CHAPTER 2

THEORIES
OF HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
A H B S 1 3 1 6 /A H S C 1 3 1 4
D E V E L O P M E N TA L P S Y C H O L O G Y
I N H E A LT H S C I E N C E S
ASST. PROF. DR. IZZUDDIN AHMAD NADZIRIN
LEARNING GOALS :

Describe the main theories in human

development.

Distinguish each of the theories.

 As researchers
formulate a problem to
study, they often draw
on theories and
develop hypotheses.
DEFINITION OF THEORY

A theory is an interrelated,
coherent set of ideas of a
phenomena and to make
predictions
DEFINITION OF HYPOTHESIS

A hypothesis is a specific
assumption or prediction,
often derived from theory,
that can be tested to
determine its accuracy
3 MAJOR THEORIES IN
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Psychoanalytic Theories

Cognitive Theories

Behavioral and Social

Cognitive Theories
P S Y C H O A N A LY T I C
THEORY
• F R E U D ’ S T H E O RY
• E R I K S O N ’ S P S Y C H O S O C I A L T H E O RY
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
It is introduced by Sigmund Freud.

Beliefs focus on the formation of

personality

People move through a series of stages in

which they confront conflicts between
biological drives and social expectations.
Sigmund Freud
The way these conflicts are resolved (1856-1939)
determines the individual’s ability to learn,
to get along with others and to cope with
anxiety.
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
Early experiences with parents extensively
shape development.

Things that happen to people during

childhood can contribute to the way they
later function as adults.

For example:
 Leyla does not want to get married. Her parents
divorced when she was young, and deep down, she
does not really think that any marriage can work.
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

Suggested human has 3 levels of awareness

that control behavior and personality:
– Conscious
– Preconscious
– Unconscious
 CONSCIOUS

Your awareness at the present moment.

You are aware of something on the outside as well

as some specific mental functions happening on the
inside.

For example:
 You are aware of your environment, your breathing,
or the chair that you are sitting on.
PRECONSCIOUS
• Consists of accessible information. You can become
aware of this information once you direct your
attention to it.

• For example:
– You walk down the street to your Mahallah without
consciously needing to be alert to your surroundings.
– You can talk on the cell phone and still arrive home
safely.
 UNCONSCIOUS
We don’t have easy access to the information stored
in the unconscious mind.

 Contains all the feelings or instincts that are beyond

our awareness but it affect our expression and
action.

For examples:
Slip of tongue
Dreams
Anger
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

This theory is likened to an

iceberg, where the vast
majority is buried beneath
the water’s surface.
The unconscious part is so
large than a conscious part
at any given time,
The unconscious mind has
more influence than the
conscious has on our
personality and behavior.
Freud’s Three Structures of Personality

Id Ego

Superego
 The Id
Present from birth.

This structure is unconscious and drive

to seek immediate satisfaction of the
needs and desires. For example: A baby
will cry when he/she is hungry or thirsty.

The guiding principle is the pleasure principle.

The personality of the newborn child is all ‘ID’ and

only later does it develop an ego and super-ego.
 The Ego

Develops gradually during the first year

of life.

Primarily conscious, and tries to satisfy

the demands of the ‘id’.

Children learn to follow the reality

principle in dealing effectively with
life’s demands. This coincides with the
development of the ego.
 The Superego

The moral branch of personality.

It contains the commands and prohibitions that

we learn from parents, teachers and others in
authority during our childhood years.

Takes into account whether something is right or

wrong.

Our ‘conscience’.
In Freud’s view :

The ego must resolve conflicts between the

demands of reality, the wishes of the id and the
constraints of the superego.
• I want to • Eats a • I’m on
eat cheese small slice diet!
cake! of it

ID EGO SUPEREGO
These conflicts cause anxiety.

The anxiety alerts the ego to resolve the conflicts by

using defense mechanisms, which are the ego’s
protective method for reducing anxiety by unconsciously
distorting reality.
 DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Defense Description Example
Mechanisms
Repression It involves simply Maria was abused as a child.
forgetting something She doesn’t remember the
bad. abuse but now struggles to
form relationships.
Displacement Redirecting the If a wife gets angry with
feelings of hostility husband and cannot say
and violent action from anything to him, she beats her
self to other people child.

Sublimation The unacceptable An anger person may involve in

desire is redirected kick boxing to release his
into socially accepted anger
channels
 DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Defense Description Example
Mechanisms
Denial Reality is distorted to If a person is diagnosed as
make it suit to the having cancer, they will first
individual’s wishes get shock, then start
denying reality saying
perhaps that the diagnosis
was wrong.

