Developmental Theories
- A theory is an organized set of ideas designed to explain development.
- Theories organize knowledge in order to provide testable explanations of human behaviors and the ways in which they change over time.
- Current approaches to developmental theory focus on specific behavioral aspects rather than on global sets of behavior.
- There is no single unified theory of human development. Instead, five general perspectives influence current research.
- Psychodynamic theories hold that development is largely determined by how well people resolve the conflicts they face at different ages. This perspective can be traced to Sigmund Freud’s theory that personality emerges from conflicts experienced in childhood. Building on Freud’s idea, Erik Erikson proposed the first comprehensive life-span view of psychosocial development, in which he identified eight universal stages, each characterized by a particular struggle. The sequence of Erikson’s theory is based on the epigenetic principle, which means that each psychosocial strength has its own special period of particular importance.
- Learning theory focuses on how learning influences a person’s behavior. This perspective emphasizes the role of experience and that people learn from watching others around them. Two influential theories in this perspective are behaviorism and social learning theory.
- Behaviorism focuses on the work of John B. Watson, who believed babies were born a “blank slate,” and B.F. Skinner, who focused on operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is based on the notions of reinforcement, punishment, and environmental control of behavior.
- Social learning theory proposes that people learn by observing others in what is called imitation or observational learning.
- Albert Bandura based his social cognitive theory on both cognitive and social aspects. He believed that self-efficacy—people’s beliefs about their own abilities and talents—helps determine when people will imitate others.
- Cognitive-developmental theory focuses on thought processes and the construction of knowledge. From this perspective, the key is how people think and how thinking changes over time. This theory involves three distinct approaches: (1) Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, (2) information-processing theory, and (3) Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.
- Piaget’s theory focused on how children construct knowledge and how this construction changes over time. Piaget proposed a four-stage universal sequence of cognitive development in which the child constructs knowledge in a new way in each stage.
- Information-processing theory proposes that human cognition consists of mental hardware and software. Mental hardware refers to cognitive structures, and mental software includes organized sets of cognitive processes that enable people to complete tasks.
- Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory focuses on the ways that adults convey to children the beliefs, customs, values, and skills of their culture. Vygotsky was one of the first theorists to emphasize that children’s thinking does not develop in a vacuum, but rather is greatly influenced by the sociocultural context in which they grow up.
- The ecological and systems approach proposes that all aspects of development are interconnected. In other words, human development is inseparable from the environmental contexts in which a person develops. Two examples of the ecological and systems approach are Brofenbrenner’s ecological model and the competence-environmental press framework.
- Urie Bronfenbrenner, one of the best-known ecological theorists, proposed that development occurs in the context of a series of complex interconnected systems. Brofenbrenner identified four levels of the environment: (1) microsytem, (2) mesosytem, (3) exosystem, and (4) macrosystem.
- Competence-environmental press theory suggests that there is an optimal “best fit” between one’s abilities and the demands placed on a person by the environment. People adapt most effectively when there is a good match between their competence or abilities, and the environmental press, or the demands put on them by the environment.
- Life-span, selective optimization with compensation, and life-course perspectives view development in terms of where a person has been and where he or she is heading.
- The life-span perspective argues that human development is multiply determined and cannot be understood within the scope of a single framework. Its basic premise is that aging is a lifelong process of growing up and growing old, beginning with conception and ending with death. Paul Baltes and colleagues identified four key features of the life-span perspective:
- Multidirectionality – development involves both growth and decline.
- Plasticity – one’s capacity is not predetermined or carved in stone.
- Historical context – each of us develops within a particular set of circumstances determined by the historical time period in which we were born and the culture in which we grew up.
- Multiple causation – how we develop results from biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life-cycle forces.
- The selective optimization with compensation (SOC) model is based on the assumption that three processes (selection, compensation, and optimization) form a system of behavioral action that generates and regulates development and aging. The selection occurs for two main reasons: elective selection and loss-based selection. Compensation occurs when a person’s skills have decreased, and optimization involves minimizing losses and maximizing gains.
- The life-course perspective describes the ways in which various generations experience the biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces of development in their respective historical contexts. The key feature of the life-course perspective is the dynamic interplay between the individual and society, which involves three major factors: the individual timing of events; the synchronization of individual transitions; and the impact of earlier life events.
- The life-span perspective argues that human development is multiply determined and cannot be understood within the scope of a single framework. Its basic premise is that aging is a lifelong process of growing up and growing old, beginning with conception and ending with death. Paul Baltes and colleagues identified four key features of the life-span perspective:
