Module 1.

Developmental
Psychology as
a science.
Unit 1. Introduction to
Developmental
Psychology.
Developmental Psychology
Degree in Early Childhood Education
Lecturer: Julia Vacas
Year 2023/2024
 Main Readings
Shaffer, D. R., & Kipp, K.
(2013). Introduction to
Developmental
Psychology and Its
Research Strategies. In D.
R. Shaffer & K. Kipp (Eds.),
Developmental
psychology: Childhood and Shaffer, D. R., & Kipp, K.
adolescence (9th ed., pp. 1- (2013). Theories of Human
40). Cengage Learning. Development. In D. R.
Shaffer & K. Kipp (Eds.),
Developmental psychology:
Childhood and adolescence
(9th ed., pp. 41-76).
Cengage Learning.
 Learning Objectives
LO3.-To become
LO1.- To know the familiar with the most
basic concepts related relevant theoretical
to development and to approaches to human
acquire some notions development and to
on the main stages of LO2.- To get an be able to critically
life. approach to the analyze their pros and LO4.- To reflect on
developmental cons. the importance of
science (method, knowing the basis
procedures, designs, of development and
etc.) and the its impact on our
particular role of future performance
psychology on it. as teachers.
 Table of Contents

01 02 03

Definition Research Methods & Designs Mainstream Theoretical Approaches

❑ What is development? ❑ The nature of scientific theories.
❑ The scientific method. The psychoanalytic viewpoint: Freud’s
❑ What causes us to develop? ❑
❑ Basic fact-finding strategies: self-report, Psychosexual Theory & Erikson’s Theory of
❑ What goals do developmentalists
observational, case studies, ethnography, Psychosocial Development.
pursue?
& psychophysiological methods. ❑ The learning viewpoint: Watson’s Behaviorism,
❑ Basic observations about
❑ General designs: correlational,
development. Skinner’s Operant Learning Theory, & Bandura’s Social
experimental, & cross-cultural. Cognitive Theory.
❑ Main areas/dimensions of
❑ Research designs for studying
development. ❑ The cognitive-developmental viewpoint: Piaget’s
development: cross-sectional, View of Intelligence and Intellectual Growth,
longitudinal, sequential, & microgenetic. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory, & the Information-
❑ Ethical considerations in
Processing Theory.
developmental research. ❑ The ethological and evolutionary viewpoints.
❑ The ecological systems viewpoint:
Bronfenbrenner’s Contexts for Development.
❑ Themes in the study of human development.
01
Definition
 ❑ Orderly
What is ❑ Patterned
❑ Relatively
Development? enduring

Development refers to systematic

continuities and changes in the individual
that occur between conception (when the
father’s sperm penetrates the mother’s
ovum, creating a new organism) and death.

Ways in which we remain the same

or continue to reflect our past.
 Developmental
Psychology

Education, etc. Biology

Developmental
The study of development Sciences or The
from a multidisciplinary Science of
perspective → A Development
developmentalist is a
scholar from any discipline
who is interested in
Anthropology Sociology
understanding
development.
 Maturation What
Causes us
The biological base of the
individual according to species-
typical biological inheritance and an
individual person’s biological
inheritance → Biological program
to Develop?
allows us to walk, say our first words,
reach sexual maturity, etc. at certain
age, but it is also responsible for
psychological changes such as
attention, problem-solving, or
Learning
empathy. The process through which
our experiences produce
relatively permanent
Most developmental changes in our feelings,
changes are the thoughts, and behaviors.
product of both We learn from observation,
maturation and interactions, and our own
learning. experience.
What Goals
do Develop-
mentalists Description

Pursue?
Explanation

Optimization
 To observe the behavior of people of
different ages and to identify how
people change over time in terms of
normative development (typical
Description patterns of change) and ideographic
development (individual variations
of that patterns).

To determine why some people

develop as they typically do while
other people develop differently.
It centers both on normative Explanation
changes within individuals and
variations in development between
individuals.

Note! None of these goals is more

To apply that knowledge to help
important than other.
people develop in positive directions
Optimization focuses on solving (i.e., to assist children with learning
real problems, but it could not be Optimization
difficulties or to prevent emotional
possible without the knowledge difficulties in children and
provided from description and adolescents).
explanation.
 Basic observations about development
The first 12 years are crucial years that set
the stage for adolescence and adulthood,
but who we are as adolescents and adults
Continual It refers to a capacity for change in
response to positive or negative
also depends on the experiences we have and
Plasticity life experiences; a developmental
later in life. cumulative state that has the potential to be
The one constant is change, and the
changes that occur at each phase of life can
process shaped by experience.
have important implications for the future.

