1. Part I
Chapter Two
Theories

2. What Theories Do Theorizing is Part of Human Nature.
You will learn that Theory Theory states that young children spontaneously develop theories to explan whatever they observe, because that is what humans do.
Questions and Answers
A developmental theory provides a framework of ideas that permits a cohesive view of development, produces new hypotheses to test, generates discoveries, and offers practical guidance. It is a systematic statement of general principles that provides a coherent framework for understanding how and why people change as they grow older. This chapter describes and evaluates five broad theories—psychoanalytic theory, behaviorism, cognitive theory, sociocultural theory, and universal theory (humanism and evolutionary theory)—that will be used throughout the book to present information and to provide a framework for interpreting events and issues in human development. Because each theory emphasizes a different aspect of development and is, in itself, too restricted to explain the diverse ways in which development occurs, the theories may be said to comple- ment one another. Three of the theories presented—psychoanalytic theories, behaviorism, and cognitive theories—are “grand theories” that are comprehensive in scope but inadequate in the face of more recent research findings. Three newer theories of development—sociocultural, humanistic, and evolutionary—are also discussed.
Chapter 2: Theories

3. What Theories Do Produce Hyptheses Generate Discoveries
Offer Practical Guidance

4. Facts and Norms
Norm is an average or typical, standard of behavior such as the norm for age of walking or the norm for greeting a stranger. Norms are not necessarily good or bad, although sometimes differences from the norm are mistakenly considered deficits.

5. Norms and Facts
Theories raise questions, suggesting hypotheses, leading to research that gathers empirical data. Those data are facts that may lead to conclusions.
Each theory to be explained soon has led to research, data, and conclusions that have verified as well as refuted aspects of that theory, thus advancing developmental science. Theories deepen thought, lead to new interpretations, studies, and perspectives. Theories provide a framework of understanding thousands of observations and daily behaviors that occur in every aspect of development. They are not facts, but they allow us to question norms, suggest hypotheses, and provide guidance. They are practical and organize our millions of experiences.

6. Grand Theories Psychoanalytic Theory: Freud and Erikson
Behaviorism: Conditioning and Social Learning
Psychoanalytic Versus Behaviorist Theories
THINKING CRITICALLY: Toilet Training—How and When?
Cognitive Theory: Piaget and Information Processing
Psychoanalytic and behaviorism (called learning theory) two opposing theories in the first half of the twentieth century and by mid century, cognitive theory emerged. These are grand in that they are comprehensive, enduring, and widely accepted, although they are not universally accepted.
Chapter 2: Theories

7. Psychoanalytic Theory
One of Freud's most influential ideas was that each stage includes its own potential conflicts. According to Freud, how people experience and resolved these conflicts, especially those related to weaning, toilet training, and sexual pleasure determine personality patterns

8. Freud
Psychoanalytic theory interprets human development in terms of irrational and unconscious drives and motives, often originating in childhood.
2. According to Sigmund Freud, development in the first six years progresses through three stages; at each stage, sexual interest and pleasure are focused on a particular part of the body—the mouth during infancy (the oral stage), the anus during early childhood (the anal stage), and the genitalia later in the preschool years (the phallic stage). Following a period of sexual latency, the adolescent enters the fourth stage, the genital stage, which lasts throughout adulthood. 3. Freud believed that each stage has its own potential conflicts and that how the child experiences and resolves the conflicts, especially during the first three stages, deter- mines personality patterns throughout life. 4. According to Freud, the personality has three parts: the id (unconscious drives), the superego (the conscience), and the ego (the conscious self). Throughout life, the ego uses defense mechanisms to defend itself against attacks from the id and superego.

9. Freud
The personality has three parts: the id (unconscious drives), the superego (the conscience), and the ego (the conscious self). Throughout life, the ego uses defense mechanisms to defend itself against attacks from the id and superego.
Id is dominant in infancy, superego develops in the phallic stage, and throughout life, the ego defends itself against attacks from the id and superego. Defense mechanisms keep the id and superego under control. Ideally, parents help children develop a strong ego so that impulses from the id and superego are kept in check.

