Individual Differences,

Social and
Developmental
Psychology
Lecture 2(Psy1282)
12/10/07
Theories of
Developmental
Psychology
Today’s lecture covers:
A) Introduction: What is development?
Clarke and Clarke’s multi-factorial
approach

B) Psychoanalytic Theories of Development

Freud & Erikson

C) Learning Theories of Development

Watson & Bandura

D) Cognitive Developmental Theories:

Piaget & Vygotsky

E) Summary
A) Introduction: What is
Development?
 Development - refers to changes and continuities in
psychological characteristics:

Personality: Relatively stable until old age

Intelligence: Rapid change in childhood with stability in

adulthood

Temperament: Constant (continuous) from birth to death

Height: Childhood = change / adulthood =

continuity / old-age = change
Clarke and Clarke (2000): A
multi-factorial approach to
Development
 4 “interacting and transacting” headlines of Development

 Biological Trajectory (Nature)

 Social Trajectory (Nurture)

 Transactions – Individual effects on environment and

feedback cycle

 The Chance event

 Given the multi-factorial nature of influences on

development, any given individual’s life-path is largely
open-ended and un-predictable
The 4 Headlines of
Development
 The Biological trajectory (Nature):
Specific to the individual – the developmental path
predicted by the individual’s genes –
but only if nothing else intervenes!

 The Social Trajectory (Nurture):

Determined by accident of birth - the likelihood that the
individual will have the normal developmental
opportunities available to a member of their social group.
This predicted path can be easily altered by chance!
The 4 Headlines of
Development
 The Effects of the Individual on his Environment and its
Reciprocal Effects*:
Children help to create their own environments -
influencing their own development.
Intelligent and less bright children; well behaved and
poorly behaved children - all evoke different responses
from intelligent adults (Thomas and Chess, 1957)

*Often called “Transactions”

The 4 Headlines of
Development
The Chance Event:
Unpredictable in effect and timing - a major factor in
making the individual’s life path unpredictable.
Would winning the lottery change/have changed your
developmental path?

Summary of the 4 Headlines:

Development is never Nature&/or Nurture:
A complex and largely unpredictable interaction
between many variables
B) Psychoanalytic Theories of
Development
 Sigmund Freud (Austrian, 1856-1939)

Nature and Nurture combine to influence personality

development

Normal development = Innate Biological drives for

aggression and sex are controlled by social forces (parents)

Parents’ failure to control these urges = lifelong neuroticism

and consequent psychosocial dysfunction (for their child!)
Problems with Freud’s model of
Development
 No evidence that early parental “failure” is predictive of life-
long dysfunction in the child; or the reverse…..

 No evidence to support Freud’s claim that individuals cannot

recover from early adversity (e.g. child abuse)

 To Freud the child is Vulnerable - easily damaged by poor

parenting. To contemporary Psychology the child is Resilient
C) Learning Theories of
Development
John Watson (American 1878-1958)

Famous quotation defining Watson’s position on development

(1925):

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well formed, and my own

specified world to bring them up in, and I guarantee to take
any of them at random and train them to become any type of
specialist I might select…..There is no such thing as an
inheritance of capacity, talent, temperament, mental
constitution and behavioural characteristics”
Watson’s approach to development
 Biology plays no part

 Children are born with a tabula-rasa – adopts John Locke’s

notion of the mind being a blank slate

 There is only one influencing variable – the social

environment – no Chance events or Transactions

 Provided only with the appropriate social supports children

will become intelligent, well functioning individuals
Problems with Watson’s model of
Development
 A good start in life only predicts better life chances, it doesn’t
guarantee them:
Given the same social environment, different children
will develop in different ways, probably due to biological
differences

 Can adults resolve the mal-effects of their early environmental

experiences later in life?
Yes! Do people who resolve their early disadvantage
differ from those who don’t? What role do Biologically
determined characteristics such as motivation &/or
temperament play?
Comparing Freud and Watson
 Freud: individual’s lifespan development is largely predictable
from their early emotional/parenting experiences

 Watson: we can largely predict the individual’s life-path from

the social environment of their childhood

 Watson accepts that social environments are subject to change

across time; therefore development is somewhat unpredictable
D) Cognitive Developmental
Theories
Jean Piaget (Swiss 1896-1980)
 Piaget was a zoologist and philosopher:
He understood how species adapt to their environments
via maturation, and how knowledge is acquired

 Human adaptation to the environment takes the form of

knowledge acquisition

 Our thinking changes its nature as we get older - helps us to

adapt to our current biological and environmental conditions
Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive
Development
 Thinking takes on four different forms – becoming
increasingly more complex with age

 Sensorimotor (0-2); Pre-operational (2-7); Concrete

operational (7-11); Formal operations (11/12+)

 This sequence is invariant

 Given that all children share the same genetic blue print for
adaptation, Piaget attempted to describe the universal child
Piaget’s approach to questions
of Nature and Nurture in
development
 Biology is the most powerful influence

 Changes in environment will not lead to quick progress

through the 4 stages

 Learning is subject to genetic maturation

 But! It is only through acting on the environment that children

are able to develop
E) Summary
 Freud: environmentally deterministic theory
the child is highly vulnerable to negative environmental
effects – leading to poor adult functioning

 Watson: environmentally deterministic theory

environmental changes might redirect the individual’s
life-path

 Piaget: emphasis on our shared biological inheritance

a species-specific blue-print of cognitive development
unfolds over time
 Clarke and Clarke (2000):
Biology; environment; transactional variables; chance
events – all interact to create the individual.
Development is life-long and largely unpredictable

 Individuals are generally Resilient:

Negative life events may affect development but we can
bounce back to normal functioning with the stressor
removed

 This perspective is a useful guide to evaluating the strengths

and weaknesses of older theories
Essential Reading for this
lecture
 Chapter 2 in the module’s Developmental text:
Shaffer, D. R. (2002) Developmental Psychology
(Wadsworth: Belmont, CA)

Reference:
Clarke, A.M. and Clarke, A.D.B. Early Experience and the Life
Path Jessica Kingsley: London; 2000.