1. Theories of Human Development
Integrative Perspectives
THE MECAHNISTIC PERSPECTIVE – PART II
Dale Goldhaer

2. Four Theories
1. Learning Theory
2. Social Learning Theory
3. Information Processing Theory
4. Developmental Behavior Generic Theory
pp. 2

3. LEARNING THEORY
(Stimulus-response theory,
Behavior theory, conditioning
theory)
John Watson, Clark Hull, Edward Tolman, B.F. Skinner

4. The Origins of Learning Theory
1. Russian Psychologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-
1936)
 Pavlovian conditioning: What makes a conditioning stimulus is
not some property inherent in that stimulus, but its association
with a stimulus already possessing response-eliciting power
1. American Psychologist John Watson (1878-
1958)
 Founder of modern behaviorism
 Little Albert experiments to demonstrate classical
conditioning of emotional responses
 Stimulus-response theory

5. Modern Learning Theory
Researchers were interested in investigating the variables that influence the
formation of associations (i.e. learning)
1.Methodological Learning Theory
 Clark Hull, Kenneth Spence, Charles Spike, Tracy Kendler
 Reversal – non reversal shift studies
1.Radical Behaviorism
 B.F. Skinner, Donald Baer, Sidney Bijou
 Operant conditioning / response – stimulus
 4 response consequences: positive and negative reinforcer,
punishment & extinction
 Single subject design – each subject serves as own control group

6. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
Albert Bandura

7. Adolescent Aggression (1959)
 Study consisted of a comparison between two sets of families –
those having an adolescent with a history of aggressive antisocial
behavior and those that did not
 The aggressive adolescents were like small children whose
impulses are held in check by internal rather than external
restraints
 Parents of the nonaggressive adolescents were much more
effective in fostering an internalized sense of social control. They
established and maintained a close, emotionally supportive
relationship with their son by using discipline techniques that
focused on the quality of the parent-child relationship rather than
ridicule, physical punishment, and loss of privileges

8. Social Learning & Personality
Development (1963)
 Introduced the concept of vicarious reinforcement: Modeling
of new behaviors is more dependent on the child’s
observation of the response consequences to a model rather
than on the direct experience of those consequences
 “Bobo” experiments are probably most famous of this series of
observational learning studies

9. Social Learning Theory (1977)
 The introduction of reciprocal determinism. The
person becomes the generator of specific behaviors
and the interpreter of the environment to which those
behaviors are directed
 Response consequences are seen as having 3
functions: (1) imparting information, (2) serving as
motivators, and (3) regulating behavior.
 Elements of social or observational learning process:
(1) attention processes (various factors increase or
decrease the amount of attention paid), retention
processes (remembering what you paid attention to),
motor reproduction processes (reproducing the
image), and motivational processes (having a good
reason to imitate)

10. Social Cognitive Theory (1986)
 The causes of our behavior has shifted from a focus on how we react to
the past and present to how we cognitively represent the future
 Five basic capabilities regulate the process through which individuals
regulate the reciprocal relations between person, behavior and
environment:
1. Symbolizing capability
2. Vicarious capability (ability to learn through observing actions of others)
3. Forethought capability (symbolically represent the future in the present. We
learn from our experiences)
4. Self-regulatory capability (internal control mechanisms). Degree of self-
efficacy is the interaction of 2 internal regulatory mechanisms-our belief that
we are or are one capable of a particular act and our beliefs about the
desirability of that act.
5. Self-reflective capability: capability to make judgment as to our ability to
exercise control over the events that affect our lives

11. INFORMATION PROCESSING
THEORY
Robert Siegler, Katherine Nelson, Robert Sternberg

12. The Origins of Information
Processing Perspective
1. Decline of learning theory in the 1950s and 1960s
1. Examination of the mechanistic psychologists in the 1960s and
1070s of Piaget’s theoretical arguments
 “training studies” in the 1960s and 1970s to test Piaget’s theory
of cognitive development
1. Growing interest in computers
 Information processing theorists began to consider the
implications of conceptualizing the human mind as an
information processing mechanism in the same sense that the
computer was conceptualized as doing so

