(1pt) The scientific study of human development seeks to understand and explain how and why people change throughout life. This includes all aspects of human growth, including physical, emotional, intellectual, social, perceptual, and personality development. 2. In a few paragraphs for each, describe the following developmental theories and name their originators. (2 pts) a. Psychosocial Theory- Erik Erikson describes eight stages through which a healthily developing human should pass from birth into late adulthood.
For Erikson, identity development of the individual depends on society; personality grows under the influence of parental and social attitudes – affected by the historical period. Identity means to feel belonging to group ideals. An over identification with groups can lead to the defence against identity loss can produce clannishness and intolerance. Erikson used clinical and naturalistic observations, analyses of biographies for research and own experience and developed an eight stages theory. Influenced by Freud, he suggested that people run through the different stages on their way to their own identity; beginning at birth and ending in the late adulthood.
Describe and evaluate the psychodynamic approach Psychodynamic psychologists assume that our behaviour is determined by unconscious forces of which we are unaware. Each manifest (surface) thought, utterance or behaviour hides a latent(hidden) motive or intention. The latent motives for our behaviour reflect our instinctive biological drives and our early experiences, particularly before the age of five. Most particularly, it is the way we are treated by our parents as children that shapes our adult behaviour. Sigmund Freud developed an approach on abnormality that highlighted how human personality and psychosexual development in childhood can cause abnormality.
Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development is one of the best-known theories of personality and development. Similar to Sigmund Freud, Erikson believed that personality develops in a series of predetermined stages. Unlike Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages, Erikson’s theory describes the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan. At each stage of development, Erikson described conflicts that act as turning points in life. Erikson’s Stages of Development Summary: An eight stage theory of identity and psychosocial development Erik Erikson (1902 -1994), a German-born American psychoanalyst.
How does social learning theory explain the development of offending behaviour and how useful is this explanation? It is possible to explain the development of offending behaviour in several ways. The two major approaches including, first, genetic explanations which posit that aggressive or antisocial behaviours are an outcome of markers of a certain genetic makeup, passed down from parents (Braungart-Riekerm et al, 1995). While, the behaviourist approach argues that the development of offending behaviour is a consequence of conditioning or social learning (Patterson, 1982). Although each of these explanations has merit, genetic explanations have been criticised for its failure to clearly show how disparate behaviours can be seen as expressions of a single genotype and that existing evidence suggests there are more complex issues involved than is implied by a person’s genetic makeup (Renken et al, 1989).
Skinner used the phrase `Verbal Operant Conditioning' where a verbal response that occurs in a given situation that is followed by positive reinforcement becomes more likely to occur again in the same situation. Chomsky argued that there was no way that a child could obtain language from only the `primary linguistic data. He suggested that an infant enters the world with the ability to learn any language fluently, encased in their biological make-up. One of the manifestations of this was in the form of a `generative grammar' that had the ability to `generate' and create all the words in a linguistic grammar, and he viewed that Skinner's `absolute grammar' was far too limited in its application. Chomsky defined this `generative grammar' as a `certain set of rules operating with a set amount of vocabulary to generate an infinite number of
Due to substantial evidence from a number of different experiments supporting the nativist view on areas such as infant perception of depth, size constancy and pattern and face recognition, I believe that perceptual abilities are predominantly innate. However, in regards to the nature-nurture debate, I do not believe that the role of environment can be ignored in the development of perceptual abilities and that it occurs via an interdependent working together of both nature and nurture. It is an undisputed fact that newborn infants are born with very little knowledge with which to interpret sensory input that they receive from the environment (Taylor, 2005, p41). An interesting experiment by Gibson and Walk (1960) however proved that babies as young as 6 months do indeed have the perceptual abilities to detect depth. Gibson and Walk devised a ‘visual cliff’ which consisted of a large Plexiglas table under which a black and white high contrast chequered cloth was placed.
Psychodynamic and Behaviourism Perspectives of Psychology. Beverley Kilner Page 1 This essay is going to summarise two theoretical perspectives of psychology. It will look at Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic approach and explore the different stages of development through childhood and the roles of id, the ego and the superego and Freud’s belief that the libido is the driving force behind behaviour. In contrast to this it will examine the behaviourist approach to psychology and will look at two theorists, Ivan Pavlov and John Watson and will focus upon their experiments to prove that humans and animals alike can be conditioned to act in specific ways. Sigmund Freud asserted at his seventieth birthday celebrations “The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious.
Erik Erikson’s theory on the psychological development of children consists of eight stages. In each stage Erikson states that the child faces a developmental crisis, in which the choice the individual makes prepares them for the next stage. Erikson identifies the first developmental crisis as trust versus mistrust. According to Erikson’s theory, the child will develop a sense of trust with its parent if it is provided with its basic needs, but mistrust if they are not fulfilled (Child Development). This clearly shows the affect the child’s parent and the way the child is raised, directly contributes to the individual’s personality.
Personality can change from upbringing and culture. However each stage builds on the next stages in life. “Each stage involves certain developmental tasks that are Psychosocial in Nature.”(Dr. C. George Bocree) There are eight stages that affect Personality Development. Stage 1. Trust vs. Mistrust.