Rationalisation An individual tries to A student who fails a test

justify his failure by because she did not study
giving some excuses enough blames her failure
on the lecturer for using
tricky questions.
• What defense mechanisms have you
used in the past year? Do you use
some more than others?
 The Psychosexual Stages
Freud then proposed that personality forms
through unconscious childhood conflicts.
These conflicts occur in unvarying sequence
according to the 5 stages of psychosexual
development.

He constructed his psychosexual theory,

which emphasized that how parents manage
their child’s sexual and aggressive drives in
the first few years is crucial for healthy
personality development.
 The Five Stages of Psychosexual Development

Stage Approximate Focus area Key task and

Ages experience
Oral Birth to 18 Mouth Breast feeding
months or bottle
feeding
Anal 18 months to 3 Anus Toilet training
years

Phallic 3-6 years Genital Identifying with

role adult
models
Latency 6 years to None Expanding
puberty social context
Genital Puberty Genital Establishing
onwards intimate
relationships
 Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory

He believed Freud misjudged some

important dimensions of human
development.

He modified and extended Freud’s

theory by emphasizing the influence of
Erik Erikson society on the personality
(1902-1994) development.

Developed the Psychosocial Theory of

Development.
The Psychosocial Theory

Erikson includes eight stages of human development.

Each stage consists of a unique developmental task

that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be
faced.

How society or parents respond to the child in each

stage determines if the child succeeds or fails to
resolve the conflict of that stage.
Cont…

According to Erikson, crises are not

catastrophes but rather turning points to
enhance potential.

The more an individual resolves the crises

successfully, the healthier the development
will be.
Stages of Psychosocial Development

Erikson’s Stages Developmental Period

Trust vs Mistrust Infancy (Birth to 1 year old)
Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt Infancy (1-2 year old)

Initiative vs Guilt Early Childhood

Industry vs Inferiority Middle and Late Childhood

Identity vs Identity Confusion Adolescence

Intimacy vs Isolation Early Adulthood

Generativity vs Stagnation Middle Adulthood

Integrity vs Despair Late Adulthood

 Trust vs Mistrust

A sense of trust requires a feeling

of physical comfort and a minimal
amount of fear and hesitation
about the future.

Trust in infancy sets the stage for

a lifelong expectation that the
world will be a good and pleasant
place.

Failure to develop trust will result

in fear and a belief that the world
is inconsistent and unpredictable.
 Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt

After gaining trust in their

caregivers, infants begin to discover
that their behavior is their own.

They start to assert their sense of

independence or autonomy.

They realize their will.

If infants are restrained too much or

punished too harshly, they are likely
to develop a sense of shame and
doubt.
 Initiative vs Guilt

As preschool children encounter a

widening social world, they are
challenged more than when they
were infants and active, purposeful
behavior is needed to cope with
these challenges.

Children are asked to assume

responsibility for their bodies ,
behaviors, toys and pets.

Guilt may arise if the child is

irresponsible and made to feel
anxious.
 Industry vs Inferiority

As children move into middle and

late childhood, they direct their
energy toward mastering
knowledge and intellectual skills.

The danger during this time is the

development of a sense of
inferiority.

Erikson believes that teachers have

a special responsibility for children’s
development of industry.
 Identity vs Identity Confusion

Adolescents are confronted with

many new roles and adult statuses.

If the adolescent explores roles in

a healthy manner and arrives at a
positive path in life, then positive
identity will be achieved.

If the identity is pushed on the

adolescent by parents, if the
adolescent does not adequately
explore many roles, then identity
confusion occurs.
 Intimacy vs Isolation

Individuals face the developmental

task of forming intimate
relationships with others.

Intimacy is achieved through the

formation of healthy friendships
and intimate relationships with
another people.

Isolation results from failure to

achieve the above.
 Generativity vs Stagnation

A chief concern is to assist the younger

generation in developing and leading useful
lives.

The feeling of having done nothing to help

the next generation is stagnation.
 Integrity vs Despair

This involves reflecting on the past

and either piecing together a positive
review or concluding that one’s life
has not been well spent.

Integrity is achieved through reflecting

on a past deemed worthwhile.

If the older adult resolved many of the

earlier stages negatively, looking back
will lead to despair.
Evaluating the Psychoanalytic Theories

Contributions :

Family relationships are central aspect of development.

Personality can be better understood if it is examined

developmentally.

Early experiences play an important part in

development (Freud’s Theory).

