Theories
of Social Development
Chapter
9
Theories of Social Development
l Various
theories attempt to account for aspects of development such as
–
Emotion
–
Personality
–
Attachment
–
–
–
Personality
–
Overview
l Psychoanalytic
Theories
l Learning
Theories
l Theories
of Social Cognition
l Ecological
Theories of Development
Influential Theorists
Sigmund
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory has had greater impact on
Western culture and on thinking about social and personality development than
any other psychological theory
Erik
Erikson’s life-span developmental theory, which was a
successor to Freud’s theory, has also been influential
Core Concepts
In
Freud’s theory, behavior is motivated by the need to satisfy
Psychoanalytic
theories also stress the continuity of individual differences,
maintaining that
shape subsequent development
Freud’s Personality Structure
Id
– The biological drives with
which the infant is born
– The earliest and most
primitive personality structure
– Unconscious and operates with
the goal of
Ego
– Emerges in the first year
– The ,
problem-solving component of personality
Superego
– Develops during the ages of 3
to 6
– Based on the child’s
internalization (or adoption as his or her own) of the parents’ attributes,
beliefs, and standards
Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial
Development
l Erikson
(1902–1994) had enormous influence on developmental psychology.
l Proposed eight age-related development stages that span
infancy to old age.
l Each
stage is characterized by a crisis, or task, that the individual must resolve.
l An
unresolved task will impede progress in the next stage.
Stages of Psychosocial Development
Contributions
l The
most significant of Freud’s contributions to developmental psychology were:
–
His
emphasis on the importance of early experience and emotional relationships
–
His
recognition of the role of subjective experience and unconscious mental
activity
l Erikson’s
emphasis on the search for identity in adolescence has had lasting impact
Critique
l The
single weakness of both theories is that their claims are
and many of the specific elements are highly questionable
l Nonetheless,
their historical significance is immense, and in recent years some of their
ideas have emerged in modified form
–
For
example, research on autobiographical memory supports Freud’s idea of
the existence of
infantile amnesia, but not his explanation for it; it also
provides evidence for Erikson’s stages
Learning
Theories
View
of Children’s Nature
Central
Developmental Issues
Watson’s
Behaviorism
Skinner’s
Operant Conditioning
Social
Learning Theory
Current
Perspectives
Learning Theories
Emphasize
the role of external factors in shaping personality and social behavior.
The
primary developmental question is that of continuity/discontinuity.
Learning
theories also focus on the role of specific mechanisms of change.
Watson’s Behaviorism
Watson
believed that children’s development is determined by their social environment,
especially their parents.
Ignored
mental states and emphasized
Proved
with his famous “Little Albert” experiment that fear could be conditioned.
Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
Skinner
believed that behavior was under environmental control.
We
tend to repeat behaviors that lead to favorable outcomes (reinforcement) and
suppress those that result in unfavorable outcomes (punishment).
Skinner’s Contributions to
Child-Rearing
Skinner
showed that attention is a powerful reinforcer.
The
behavior-management strategy of “time-out” focuses on the withdrawal of
attention.
It
is hard to extinguish a behavior that is
If parents give in once…
Skinner’s
work led to behavior-modification therapy, which is useful for changing
undesirable behaviors.
Critique
l Watson’s
exclusive emphasis on conditioning is now regarded as simplistic
l However,
his approach to extinguishing fear has been widely used to rid people of
phobias
–
This
approach, known as is a form of therapy based on classical
conditioning in which initially debilitating responses (such as unreasonable
fear) to a given stimulus are gradually deconditioned
Social/Cognitive Learning Theory
Emphasis
on the observation and imitation of others
Also,
focus on cognitive processes of attention, encoding, storing, and retrieval of
information to reproduce the behavior observed.
Social/Cognitive Learning Theory
– Albert Bandura
Reciprocal
Determinism
Child Environment
Bobo
the Doll
Reciprocal Determinism
Theories of Social Cognition
l Are concerned with children’s ability to about
their own and other people's thoughts, feelings, motives, and behaviors.
Emphasize
the process of self-socialization, rather than the role of others.
Important
theories:
l Sellman’s stage theory of
role taking
l Dodge’s
information-processing theory
Selman’s Theory of Role Taking
l Focuses on the development of role taking, the ability to adopt
the perspective of another person and to think about something from another’s
point of view.
l Before
the age of 6, perspective-taking ability is limited (this is also a Piagetian
belief).
l Children
go through four stages of thinking about other people.