10. Erikson’s Ideas
He proposed eight developmental stages, each of which is characterized by a particular challenging developmental crisis. Erikson emphasized each person’s relationship to the social environment and the importance of family and cultural influences in determining how well prepared individuals are to meet these crises. Erikson’s stages are lifelong.
Although he named two polarities at each crisis, he recognized a wide range of outcomes between the opposites. For most people, development at each stage leads to neither extreme but to something in between. The resolution of each crisis depends on the interaction between the individual and the social environment.

11. Erikson’s Stages
His stages include trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagna- tion, and integrity vs despair.

12. Table 2.1 Comparison of Freud’s Psychosexual and Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages Berger: The Developing Person Through Childhood and Adolescence, Ninth Edition Copyright © 2012 by Worth Publishers

13. Behaviorism (also called learning theory)
Formulated laws of behavior that operate at every age. The basis of all varieties of behaviorism is the idea that psychology should focus on the objective and scientific study of behavior.
It describes how people learn and develop habits, step by step. They believe that development occurs in small increments bit by bit over a long time. Change is cumulative and there are no stages of development. Focus is what they could see and measure not irrational thoughts and hidden urges.

14. Table 2. 2 Psychoanalytic Theory vs
Table 2.2 Psychoanalytic Theory vs. Behaviorism Berger: The Developing Person Through Childhood and Adolescence, Ninth Edition Copyright © 2012 by Worth Publishers

15. Classical Conditioning
The process by which responses become linked to particular stimuli. As demonstrated by the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov, classical conditioning (also called respondent conditioning) involves learning by association: The organism comes to associate a neutral stimulus with a meaningful one.

16. Classical Conditioning
How can a doctor’s “white coat” affect a patient?
120/80 Healthy
Instructions:
Automatic animation.
Curiously, classical conditioning was discovered by the physiologist Ivan Pavlov ( ) as he was researching the digestive process of dogs—in particular, salivation in dogs. Pavlov noted that not only did the dogs drool when they smelled food, but they began to drool when they heard the footsteps of lab attendants who brought the food! This discovery prompted the famous experiment that led to classical conditioning. Using repetition, Pavlov taught the dogs to salivate (the response) when they heard a tone that preceded the presentation of food (the stimulus)—and the food didn’t have to arrive (nor did footsteps need to be heard) for this conditioned response to occur!
140/90 Too High
the white coat syndrome is an everyday example of classically conditioned behavior. Just the sight of a doctor’s white coat (the stimulus) causes blood pressure to rise (the response) in some people. 16 16

17. Operant Conditioning (also called instrumental conditioning)
Proposed by B. F. Skinner, the individual learns that a particular action produces a particular consequence. Pleasant consequences are sometimes called rewards and unpleasant consequences are sometimes called punishments. Any consequence that follows a behavior and makes the person (or animal) likely to repeat that behavior is called reinforcement.

18. How is operant conditioning used to teach a seal tricks?
operant conditioning (instrumental conditioning): The learning process by which a particular action is followed by something desired or by something unwanted in order to promote or prevent an action.
reinforcement: A technique for conditioning behavior in which that behavior is followed by something desired.
How is operant conditioning used to teach a seal tricks?
Instructions:
Automatic animation.
Here the behavior is balancing a ball and the consequence is receiving food.
Translate this process to human development and you might better answer questions like: What happens when a child gets a hug for wanted behavior? When a gambler hits a jackpot by pulling the lever on a slot machine?
B.F. Skinner ( ) experimented with rats and pigeons, but he also created a controlled environment for his infant daughter. It was a glass-enclosed crib in which temperature, humidity, and perceptual stimulation could be controlled to make the baby’s time in the crib enjoyable and educational. His observations of her became part of his study about behavior. 18 18

19. Social Learning
An extension of behaviorism, social learning theory emphasizes the ways in which people learn new behaviors by observing and imitating, or modeling, the behavior of other people they consider admirable, powerful, nurturing, or similar. Modeling is most likely to occur when the observer is uncertain or inexperienced.