Changes take place in the adulthood as well as during

childhood (Erikson).
Criticisms :

The sexual underpinnings of development are given

too much importance. (especially in Freud’s theory).

The unconscious mind is given too much credit for

influencing development.
COGNITIVE
THEORIES
• PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY
• VYGOTSKY’S SOCIO-CULTURAL COGNITIVE
THEORY
• THE INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACH
Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory

Piaget’s theory states that children actively construct

their understanding of the world and go through FOUR
stages of cognitive development.

Each stage is age-related and consists of distinct ways of

thinking.

The stages are :

i) Sensorimotor stage.
ii) Preoperational stage.
iii) Concrete operational stage
iv) Formal operational stage.
 Sensorimotor Stage

Age: Birth to 2 years old.

The infant uses his senses and motor abilities

to understand the world.
 Preoperational Stage

Age: 2 to 7 years old.

They represent the world

with words, images and
drawings.

According to Piaget, children

are lacking of ability to Definition of Operation
Internalized mental
perform what he calls actions that allow children

operation.
to do mentally what they
previously did physically.
 Concrete Operational Stage

Age: 7 to 11 years old.

Children begin to
develop:
Ability to sort object
Ability to classify object
Understanding of
conservation

Algebra is too abstract

for this stage.
 Formal Operational Stage

Age: 11 years old

onwards.

Individual move Problem solving is

beyond concrete more systematic
experiences and think and involves
in abstract and more hypotheses.
logical terms.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive Theory

He shared Piaget’s view that children actively

construct their knowledge.

Emphasizes how cultural and social interaction

guide cognitive development.

He believed that development of memory,

attention and reasoning involves learning to use
the inventions of society such as language,
mathematical system and memory strategies.
Eg: In one culture, children might learn to count
with the help of a computer, whereas in another,
they might learn using abacus.
The Information-Processing Approach

Emphasizes that individuals manipulate information,

monitor it and strategize about it.

According to this theory, individuals develop a gradually

increasing capacity for processing information, which
allows them to acquire increasingly complex knowledge
and skills.

Robert Siegler, an expert in children’s information

processing states that thinking is information processing.
He emphasizes that an important aspect of development is
learning good strategies for processing information.
Eg: An individual should identify important key words while
reading in order to be a good reader.
Evaluating the Cognitive Theories
Contributions :

They emphasize the individual’s active

construction of understanding.

Piaget’s theory highlights the importance of

examining developmental changes in children’s
thinking.

The information-processing approach offers

detailed descriptions of cognitive process.
Criticisms :

Information-processing approach does not

provide an adequate description of
developmental changes in cognition.

These theories do not give adequate attention

to individual variations in cognitive
development
BEHAVIORAL
AND SOCIAL
COGNITIVE
THEORIES
• CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
• OPERANT CONDITIONING
• S O C I A L C O G N I T I V E T H E O RY
Behavioral and Social Cognitive Theories

These theories believe that scientifically we

can only study what can be directly observed
and measured.

They also believe that development is

observable behavior that can be learned
through experience with the environment.
Classical Conditioning

In the early 1900s, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov knew that dogs
innately salivate when they taste food.

He became curious when he observed that dogs also salivate to

various sights and sounds before eating their food.

For example:
When an individual paired the ringing of a bell with the food, the bell
ringing subsequently elicited salivation from the dogs when it was
presented by itself.

With this experiment, Pavlov discovered the principle of classical

conditioning, in which the neutral stimulus (ringing a bell) acquires
the ability to produce a response originally produced by another
stimulus (food).
Classical conditioning Experiment by Ivan Pavlov
Cont…..

In the early twentieth century, John Watson demonstrated that

classical conditioning occurs in human beings.

In his experiment, he showed an infant named Albert with a white

rat to see if he was afraid of it.

Albert was not afraid. As Albert played with the rat, a loud noise
was sounded behind his head. The noise caused Albert to cry.

After several pairings of the loud noise and the white rat, Albert
began to cry at the sight of the rat even when the noise was not
sounded.

Albert was classically conditioned to fear the rat.

Operant Conditioning

B.F Skinner demonstrated that

the consequences of a
behavior produce changes in
the probability of the behavior
occurring again.

A behavior followed by a
rewarding stimulus is more
likely to recur, whereas a
behavior followed by a
punishing stimulus is less
likely to recur.

Skinner claimed that rewards

and punishments shape
development.
Social Cognitive Theory

It emphasizes on behavior,
environment and cognition as the
key factors in development .