Development is not piecemeal but holistic Each culture, subculture, and social
→ Humans are physical, cognitive, and Historical/ class transmits a particular pattern of
social beings, and each of these Holistic beliefs, values, customs, and skills to its
components of oneself depends, in part, on cultural younger generations, and the content of
process
changes taking place in other areas of context this cultural socialization has a strong
development. influence on the attributes and
A unified view of the developmental competencies that individuals display.
process emphasizes the interrelationships Development is also influenced by
among the physical, mental, social, and societal changes (i.e., wars or
emotional aspects of human development. technological advances).
A Chronological Overview of Human Development
Period of life Approximate age range
1. Prenatal period Conception to birth.
2. Infancy Birth to 18 months old.
3. Toddlerhood 18 months old to 3 years old.
4. Preschool period 3 to 5 years of age.

5. Middle childhood 5 to 12 or so years of age (until the onset of puberty).

6. Adolescence 12 or so to 20 years of age (many developmentalists define the
end of adolescence as the point at which the individual begins
to work and is reasonably independent of parental sanctions).
7. Young adulthood 20 to 40 years of age.
8. Middle age 40 to 65 years of age.
9. Old age 65 years of age or older.
Main areas/dimensions of development

Remember!
Changes in one area
of development
have serious effects
on the others.
MARS JUPITER
Despite being red, Mars is a cold place, Jupiter is a gas giant and the biggest
not hot. It’s full of iron oxide dust, planet in our Solar System. It’s the
which gives the planet its reddish cast fourth-brightest object in the sky

Physical growth Cognition

Psychosocial development
Includes bodily changes Includes perception,
Includes emotions, personality,
and the sequencing of motor language, learning,
and interpersonal relationships.
skills. and thinking.
 02
Research
Methods &
Designs
The scientific
method (I)
It refers to the use of objective and replicable
methods to gather data for the purpose of
testing a theory or hypothesis.

Objectivity → Everyone who examines

the data will come to the same
conclusions, that is, it is not a subjective
opinion.

Replicability → Every time the method is

used, it results in the same data and
conclusions.
The scientific
method (II) A theory is simply a set The heart of the scientific
method is a persistent effort
to put ideas to the test, to
of concepts and retain ideas that carefully
propositions intended gathered facts support, and
to describe and explain to abandon those that
The scientific method
some aspect of carefully gathered facts
involves a process of
experience. contradict.
generating ideas and testing
them by making research
observations. Often, casual
observations provide the Theories generate Theories generate
starting point for a specific predictions, or hypotheses that are
scientist. hypotheses, about what tested through
will hold true if we observations of
observe a phenomenon behavior, and new
that interests us. observations indicate
which theories are
worth keeping.
The role of theory in scientific research
Theory Hypotheses
Initial observations
formulation proposition

Theory
Theory
No Yes support and
rejection
refinement
Do research data
confirm the initial
hypotheses?

New observations Research design

derived from and hypotheses
research data testing
Basic fact-finding strategies
Whatever the aspect of development we want to
study, we have to find ways to measure it.
Scientifically useful measures must always
display two important qualities: reliability and
validity.
❑ Reliability implies that a measure must yield
consistent information over time (temporal
stability) and across observers (interrater
reliability).
❑ Validity means that a measure really
measures what it was supposed to measure.

Self-report Observational
Case studies
methodologies methodologies

Psycho-
Ethnography physiological
methods
 Self-report methodologies
These methodologies consist of asking participants to answer questions posed by the investigator.

Three main approaches that differ in the extent to which the investigator treats individual participants
alike.
Interviews and questionnaires consist of asking children or their parents, The clinical method is very similar to the
a series of questions related to such aspects of development as the interview technique, but the investigator asks
child’s behavior, feelings, beliefs, or characteristic methods of thinking. different questions according to the
A particular version of them is the structured interview or structured participants’ answers. Then, all participants
questionnaire → A technique in which all participants are asked the are often asked the same questions initially,
same questions in exactly the same order so that the responses of but each participant’s answer determines
different participants can be compared. what he or she is asked next.
Advantages: 1) It is a Disadvantage: Flexibility
flexible approach that may also be a
Advantage: They allow to Disadvantages: 1) Participants’ answers are not always
considers each shortcoming because it
collect large amounts of honest because of the social desirability; 2) Participants
participant to be unique; makes difficult to
useful information from a may misunderstand the question and provide a wrong
and 2) It also allows to compare participants’
very large sample in a answer; and 3) Different informants (i.e., child and parents)
gather large amounts of answers if they were
short period of time. may provide different answers to the same questions.
information in relatively asked different
brief periods. questions.
 Observational methodologies
Direct observation of behavior.