20. Social Learning Theory
social learning theory: Emphasizes the influence that other people have over a person’s behavior, involving learning by observation and imitation.
Instruction:
Social learning theory is an extension of behaviorism.
Definition: Some social learning occurs through modeling, when people copy what they see others do—often called observational learning.
Definition: The belief that a person’s achievements depend on personal actions, called self-efficacy, is an important aspect of social learning theory.
Albert Bandura developed this theory and conducted a famous observational learning experiment. In the experiment, children observed an adult that began to pound, kick, and throw a large inflated Bobo doll around a room, while yelling such remarks as “Sock him in the nose…Kick him!” When the children were later left alone in a room with the Bobo doll, their inhibitions lowered, and they imitated the very acts they had observed—and the children even used the very words they had heard the adults exclaim!
Is social learning theory an example of the saying, “Actions speak louder than words”? 20 20

21. Self Efficacy
Social learning is connected to perceptions and interpretations of experience, including self-efficacy, the belief that personal achievement depends on personal actions. People develop self efficacy when they see other people solve problems successfully which teaches them to have high aspirations.

22. This father is proud of his muscles but the boy hopes to become a man like his dad. Note similar swim suit.

23. What are the three behavioral learning processes?
Behaviorism
Behaviorism: The study of observable behavior, and the theory (learning theory) explaining the acquisition of habits and competencies.
What are the three behavioral learning processes?
classical conditioning (respondent conditioning): The learning process by which a natural (unconditioned) response (e.g. fear when seeing a lion out of a cage) becomes triggered by a formerly neutral stimulus by repeatedly pairing it with the stimulus that naturally triggers that response.
social learning theory: An extension of behaviorism that emphasizes the influence that other people have over a person’s behavior. Even without specific reinforcement, every individual learns many things through observation and imitation of other people.
Instruction:
The grand theory of behaviorism is also called learning behavior theory because it describes the laws and processes by which behavior is learned.
Click each block to reveal behavioral learning processes.
When someone uses the term conditioning, they mean a process by which responses become linked to particular stimuli and learning takes place.
In the next several slides, you’ll see examples of these three learning processes.
An example of classical conditioning: learning to fear a neutral flash of light when that is repeatedly followed by the startling boom of thunder.
Behaviorism
operant conditioning (instrumental conditioning): The learning process by which a particular action is followed by something desired (which makes the person or animal more likely to repeat the action) or by something unwanted (which makes the action less likely to be repeated.) 23 23

24. Psychoanalytic Versus Behaviorist

25. Toilet Training- How and When?
In the nineteenth century, many parents began their children’s toilet training in the first months of life. Psychoanalytic theory influenced parents to postpone toilet training to avoid the development of later problems in the child’s personality.
Behaviorists later suggested that toilet training depends on conditioning and should take place whenever the parent wished. Today, researchers believe that there is not a single best way to toilet train.
It is suggested that later training may be quickest. One study followed hundreds of toddlers whose parents began training between 18 months and 3 years. Early starters took about a year to be toilet trained completely (doing everything without help), while later starters took only about three months.

26. Cognitive Theory
Cognitive theory focuses on the structure and development of thought processes and their effect on attitudes, beliefs, values, assumptions, and behaviors. Jean Piaget viewed cognitive development as a process that follows a universal sequence of age-related periods: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