Albert Bandura believes that

cognitive processes are important
mediators of environment-behavior
connections.

He focused on observational
learning, which is learning that
occur through observing what
others do.
A VIDEO: CHILDREN SEE… CHILDREN DO
Bandura most recent model of learning and
development includes three elements :
Behavior
Person/cognitive
Environment

These three elements operate interactively.

Behavior can influence person factor and vice

versa.

Cognitive activities can influence the

environment and vice versa.
Cont…..
Behavior
* Motor responses
* Social interactions

Environment
Person
* Surroundings
* Physical characteristics
* Family and friends
* Beliefs and attitude

Bandura’s Social Cognitive Model

Evaluating the Behavioral and Social Cognitive
Theories

Contributions :

They emphasize the importance of scientific research.

They focus on the environmental determinants of

behavior.

They highlight the importance of observational

learning.
Criticisms :

Pavlov and Skinner put too little emphasis on cognition.

They put too much emphasis on environmental

determinants.

They give inadequate attention to developmental

changes.
ETHOLOGICAL
THEORY
Ethological Theory

Ethology stresses
It is introduced by that behavior is
Konrad Lorenz strongly influenced
by biology tied to
evolution

Critical period: Is a fixed

time period very early
It is characterized in development during
by critical periods which certain behaviors
optimally emerged
 HOW IT WORKS?
Konrad Lorenz studied the behavior of grey-geese, which
will follow their mother as soon as they hatch

In the experiment, 1st group: Hatched 1st group:

Followed their
he separated the by goose
mother as soon
eggs laid by one 2nd group: Hatched as they
goose into 2 groups in an incubator hatched

Lorenz marked the 2nd group: which

Mother goose
goslings and put saw Lorenz when
and ‘mother’
both groups under they first hatched,
Lorenz stood
a box followed him
aside and
anywhere as thought
box lifted
he was their mother

Each group of goslings

went directly to its
‘mother’
Cont…..

Lorenz called this process

imprinting.

Imprinting is the rapid, innate

learning within a limited
critical period of time that
involves attachment to the
first moving object seen.
Its Application to Human Development

John Bowlby stated an important application of

ethological theory to the human development,
which is attachment.

Attachment to a caregiver over the first year of

life has important consequences:
i) Positive and secure attachment results in
positive development.
ii) Negative and insecure attachment results in
problematic development.
 Evaluating the Ethological Theory
It has an increased
focus on the
biological and
evolutionary basis
of development

Contributions

It uses
It emphasizes
careful
critical
observations
periods of
in naturalistic
development
settings
 The critical
period concept
may be too
rigid

Criticisms

It has been better

at generating
research with
animals than with
humans
ECOLOGICAL
THEORY
Ecological Theory

Developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner.

Development is the result of the relationships

between people and their environments:
• Cannot evaluate a child’s development only in the
immediate environment
• Must also examine the interactions among the
larger environments that a child develops in
Ecological Theory

Consists of 5
environmental
system :
- The Microsystem
- The Mesosystem
- The Exosystem
- The Macrosystem
- The Chronosystem
 The Microsystem

Activities and interactions in the child's

immediate surroundings.
• Family, school, religious institution, neighbors

Most of the child’s behavior is learned in the

microsystem.

The microsystem consists of bi-directional

influences:
• Example: A child’s parents may affect his beliefs
and behavior; however, the child also affects the
behavior and beliefs of the parent.
 The Mesosystem

Relationships among the entities involved in the

child's microsystem.

Examples:
Parents' interactions with teachers
Relationship between the child’s peers and the child’s
family
 The Exosystem

This system may impact the child’s development

by interacting with some structure in her
microsystem.

The child may not be directly involved at this level,

but he does feel the positive or negative force
involved with the interaction with his own system.

Examples :
The parents' work settings
Parent workplace schedules
 The Macrosystem

Involves the culture in which individuals live, laws

and governmental resources.

Provides the values, beliefs, customs, and laws of the

culture in which a child grows up.
• Influences how parents, teachers, and others
raise a child
 The Chronosystem

Changes which occur during a child's life,

both personally and culturally.

Example :
The effects of divorce on children vary based on the
time since the divorce and the gender of the children.
 Evaluating The Ecological Theory

Contributions Criticism
It provides systematic examination
of macro and micro dimensions of
environmental systems
It gives inadequate attention
It gives attention to connections to biological and cognitive
between environmental settings factors

It emphasizes on a range of social

contexts beyond the family, such as
neighborhood and school as
influential in children’s development
End of
Chapter
2