Naturalistic observation consists of observing people in their common, everyday (that is, natural)
surroundings (i.e., to observe children usually means going into homes, schools, or public parks and
playgrounds and carefully recording what they do).

Disadvantages: 1) Some A specific kind of this methodology is structured observation in

Advantages: 1) The the laboratory in which each participant is exposed to a setting
ease with which it behaviors only occur in
natural environments; 2) that might cue the behavior in question and is then secretly
can be applied to observed (via a hidden camera or through a one-way mirror) to
infants and toddlers, Many events usually happen
at the same time, what see if he or she performs the behavior.
who often cannot be
studied through makes difficult to unveil the
causes of these events; 3) Advantage: It ensures that every
methods that Disadvantage:
The mere presence of an participant in the sample is exposed
demand verbal skills; Participants may not
observer can sometimes to the same eliciting stimuli and has
2) It illustrates how always respond in a
make people behave an equal opportunity to perform the
people really behave laboratory setting as
differently than they target behavior (circumstances that
in everyday life. they would in everyday
otherwise would. are not always true in the natural
life.
environment).
 Case studies
It is a research method in which the investigator gathers extensive information about the life of an individual
and then tests developmental hypotheses by analyzing the events of the person’s life history.

Any or all the methods we have discussed—structured interviews, questionnaires, clinical methods, and
behavioral observations—can be used to compile a detailed portrait of a single individual’s development
through the case study method.

Much of the information included in any case history comes from interviews with and observations of the
individual, but a case study can also be used to describe groups.

Disadvantage: It is often difficult to directly compare participants who

Advantage: It provides a great have been asked different questions, taken different tests, and been
amount of information about observed under different circumstances. That means that case studies
an individual or group. lack generalizability → Their conclusions drawn from the experiences of
the small number of individuals studied cannot apply to most people.
 Ethnography
It is a form of participant observation often used in the field of anthropology, but it is becoming increasingly
popular among researchers who hope to understand the effects of culture on developing children and
adolescents.
To collect their data, ethnographers often live within the cultural or subcultural community they are studying
for periods of months, or even years.
Data are extensive and diverse, consisting largely of naturalistic observations, notes made from
conversations with members of the culture, and interpretations of these events. These data are eventually
used to compile a detailed portrait of the cultural community and draw conclusions about how the
community’s unique values and traditions influence aspects of the development of its children and
adolescents.
Advantages: 1) Detailed ethnographic portraits of a culture or Disadvantages: 1) It is a highly subjective method
subculture that arise from close and enduring contact with because researchers’ own cultural values and
members of the community can lead to a richer understanding of theoretical biases can cause them to misinterpret what
that community’s traditions and values; 2) Extensive cultural or they have experienced; 2) Its conclusions pertain only
subcultural descriptions are particularly useful to understand to the culture or subculture studied and cannot be
cultural conflicts and other developmental challenges faced by assumed to generalize to other contexts or social
children and adolescents from minority cultures. groups.
 Psychophysiological Methods
These are techniques that measure the relationship between physiological responses and behavior in order
to explore the biological underpinnings of children’s perceptual, cognitive, and emotional responses.

Advantage: They are particularly useful for interpreting the mental and emotional experiences of infants and
toddlers who are unable to report such events.

Disadvantages: 1) It is often difficult to determine exactly which aspect of the presented stimulus has
captured children’s attention; 2) Changes in physiological responses often reflect mood swings, fatigue,
hunger, or even negative reactions to the physiological recording equipment, rather than a change in the
infant’s attention to a stimulus or an emotional reactions to it.

Measures of Hormones
Blood
Heart rate brain levels (i.e.,
pressure
function cortisol)
General designs

Correlational Experimental

Cross-cultural
 Correlational designs

❑ In a correlational design, the investigator gathers information to

determine whether two or more variables of interest are significantly
related.
❑ No attempts are made to structure or to manipulate the participants’
environment in any way. Instead, correlational researchers take people as
they find them (already “manipulated” by natural life experiences) and try
to determine whether variations in people’s life experiences are
associated with differences in their behaviors or patterns of development.
❑ In sum, the correlational design is a versatile approach that can detect
systematic relationships between any two or more variables that we might
be interested in and are capable of measuring. However, its major
limitation is that it cannot indicate that one thing causes another.
 Experimental designs (I)