Dodge’s Information-Processing
Theory of Social Problem Solving
l Emphasizes
cognitive processes
l Dodge
analyzed children’s use of aggression as a problem-solving strategy.
l Dodge
and colleagues proposed that children go through six steps in solving social
problems.
Dodge’s Information-Processing
Theory of Social Problem Solving
l Children
make use of:
–
past
social experiences
–
social expectancies
–
preexisting knowledge
–
concepts, and attitudes
…to carrying out
the six-step analytic process.
Steps in Dodge’s
Information-Processing Theory of Social Problem Solving
1. Encode
a problematic event
2. Interpret
the social cues involved in it
3. Formulate
a goal to resolve the incident
4. Generate
strategies to achieve the goal
5. Evaluate
the likely success of potential strategies
6. Enact
a behavior
Dodge’s Research About
Aggression
Found
that some children have a “
,” a general expectation that others are hostile to them.
Leads
them to search for hostile intent in peers and to attribute to peers a desire
to harm them.
Hostile
attributional biases become self-fulfilling prophecies…leading to attacks and
counterattacks.
Dweck’s
Social Cognitive Perspective
l Emphasizes
the role of self-attributions in academic achievement
l Children
with a mastery orientation attribute success and failure to the amount
of effort expended and persist in the face of failure
l Children
with a helpless orientation attribute success and failure to enduring
aspects of the self (such as ability) and tend to give up in the face of
failure
–
Such
“helpless” children tend to base their sense of self-worth on the degree of
approval they receive from other people
–
To
be assured of praise, they avoid situations in which they are likely to not be
successful
Perspectives on Social Cognitive
Theories
They
are important for their emphasis on cognitive processes.
They
have a strong emphasis on children as active seekers of information about
social realm.
They
provide insight on effect of social experience on interpretation of
experiences.
They
have little to say about biological factors.
Ecological Theories of Development
1. Foremost
issue is the interaction of nature and nurture .
2. Emphasize
the importance of sociocultural context.
3. Emphasize
the continuity of development.
4. Children’s
active role in their own development is a central focus.
Bronfenbrenner’s
Bioecological Model
Bronfenbrenner conceptualizes the
environment as a set of nested structures, each inside another.
Each
structure emphasizes a different level of influence.
The
environmental forces at each level vary in effect on each child.
There
is complex interconnectedness among the levels, which are called systems.
Ethological and Evolutionary
Theories
l Ethology: The study of behavior within an ecological
context.
l Innate
behavior patterns were shaped by evolution just as physical characteristics
were.
–
“Imprinting”
l Human
newborns do
–
but
they are drawn to visual and emotional connection with others.
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD)
Children with ADHD tend to be of
normal intelligence, but have difficulty sticking to plans, following rules and
regulations, and persevering on tasks that require sustained attention.
l All
the symptoms seem to reflect an underlying difficulty in inhibiting impulses to
act, especially when distractions are present.
l ADHD
affects 3-5% of the children in the US, with the majority of the children
diagnosed being boys.
l ADHD,
like many other debilitating syndromes, can be examined with the different
levels of the bioecological model in mind.
Biology clearly
plays a role in causing ADHD.
Environment
influences, including parental behavior and how these children are treated by
others, are also important.
There is no
evidence, however, that
Small
doses of stimulants like Ritalin help 70-90% of the children for whom it is
prescribed.
Longer-lasting
gains require behavioral treatments, such as teaching children strategies for
screening out disruptions.
The availability of
medications depends on factors far outside the influence of the family.
l At
the level of the chronosystem, many have suggested
that ADHD is a serious problem in modern times because of the advent of
compulsory schooling, which prohibits children with attentional problems from
finding niches outside the classroom.
Evolutionary Psychology
l Applies Darwinian concepts of natural selection and
adaptation to human behavior.
l Basic
idea is that certain genes predispose individuals to behavior that enhances
survival and reproduction
–
E.g., obtaining food, avoiding predators, mating.
Contributions of Evolutionary Theory
l The
“parental-investment” theory of evolutionary psychology explains why parents
spend so much time and energy in raising their children.
l Lengthy
period of human children’s immaturity and dependence has adaptive benefits.
l Play
is an important part of development and an ideal platform for learning.