27. Periods of Cognitive Development
Thinking mistakes or steps in cognitive development?
Piaget’s Periods of Cognitive Development
Age Range
Name of Period
Characteristics of the Period
Major Gains During the Period
Birth to 2 years
Sensorimotor
Infants use senses and motor abilities to understand the world. Learning is active; there is no conceptual or reflective thought
Infants learn that an object still exists when it is out of sight (object permanence) and begin to think through mental actions
2 - 6 years
Preoperational
Children think magically and poetically, using language to understand the world. Thinking is egocentric, causing children to perceive the world from their own perspective
The imagination flourishes, and language becomes a significant means of self-expression and of influence from others
6 – 11 years
Concrete operational
Children understand and apply logical operations, or principles, to interpret experiences objectively and rationally. Their thinking is limited to what they can personally see, hear, touch and experience
By applying logical abilities, children learn to understand concepts of conservation, number, classification, and many other scientific ideas
Instruction:
According to the cognitive theory (one of several grand theories), our thoughts shape our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
Click each blank cell to reveal details about cognitive development.
Jean Piaget ( ) studied how children’s thinking changes with time and experience—and how their thought processes affect their behavior.
During Piaget’s observations of children, their wrong answers caught his attention since how children think turned out to be much more revealing that what they knew .
So when a baby begins to move out of the sensorimotor period, she understands that you still exist even when you hide your face in a game of peek-a-boo. When a 4-year-old, who thinks preoperationally, says that the sun wakes him up, he may well be thinking magically—that is, believing that the sun is truly coming to greet him. When a 7-year-old moves out of the preoperational period, she knows the liquid in a tall, thin container and a wide, short container are equal if the same amount has been poured into each vessel. And when a teenager wonders why humans exist or how people can create an ethical society, that teen has entered the formal period by thinking theoretically and abstractly.
Click to play a video with a child in the preoperational stage.
This clip shows you a demonstration about magic thinking in a child who employs preoperational thinking.
Click to play a video of a child who has moved beyond the stage of preoperational thinking.
This clip shows how a child reasons in her answer to a question.   
12 years through adulthood
Formal operational
Adolescents and adults think about abstractions and hypothetical concepts and reason analytically. They can be logical about things they have never experienced
Ethics, politics, and social and moral issues become fascinating as adolescents and adults take a broader and more theoretical approach to experience
cognitive theory: Theory of human development that focuses on changes in how people think over time. 27 27

28. Piaget
Each person strives for cognitive equilibrium—that is, a state of mental balance achieved through the development of mental concepts that explain his or her experiences.

29. Piaget
Cognitive disequilibrium (a state of imbalance) promotes a search for knowledge as the person modifies old concepts and constructs better ones to fit new experiences.

30. Piaget
According to Piaget, people adapt to new experiences either by reinterpreting them to fit into, or assimilate with, old ideas.
Some new experiences force people to revamp old ideas so that they can accommodate new experiences.

31. Figure 2.2
Most of us prefer the comfort of our conventional conclusions but according to Piaget, when new ideas disturb our thinking, we have an opportunity to expand our cognition with a broader and deeper understanding.

32. Informational Processing
Explores the processes of thought, how minds work before responding.
Not a single theory but a framework of a large number of research programs.

33. Informational Processing
Cognition begins with input picked up by the five senses: proceeds to brain reactions, connections, and stored memories; and concludes with some form of output.

34. Informational Processing
Provides many applications such as for children with ADHD- difficulties learning in school, obeying parents, making friends.
Led to discovery that they have difficulty reading facial expressions and voice tone in order to understand emotions. Come here – angry command or friendly suggestion?
There are multiple components that eventually result in crucial ideas and perceptions.

35. Focuses of Grand Theories
All three grand theories recognize that thoughts, emotions, and actions interact within each person, each theory focuses on a different aspect of the person.

36. Newer Theories Sociocultural Theory: Vygotsky and Beyond
The Universal Perspective: Humanism and Evolutionary Theory
Chapter 2: Theories

37. Sociocultural Theory
Seeks to explain human development in terms of the guidance, support, and structure provided by cultures and societies. Rather than considering the individual in isolation, sociocultural theorists focus on the dynamic interaction between developing persons and the surrounding social and cultural forces.

38. Lev Vygotsky
Russian psychologist believed that the development of cognitive competencies results from social interaction between children and more skilled members of the community in what has been called an apprenticeship in thinking. The basis of this apprenticeship is guided participation, in which a skilled tutor or mentor engages the learner in joint activities.

39. Zone of Proximal Development
In sociocultural theory, a child’s social partners progressively challenge the child’s ever-shifting abilities and motivation. To do so, the mentor draws the child into the zone of proximal development, which is the range of skills that the child can exercise only with assistance.

40. Humanism
The universal perspective centers on the shared impulses and common needs of all of humanity. One universal theory is humanism. Maslow believed that all humans have five basic needs, which he arranged in a hierarchy, beginning with survival and ending with self-actualization. Rogers believed that each person deserves respect, appreciation, and unconditional positive regard.

41. Evolutionary Theory
The recent application of evolutionary theory to human development emphasizes two long-standing and biologically based needs: survival and reproduction. Current humans react in ways that helped survival and reproduction millions of years ago because of selective adaptation, a process essential to evolutionary theory.