13. Commonly Held Assumptions of the
Information Processing Perspective
1. Cognitive activity as the processing of symbols (“thinking is
information processing”)
2. Cognitive activity as the functioning of a few basic elements
(complex cognitive activity can be best understood as reflecting
the actions of a number of more specific sub processes)
3. Higher order cognition as a coordinated process (cognitive
processes relevant to a particular type of information operate in
concert with one another)
4. Cognitive change through self-modification (outcomes generated
by the child’s own activities change the way the child processes
information in the future)

14. Basic Elements of an
Information
Processing System
1. The hardware is the cognitive
structure(s) that stores the information
2. The software are the cognitive
processes that act on the information
3. Three levels of processing structures:
sensory registers through which data
enters the system through one of the
senses, short-term working memory
where information is actively
processed, and long-term memory
structure where information is stored.
Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968

15. Siegler’s Information Processing
Approach to Children’s Problem Solving
1. The Distributions of Associations Model
hypothesizes that two factors influence
the retrieval effort: (a) a confidence
criterion, and (b) a search length
2. The model predicts that the child will
first attempt to use the most efficient
strategy possible.
 1st strategy: retrieve answer stored
in long term memory
 2nd strategy: elaboration of the
representation (use of prompt
that might aid in retrieving the
correct answer)
 3rd strategy: a problem solving
strategy or algorithm
3. The probabliltiy of an answer being
retrieved on any one occurrence is a
function of that answer’s association
strength
4. One key element in children’s acquiring
new problem solving strategies is their
ability to form a “goal sketch” of the
problem (a general sense of what an
appropriate problem solving strategy
needs to look like)
Distributions of Associations Model

16. Nelson’s Information Processing Approach for
Children’s Event Knowledge
1. Nelson’s work focused on the cognitive representations of
ordered sequences of action that are held in the long term
memory (or scripts)
2. Scripts make it possible to both predict and plan for future
encounters, to guide actions within a familiar setting
3. Scripts are also important in the subsequent development of the
ability to process truly abstract representation
4. Parents serve to scaffold or help support their young children’s
experiences through the types of questions they ask, the degree
to which they talk about past, present, and future events, etc.

17. Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory
 Robert Sternberg’s theory offers
an explanation of the cognitive
mechanisms that individuals use
to adapt to the everyday
demands of life, and in turn, the
way these events further define
the structure and operation of
these cognitive structures and
operations.
 Intelligence reflects the operation
of 3 elements or subtheories:
1. Componential
2. Experiential
3. Contextual
 Intelligence is not random – it is an
activity purposefully directed
toward 3 global goals (1)
adaptation to the environment,
(2) shaping of an environment,
and (3) selection of an
environment

18. DEVELOPMENTAL BEHAVIOR
GENETIC PERSPECTIVE
Plomin, Scarr

19. Basic Assumptions of a Developmental
Behavior Genetic Perspective
1. Focus on evolutionary perspective
 Emphasis on 2 concepts: genetic variation and natural selection
1. A focus on polygenetic inheritance
 These behavior geneticists are interested in those behavior
phenotypes that are polygenetic in origin – caused by the
combined influence of many different genes
1. A focus on differentiating genetic and environmental influence
 Emphasis on how this intergenerational, polygenetic process is
reflected in the behavioral phenotypes of individuals

20. Methods of Data Collection & Analysis
1. Animal research methods
 Selective breeding experiments
1. Human research methods
• Comparisons between genetically different individuals in normally existing
environment
1. Kinship studies
 Comparing MZ (genetically identical) and DZ (similar genetically as non twin
sibling) twins
1. Adoption studies
 Correlations between “child-adopted parent’ and “child-biological parent”
as a test of relative influence of heredity and environment

21. Scarr & McCartney (1983)
12 0
1 00
Passive Gene-Environment Effects
(early in the lifespan)
8 0 Active Gene –Environment Effects
(niche picking – picking out environments in which one feels
comfortable)
6 0
4 0
2 0
Evocative Gene – Environment Effects
(Occurs because different genotypes elicit or evoke different
responses from others in that child’s environment)
0
Age

22. Plomin’s Theoretical Perspective
1. Heredity is a significant determinant of the
variability in behavioral phenotypes at all ages
2. When hereditability estimates change over
the life span, they increase (environments
become more diverse because individuals
become more diverse)
3. Genetics plays an increasingly significant role
in individual variability because most
environmental influences are of the non-
shared versus the shared variety
4. Specific genes will be found that affect
experience