❑ Experimental designs permit a precise assessment of the cause-and-effect relationship that

may exist between two variables.
❑ The different treatments to which we expose our participants represent the
independent variable of our experiment. In other words, it is the aspect of the
environment that an experimenter modifies or manipulates in order to measure its
impact on behavior.
❑ A dependent variable is called “dependent” because its value presumably “depends”
on the independent variable. In other words, it is the aspect of behavior that is measured
in an experiment and assumed to be under the control of the independent variable.
❑ A confounding variable is any factor other than the independent variable that , if not
controlled by the experimenter, could explain any difference across treatment
conditions in participants’ performance on the dependent variable.
 Experimental designs (II)

❑ Experimental control is mandatory → The experimenter must

ensure that all confounding variables that could affect the
dependent variable are controlled.
❑This experimental control can be applied through randomization
or random assignment → Each research participant has an equal
probability of being exposed to each experimental treatment.
❑The main advantage of this design is its ability to establish cause-
and-effect relationships. However, some critics of laboratory
experimentation have argued that the tightly controlled laboratory
environment is often contrived and artificial and that children are
likely to behave differently in these surroundings than they
would in a natural setting, then it lacks ecological validity.
 Experimental designs (III)

The field experiment

This approach combines all the advantages of naturalistic
observation with the more rigorous control that experimentation
allows. It consists of conducting an experiment in a natural setting.

The Natural (or Quasi-) Experiment

Types There are many issues to which an experimental design either
cannot be applied or should not be used for ethical reasons.
Thus, researchers conducting natural experiments do not control
the independent variable, nor do they randomly assign
participants to experimental treatments. Instead, they merely
observe and record the apparent outcomes of a naturally
happening event → It cannot make precise statements about
cause and effect.
 The Cross-Cultural Design

participants from different cultural

❑ Cross-cultural studies are those in which
or subcultural backgrounds are observed, tested, and compared on one or
more aspects of development. Hence, the generalizability of findings across
samples and settings is promoted.
❑ Cross-cultural comparison is the only way to determine whether there are
truly “universals” in human development.
❑ Some investigators who favor the cross-cultural approach are looking for
differences rather than similarities. So apart from its focus on universals in
development, the cross-cultural approach also illustrates that human
development is heavily influenced by the cultural context in which it occurs.
❑ Cross-cultural comparisons do not always examine similarities and
differences among people of different nationalities, but this method is
also used to compare cultural differences within a specific nation.
Research designs for studying
development
Cross-
Longitudinal
sectional

Sequential Microgenetic

Note that there is no “best method” for

studying children and adolescents; each of the
approaches presented has substantially
contributed to our understanding of human
development.
 Cross-sectional design

By comparing participants in the different age groups, investigators can

In a cross-sectional design, often identify age-related changes in whatever aspect of development they
people who differ in age are pretend to study.
studied at the same point in
An important advantage of the cross-sectional design is that the investigator can collect
time. In cross-sectional
data from children of different ages over a short time. But there are two limitations:
research, participants at each
age level are different people. Cohort Effects → Recall as we noted above that in cross
Data on individual
sectional research, participants at each age level are different
That is, they come from development → It
people. That is, they come from different cohorts. The fact
different cohorts, where a that cross-sectional comparisons always involve different
tells us nothing
cohort is defined as a group of about the
cohorts presents us with a thorny interpretive problem—for
development of
people of the same age who are any age differences that are found in the study may not
individuals because
exposed to similar cultural always be due to age or development but, rather, may reflect
each person is
environments and historical other cultural or historical factors that distinguish members
observed at only
events as they are growing up. of different cohorts. Stated another way, cross-sectional
one point in time.
comparisons confound age and cohort effects.
 Longitudinal design

Advantages: 1) By repeatedly testing the same participants, investigators can assess

the stability (or continuity) of various attributes for each person in the sample; 2)
Here, the same participants
They can also identify normative developmental trends and processes by looking for
are observed repeatedly commonalities, such as the point(s) at which most children undergo various changes
over a period of time. This and the experiences, if any, that children seem to share prior to reaching these
period may be relatively milestones; 3) The tracking of several participants over time will help investigators to
brief (i.e., 6 months to a understand individual differences in development, particularly if they are able to
year) or it may be very long, establish that different kinds of earlier experiences lead to different outcomes.
spanning a lifetime. Disadvantages: 1) They can be very costly and time-consuming; 2) Practice effects →
Researchers may be Participants who are repeatedly interviewed or tested may become very familiar with
studying one particular the content of the test itself, showing performance improvements that are unrelated
to normal patterns of development; 3) Selective attrition →Lost of participants
aspect of development,
because moving away, boring, etc. → Small and non-representative samples; 4)
such as intelligence, or Cross-generational problem → Experiences of one cohort differ from those of others
many. → It may limit the conclusions of a longitudinal project to those participants who
were growing up while the study was in progress.
 Sequential design

