A Child’s World: How We Discover It

A Child’s World:How We Discover It Chapter 2 Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Chapter main points • 1. The purpose of theory in understanding child development • 2. Basic theoretical issues on which developmental scientists differ • 3. Five theoretical perspectives on child development • 4. Research methods used to study children’s development • 5. Ethical problems that might arise in research on children.

What purposes do theories serve? • Theory: set of logically related concepts seeking to describe or explain development and predict future behaviors A valid theory: • Is sensible and consistent. • Organizes, integrates, and makes sense of a body of research findings. • Must be testable. • Hypotheses: tentative explanations or predictions that can be tested by research

Basic Theoretical Issues • Issue 1: How Do Heredity and Environment Affect Development? • Issue 2: Are Children Active or Passive in Their Development? • Issue 3: Is Development Continuous, or Does It Occur in Stages?

An emerging consensus of theory of child development • An Emerging Consensus • Developmentalists are coming to a more balanced view of active versus passive development • Influence is bidirectional: children change their world even as it changes them • Development as a combination of the 3 types of theoretical issues. • E.g., innate temperament will affect the envirornmental reaction helping to advance the child through psychosocial stages

Five Perspectives on Human Development Table 2.1

Theoretical Perspectives: Psychoanalytic (Freud and Erikson) • Freud: Psychosexual development in five stages • Fixation occurs when children receive too little or too much gratification in any of these stages • Three parts to personality: id, ego, and superego • Id: Pleasure Principle--demands immediate satisfaction • Ego: Reality Principle--can delay gratification • Superego: development of conscience • Erikson: modified Freud’s theory to emphasize social influences on development • Psychosocial development occurs in eight stages across the life span • Each stage requires balance of positive trait vs. corresponding negative one through the resolution of conflict

Theoretical Perspectives: Learning (Behaviorism, Social Learning) • Behaviorism • Classical Conditioning: Pavlov and Watson • Association of an unconditioned stimulus, (meat) with a neutral stimulus (bell) to form a conditioned response (salivation) • Operant Conditioning: Skinner • Reinforced behaviors tend to be repeated • Punished behaviors tend to be decreased • Social Learning (Social-Cognitive) Theory • Albert Bandura: observational learning • People learn from imitating others: modeling or observational learning • Imitation is involved in learning language, dealing with aggression, developing a moral sense, and learning gender-appropriate behaviors

Theoretical Perspectives: Cognition (Piaget, Info. Processing) • Piaget’s Cognitive-Stage Theory • Qualitative changes in the way children think • Individuals organize information into schemes • Adaptation of new information by assimilation, accommodation and equillibration • Progression of skills through 4 qualitatively different stages Information-Processing Approach • Compares the brain to a computer • People are active thinkers about their world, not ‘passive’ computers • Psychologists can use information-processing models to test, diagnose, and treat learning problems

Is development continuous, or does it occur in stages? Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and an information processing view of cognition Fig. 2.1

Theoretical Perspectives: Cognition (Neuroscience) • Cognitive Neuroscience Approach • Cognitive functioning is linked to what happens in brain • Seeks to explain how cognitive growth results from the brain-environment interaction • Social cognitive neuroscience: links brain, mind, and behavior

Theoretical Perspectives: Evolutionary/Sociobiological • Focuses on biology and evolution • People unconsciously strive to perpetuate their genetic legacy • Seek to identify universal behaviors and those which are modified by one’s culture • Seek to identify age-specific adaptive behaviors • Parent-Child Attachment: John Bowlby

Theoretical Perspectives: Contextual • Development is understood in social/ environmental interactions only • Brofenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory • microsystem • mesosystem • exosystem • macrosystem • chronosystem • Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory • Child growth is collaborative process • Zone of proximal development (ZPD) • Scaffolding

Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory Fig. 2.2

Goals of Developmental Research • To describe • To explain • To predict • To influence

Research Methods • Quantitative research • “hard,” objectively-measurable data • scientific method: 5 general steps • Usually conducted in laboratories, controlled • Qualitative research • “soft” data, subjective experiences, feelings, or beliefs • open-ended and exploratory

Research Methods • Sampling • sample: a representative group taken from the population (random selection is best) • Forms of Data Collection • Self-Reports: Diaries, Interviews, Questionnaires • Behavioral and Performance Measures • Naturalistic and Laboratory Observation

Case Studies Ethnographic Studies Correlational Studies (relationships not cause and effect) Experiments Groups and Variables Laboratory, Field, and Natural Experiments Basic Research Designs

Studying Change Over Time Longitudinal study: A study following a group of subjects over a period of time. Cross-sectional study: A study comparing groups of people of different ages at the same time. Accelerated longitudinal study: Combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal designs where several age groups can be followed over time simultaneously.

Common developmental designs 2006 2008 2010 2004 Fig. 2.5

How would you study…. • If playing video games increased 5-8 year old boys’ interest in guns? • If self esteem in girls changes from 5th grade to 8th grade to 12th grade? • If mothers’ assessment of their babies’ fussiness affects how frequently they pick them up when they are crying.

Ethics of Research • Informed consent/ • Parent permission • Avoidance of deception • Protection of participants from harm and loss of dignity • Guarantees of privacy and confidentiality • Right to decline or withdraw from experiment • Responsibility of investigators to correct undesirable effects

Social Toxicity (Garbarino lecture) • Individual vulnerability to a poisonous environment • Vulnerable kids will be as bad as the social environment offers up, models, reinforces, instigates, and encourages them to do • In assessing neighborhood quality in promoting positive youth development, consider the strength of ties and collective efficacy • Consider poisonous pedagogy: behavior that is culturally normative from a larger view is seen as harmful (e.g., bullying)

Social Toxins (Garbarino lecture) • Racism, sexism, homophobism… convey hatred and rejection • Violence in the media • Social inequality • Nexus of health and lifestyle (e.g., obesity) • Erosion of benevolent older authority • Southern Culture of Honor • Shallow value of materialism

A Child’s World: How We Discover It