson’s Psychosocial
Theory
• Focuses on changes in our under-
standing of individuals, their
interactions with others, and their
standing as members of society
• Series of stages
–Each stage presents a crisis
–No crisis is ever fully resolved
–Erikson believed that development continued
throughout the life span

The Psychodynamic Approach:
Focusing on the Inner Person (6 of 6)
•Assessing the Psychodynamic Perspective
– Current research:
▪Supports unconscious influences behavior
▪Does not support that progress through stages determine adult
personalities
– Erikson’s view that development is lifelong is supported
– Erikson focused on men more than women
– Psychodynamic perspective provides good description of past
behavior but imprecise predictions of future behavior

The Behavioral Perspective:
Focusing on Observable Behavior
The keys to understanding development are observable behavior and
outside stimuli in the environment.
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Condition

The Behavioral Perspective in Contrast
to the Psychodynamic Perspective
•People do not pass through stages
•Development occurs because of exposure to
specific factors in the environment
•Quantitative (concrete), not qualitative (inferred)

Classical Conditioning
• Type of learning in which an organism
responds to a neutral stimulus that
normally does not bring about that
type of response
– Little Albert, conditioned fear of a white rat

Operant Conditioning
• Learning a voluntary response based
on whether or not the consequence is
positive or negative.
– B. F. Skinner and behavior modification
– People must operate in their environments
to produce a consequence or change
in the environment.
– People are instrumental in producing
change in their environments.

Social-Cognitive Learning Perspective
•Learning through imitation and
observation
– Albert Bandura and the bobo doll
•Assessing the Behavioral
Perspective
– The mind is a black box where nothing occurs inside.
– Social-cognitive theory argues that mental activity sets people apart
– Social-cognitive theory has come to predominate over classical and
operant conditioning

The Cognitive Perspective:
Examining
the Roots of Understanding
Focuses on the processes that allow people to know, understand, and
think about the world.
• Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
• Information Processing Theory
• Cognitive Neuroscience

Piaget’s Theory of
Cognitive Development
– Proposed people move through fixed
stages
– In each stage, quantity and quality of
information grows
– Proposed thinking is arranged in schemes
– Proposed growth of children’s
understanding is due to:
▪Assimilation
▪Accommodation

Information Processing Approaches
–Seek to identify the ways individuals take in, use, and
store information
–Theory grew out of computer age
▪Assumption that complex behaviors can be broken into steps
▪Cognitive growth is more quantitative than qualitative
▪Aging results in better control in mental processing
–Neo-Piagetian theory
▪Suggests development occurs in certain areas quickly
▪Places more focus on the impact of experience in cognitive
development

Cognitive Neuroscience Approaches
• Cognitive Neuroscientist
– Look at cognitive development through brain processes
– Seek to identify locations and functions in the brain for cognitive
activities
Neuroscientists found evidence that
the brains of children with autism
spectrum disorder are somewhat
larger than those of children without
the disorder. This finding might help
identify cases of autism spectrum
disorder early, allowing for more
effective intervention and treatment.

The Humanistic Perspective:
Concentrating on Uniquely Human
Qualities
Contends that people have a natural capacity to make decisions about
their lives and control their behavior

The Humanistic Perspective: Concentrating on
Uniquely Human Qualities
• The ability and motivation to reach one’s full potential
• Free will (the ability to make choices and make decisions)
• Carl Rogers: a need for positive regard
• Abraham Maslow: self-actualization

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The Contextual Approach: Taking
a Broad Approach to Development
Considers relationship between individuals and their physical, cognitive,
personality, and social worlds
• Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Approach to Development
• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Bronfenbrenner’s
Bioecological Approach to
Development
• Five levels of environment
simultaneously influence
individuals:
– Microsystem – immediate environment
– Mesosystem – connects aspects of
microsystem
– Exosystem – broad influences of local
community
– Macrosystem – larger cultural influences
– Chronosystem - the passage of time

Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural
Theory
• Approach that emphasizes how
cognitive development proceeds as
a result of social interactions
between members of a culture
▪Argues children’s understanding of
the world is due to interactions with
others
▪Proposed culture must be taken in consideration
▪Focuses on reciprocal transactions

Evolutionary Perspectives: Our
Ancestors’ Contributions to
Behavior
Seeks to identify behavior in today’s humans that is a result of our genetic
inheritance from our ancestors
• Argues our genetic inheritance determines physical traits, personality
traits, and social behaviors
• Encompasses behavioral genetics, which studies the effects of heredity
on behavior

Why “Which Approach Is Right?” Is
the Wrong Question
LO 1.13 Explain the value of using multiple perspectives to describe human
development.
• Each perspective emphasizes a different aspect of
development
– Psychodynamic: Emotions, motivational conflicts, and
unconscious determinants
– Behavioral: Overt behavior
– Cognitive and humanistic: What people think, not what they do
– Contextual: Examines social and cultural influences
– Evolutionary: Inherited biological factors
• Each based on its own premise
• Some developmentalists use eclectic approach

Applying Lifespan Development
What examples of human behavior have you seen that
seem to have been inherited from our ancestors because
they helped individuals survive and adapt more
effectively? Why do you think they are inherited?

Developmental Psychology Theoretical Perspectives (Feldman 4e)

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