It combines the best Advantages: 1) It allows us to determine whether

features of cross- cohort effects are influencing our results by
sectional and longitudinal comparing the same ability in same-aged children
studies by selecting who were born in different years; 2) It allows us to
participants of different make both longitudinal and cross-sectional
ages and following each comparisons in the same study; 3) This kind of
of these cohorts over studies are often more efficient than standard
time. longitudinal designs because they take less time.
 Microgenetic design

This kind of design is currently favored by many researchers interested in children’s cognitive
development and it is used in an attempt to illuminate the processes that are thought to promote
developmental changes.

It consists of a research design in which participants are studied intensively over a short
period of time in which many developmental changes occur .
It attempts to specify how or why those changes occur.
Advantage: It presents a unique opportunity to witness and record the actual process of
change as it occurs during development.

Disadvantages: 1) High difficulty, cost, and time- consumption; 2) The intensive

experiences children receive to stimulate development may not reflect what they would
normally encounter in the real world and may produce changes in their behavior that
may not persist over the long run.
 Ethical considerations in
developmental research (I)
Research ethics is defined as the standards of conduct that
investigators are ethically bound to honor in order to protect their
research participants from physical or psychological harm .
Some ethical issues are easily resolved, but there are other
dilemmas that developmentalists may have to resolve during their
careers as researchers:
❑ Can children or adolescents be exposed to temptations that
virtually guarantee that they will cheat or break other rules?
❑ Am I ever justified in deceiving participants, either by
misinforming them about the purpose of my study or by telling
them something untrue about themselves (for example, “You
did poorly on this test,” when they actually did very well)?
❑ Can I observe my participants in the natural setting without
informing them that they are the subjects of a scientific
investigation?
 Ethical considerations in
developmental research (II)
Ethical issues are
even more complex
Some universities,
when children take
research foundations, and
part in psychological
government agencies have 1.Protection from
research because
set up review committees harm.
They generally weigh the to ensure that all possible
they are especially
vulnerable to harm. 2.Informed consent.
advantages and disadvantages steps are taken to protect 3.Confidentiality.
of the research by carefully the welfare of those who 4.Deception/Debrie-
To protect children who
calculating its possible may choose to participate
take part in psychological fing/Knowledge of
benefits (to humanity or to in the project. results.
research, the American
the participants) and comparing Psychiatric Association
them with the potential risks that (1992) and the Society for
participants may face → The Research in Child
benefits-to-risk ratio must be Development (1993) have
endorsed special ethical
favorable to proceed.
guidelines.
03
Mainstream
Theoretical
Approaches
The nature of scientific theories

A scientific theory is a set of concepts and propositions that a scientist

believes to be true about a specific area of investigation.
What are the characteristics of a good theory? → It should be concise,
parsimonious, and able to explain a broad range of phenomena → A
theory with few principles that explain a large number of empirical
observations is more useful than a theory that requires many
principles to explain the same number of observations.
Good theories are also falsifiable → Capable of making explicit
predictions about future events so that the theory can be supported or
rejected; and heuristic → They build on existing knowledge by
continuing to generate testable hypotheses that can lead to a much
richer understanding of the phenomena of interest.
 The six broad theoretical traditions

Cognitive- Ecological
Psychoanalytic Learning Ethological Evolutionary
developmental systems
viewpoint viewpoint viewpoint viewpoint
viewpoint viewpoint

Watson’s Piaget’s View of

Freud’s Theory of Bronfenbrenner’s
Behaviorism/ Intelligence and
Psychosexual Contexts for
Classical Intellectual
Development Development
conditioning Growth

Erikson’s Theory Skinner’s Lev Vygotsky’s

of Psychosocial Operant Learning Sociocultural
Development Theory Theory

The Information-
Bandura’s Social
Processing
Cognitive Theory
Perspective
 The
Psychoanalytic
Viewpoint
 Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual
Development (I)
Id

Childhood
experiences and
Superego Ego
unconscious
desires influence
behavior and can
contribute to
explain how
personality is
developed.
The iceberg methaphor
Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual
Development (II)
Stages and pleasure center Age/conflict
Oral Birth-one years/weaning
Anal 1-3 years/contraction and relaxation of the sphincter
Phallic 3-6 years/handling genitals
Latency 6-years/ social activities
Genital Puberty onwards/sexuality outside the family

❑ The satisfaction of needs is the engine to motivate the person.

