Lecture 2 - Developing Individual in Society - 12/10/21 Theories of Development Theories - a way of binding together a multitude of facts so that one way comprehend them all at once, they are a way of making sense of lots of information. A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained Facts - what has really happened or is the case (truth/reality) something that we have measured or observed What has a theory ever done for us? · Theories make sense of data; they help explain things via stories · Everybody has a theory - in books, journal papers etc, every single author will have a theory of how development works. Knowing someone's theoretical position can make it easier to understand many things they say/write Theories and their day · 1890s - 1950s Genetic Psychology · 1910s - 1970s Psychodynamic · 1930s - present Behaviourism · 1950s - 2000s Constructivism · 1950s - present Cultural · 1970s - present - Cognitive Development Psychodynamic Theory - Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) One of the first psychologists to look at how the forces/dynamics within an individual affect behaviour, and looking at how early experiences and biologically based drives affect behaviour. The development that Freud proposed was a balance of unconscious drives and conscious adaptation to those drives. When an unconscious drive comes into conflict with an environment, the conscious drives must help adaptation. ID - instinctual drives, please principle, dominates infant Ego emerges from conflict with reality Ego - satisfies drives in a socially ethical manner, later arbitration Internalise acceptable desires we develop super ego Super ego - ethical component Freud spoke of the psychosexual stages, how a sexual impulse travels from one stage to another; focused on erogenous zones - Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital Much of Freud's work is no longer used/accepted in other research but psychodynamic theory was a huge turning point for psychological research Good and Bad in his research + focus on early experience
+ conflict: drives and society + rich source of hypotheses -Half of the world has no phallus, the development of females isnt discussed -A very non-scientific method -Freud's theories cannot be tested Psychoanalytical approach focuses on relationships to key people and the development of personality (used throughout Freuds era) Cognitive Development/Information Processing focuses on cognitive development not personality, it looks at the child's action on environment and cognitive processing of experiences (modern) (Cognitive) Constructivism Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was the GOAT (Greatest of all time developmental psychologist) - doesn't necessarily mean he was correct He originally looked at molluscs and insects - he observed the stages of development in animals as a child, before he began to look at human intelligence development (how to you go from the limited abilities of a baby, to intelligent adults). Piaget suggested children were so rooted in their viewpoints that they couldn't see things from other perspectives, and therefore their understanding