❑ Conflicts that occur during each of these stages can have a
lifelong influence on personality and behavior.
❑ Sublimation process→ Consisted of channeling or directing the
energy towards a socially-appropriate way.
Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial
Development (I)
How social interaction and
relationships play a role in the
development and growth of human
beings. How the ego identity (beliefs
and values that help shape and guide ❑ According to Erikson’s theory, people go
a person’s behavior) is developed. through eight major crises, which he labeled
Psychosocial Stages, during the course of their lives.
❑ Each crisis emerges at a distinct time
determined by biological maturation and the social
demands that people experience at particular
points in life.
❑ Each crisis must be resolved successfully to
prepare for a satisfactory resolution of the next life
crisis.
Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial
Development (II)
Comparison of Erikson’s and Freud’s Stages of Development

Stage Age Freud Erikson

Infant and toddler 0-1 Oral Trust vs. Mistrust
1-3 Anal Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
Early childhood
3-6 Phallic Initiative vs. Guilt
Childhood 6-12 Latency Industry vs. Inferiority
Adolescence 12-20 Early Genital Identity vs. Role Confusion
20-40 Intimacy vs. Isolation
Adult
40-65 Genital Generativity vs. Stagnation
Maturity 65< Ego Integrity vs. Despair
The Learning
Viewpoint
 Watson’s Behaviorism/Classical
Conditioning (I)
The environment is the most important
thing to explain how every person does
change → Watson believed that well-
learned associations between external
stimuli and observable responses (called
habits) are the building blocks of
development → I.e., it explains how a child
develops a phobia.

US UR
NS OR
CS CR
Watson’s Behaviorism/Classical
Conditioning (II)

According to this perspective, children do not progress through a series of distinct

stages dictated by biological maturation, as Freud (and others) have argued. Instead,
development is viewed as a continuous process of behavioral change that is shaped
by a person’s unique environment and may differ dramatically from person to person.
Main Principles of Classical Conditioning:
1) Acquisition → It is the first stage of learning where the link between a stimulus and a
response is stablished (i.e., Fear acquisition: a child beats other).
2) Generalization → The link stimulus-response is generalized to other similar stimuli (i.e., Scare
to queue).
3) Discrimination → The “learner” distinguishes between conditioned and unconditioned
stimuli and only responds to the former (i.e., I feel fear only at school).
4) Extinction → It consists of the reduction or disappearance of the link stimulus-response (i.e.,
When s/he goes to school several days, and nobody beats him/her).
 Skinner’s Operant Learning Theory/
Operant conditioning (I)
Explain how behavior is developed and modified by behavior´s consequences.

❑ Reinforcement → A process by which a contingent stimulus is provided that increases the

probability that a preceding behavior will be repeated→ Increase a behavior.
❑ Punishment → A process by which a contingent stimulus is provided that decreases the
probability that a preceding behavior will be repeated → Decrease the behavior.

Reinforcement Punishment
Positive (something Pleasant (some sweets, receive Unpleasant or painful
appears) good grades, words) Stimuli (spank)
Negative (Something Removal Punishment or Removal Pleasant
disappears) Unpleasant stimuli (an unpleasant Stimuli (play hour or
noise, or task, punishment) break, time out)
 Skinner’s Operant Learning Theory/
Operant conditioning (II)
Rules for the appropriate application of reinforcement

1. Present as soon as possible following 1. Include the use of aversive

Positive Reinforcement

the behavior. stimuli.

2. Use the smallest amount of reinforcing 2. Be careful! When aversive stimuli

Negative Reinforcement
stimuli necessary to facilitate behavior. are present there may be side
3. Make plans for fading reinforcers effects as avoidance, aggression…
(prevent habituation). 3. Immediately remove aversive
4. Use prompts and cues to facilitate when contingent behavior is
success. performed.
5. Concrete operational definition of 4. Always pair with a positive
behavior. reinforcer.
 Bandura’s Social Cognitive
Theory(I)
Let’s interpret this situation!
He rejected the previous narrow ❑ What is the stimulus?
perspective of classical and operational ❑ How can be interpreted?
❑ Which behavior/response
conditioning and demonstrated the
could be learned?
powerful effects of observational learning
→ Vicarious Learning/Conditioning.

Stimulus/ Response/
situation behavior
The Cognitive-
Developmental
Viewpoint
 Piaget’s View of Intelligence and
Intellectual Growth (I)
Piaget thought that the quantity of information that a
person can learn increases in each stage of life → The
quality of knowledge and understanding is changed.

Human thinking is arranged into behavior schemes → Concrete

for infants (for sucking, for reaching, and for each separate
behavior), while abstract schemes for older children.

Children respond and adjust to new information by two basic principles:

1. Assimilation → It is the process by which people understand an
experience according to their current stage of cognitive development
and way of thinking.
2. Accommodation → It refers to changes in existing ways of thinking in
response to encounters with new stimuli or events.
 Piaget’s View of Intelligence and
Intellectual Growth (II)
For example:
In which row are there more buttons?
1. Assimilation:
The row in which the buttons are closely
spaced together has fewer buttons than
the row in which the buttons are more
spread out.
2. Accommodation:
When the child has had sufficient
exposure to new experiences, s/he
understands that the quantity of buttons
is identical whether they are spread out
or closely spaced.
Piaget’s View of Intelligence and
Intellectual Growth (III)
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Cognitive stage Approximate age range Major characteristics

❑ Object permanence → Idea that people/

objects still exist even though we cannot see them.
Sensorimotor Birth – 2 years
❑ Motor skills development.
❑ Little/no capacity for symbolic representation.

❑ Language development.
Preoperational 2 - 7 years ❑ Symbolic thinking.
❑ Egocentrism.
❑ Conservation → Idea that quantity is
Concrete unrelated to physical appearance.
7 – 12 years
operational ❑ Reversibility → Idea that things can go back to
their original state.

Formal operational 12 years - Adulthood ❑ Logical and abstract thinking.

Piaget’s View of Intelligence and
Intellectual Growth (IV)
1. The emergence of particular cognitive skills
occurs according to a different timetable in non-
Western cultures.

2. In every culture some people never seem to

reach the Piaget´s highest level of cognitive
sophistication: formal, logical thought.

3. Cognitive development is not as

discontinuous as Piaget´s stage theory suggests.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (I)

Basic ideas of the Lev Vygotsky’s Theory

❑ Cognitive development occurs as a result of social interactions between members of
a culture.
❑ Children’s understanding of the world is acquired through their problem-solving
interactions with adults and other children (peers).
❑ As children play and cooperate with others, they learn what is important in their
society and, at the same time, advance cognitively in their understanding of the world.
❑ Development is a reciprocal transaction between the people in a child´s
environment and the child.
❑ Importance of cultural factor in development .
❑ Their attention is directed by the society to certain areas and, as a consequence,
they develop particular kinds of skills that are an outcome of their cultural environment..
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (II)

Two Key Concepts

The zone of proximal Scaffolding → The process
development → Range of of cognitive growth by which
tasks that are too complex to an expert responds
be mastered alone but can contingently to the novice´s
be accomplished with behavior in a learning
guidance and situation, so the novice
encouragement from a more gradually increases his/her
skillful partner. understanding of a problem.
 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (III)
Let’s see an
example!

Chloe is 4 years old. She has just received her first jigsaw puzzle. She
tries to solve the puzzle but gets nowhere until her father sits down
beside her and gives her some tips: he suggests that it would be a
good idea to put the corners first, points to the pink area at the edge
of one corner piece and says «Let´s look for another pink piece» (so
that she can do it alone). When Chloe seems frustrated, he places
two interlocking pieces near each other so that she notices them,
and when Chloe succeeds, he offers words of encouragement
(reinforcement). As Chloe gradually gets proficiency, he steps back
and lets her work more and more independently.
The Information-Processing
Theory (I)
❑ According to this theory, the human mind is like a computer into
which information flows, is operated on, and is converted to output—

Basic ideas of the Information-

that is, answers, inferences, or solutions to problems.
❑ Computer analogy → Cognitive development is viewed as the age-

Processing Theory
related changes that occur in the mind’s hardware (the brain and the
peripheral nervous system) and software (mental processes such as
attention, perception, memory, and problem-solving strategies).
❑ Complex behavior such as learning, remembering, categorizing,
and thinking can be broken down into a series of specific steps.
❑ There are not stages, but the key point is the study of the elements
involved in the information processes: i. e., How are they related each
other?, What strategies are used to process the information?
❑ The individual has an active role, but his/her thinking is modified
as a result of interaction with the environment.
❑ Differences in information processing explain individual
differences in cognition.
 The Information-Processing
Theory (II)
The example of memory Brief demonstration
A familiar collection of
basic units that have been
Memorize
associated and stored in
these
our memory repeatedly, so
numbers
they act as a coherent,
integrated group when
retrieved.
75648932181 According to Miller’s Law,
the number of objects an
average human can hold in
The concept working memory is 7 ± 2.
of “Chunk”
 The
Ethological
Viewpoint
 The Classical Ethology

Konrad Lorenz’s
❑ The study of the bioevolutionary basis of behavior and development Experiment with
with a focus on the survival of the individual (Archer, 1992). Geese → The concept
❑ The origins of this discipline can be traced to Charles Darwin. of Imprinting.
❑ Modern ethology arouse from Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen
→They claimed that there are some instinctual responses that seem to
promote survival; i.e., the attachment in the case of humans (Bowlby, 1973).
❑ Ethologists believe that early experiences are very important. They talk
about a critical/sensitive periods for the development of many attributes.
❑ In humans, the sensitive period is a time that is optimal for the
emergence of particular competencies or behaviors because the individual
is particularly sensitive to environmental influences (Berk, 1998) → I.e., The
best age to learn a second language is before puberty; children with aphasia
recover their damage better than adults with aphasia.
 The
Evolutionary
Viewpoint
The Modern Evolutionary Theory
❑ The study of the bioevolutionary basis of behavior and development with a focus on the
survival of the genes.
❑ The modern evolutionary theory is interested in specifying how natural selection might
predispose us to develop adaptive traits, motives, and behaviors, but evolutionary theorists
make different assumptions about the workings of evolution than ethologists do → From
the ethology viewpoint preselected adaptive behaviors are those that ensure survival of the
individual, while modern evolutionary theorists argue that preselected, adaptive motives
and behaviors are those that ensure the survival and spread of the individual’s genes (i.e., a
father who saves his child from a fire, although it implies a risk for his life).
❑ Thus, a lengthy period of development, accompanied by the protection provided by
older individuals (particularly from genetic relatives who are interested in preserving their
genes) is adaptive in that it allows juveniles to acquire all the physical and cognitive
competencies, knowledge, and social skills to occupy niches as productive members of
modern human cultures.
The Ecological
Systems
Viewpoint
 Bronfenbrenner’s Contexts for
Development (I)
❑ Bronfenbrenner’s model emphasizes that the developing person is embedded in a series of
environmental systems that interact with one another and with the person to influence
development → It assumes that natural environments are the major source of influence on
developing persons, then researchers should not study development in the highly artificial
context of the laboratory.
❑ Bronfenbrenner provides a detailed analysis of environmental influences → He defines
environment (or the natural ecology) as “a set of nested structures, each inside the next, like a set
of Russian dolls”.
❑ Thus, the developing person is at the center of and embedded in several environmental
systems, ranging from immediate settings such as the family to more remote contexts such as the
broader culture.
 Bronfenbrenner’s Contexts for
Development (II)
Microsystem
The immediate settings Chronosystem
(including role relationships and Those changes in the
activities) that the person individual or the environment
encounters → 1st of that occur over time and
Bronfenbrenner’s environmental influence the direction that
layers or contexts. development takes.

Mesosystem
The interconnections among an
individual’s immediate settings
or microsystems → 2nd of Exosystem
Bronfenbrenner’s environmental Social systems that children and
layers or contexts. adolescents do not directly
experience but that may
Macrosystem influence their development →
The larger cultural or subcultural 3rd of Bronfenbrenner’s
context in which development environmental layers or
occurs → 4th of Bronfenbrenner’s contexts.
environmental layer or context.
 Themes in
the Study
of Human
Development
 The • The debate among developmental theorists about the relative
nature/nurture importance of biological predispositions (nature) and environmental
issue influences (nurture) as determinants of human development.

The • The debate among developmental theorists about whether children are
activity/passivity active contributors to their own development or, rather, passive
theme recipients of environmental influence.

The continuity/ • The debate among theorists about whether developmental changes are
discontinuity quantitative and continuous, or qualitative and discontinuous (i.e.,
issue stagelike).

• The debate among theorists about the extent to which

The development is a holistic process or a segmented, separate process.
holistic/modular The question is whether different aspects of human development,
development such as cognition, personality, social development, biological
theme development, and so forth, are interrelated and influence each
other as the child matures.
 Are humans
Is development
actively or
primarily
passively involved
determined by
in their
nature or nurture?
development?

Is development a
quantitative and Are various areas
continuous of development
process, or a interrelated (and
qualitative and holistic), or
Most contemporary developmentalists are discontinuous basically separate
theoretically eclectic → They recognize that no process? and distinct?
single theory offers a totally adequate
explanation of human development, and they
believe that each theory contributes importantly
to our understanding of development.
That’s all for
now!
Well-done!
Thank you!