1. By
Sana Israr

2. Learning Objectives
1. Developmental theory.
2. Major theories of child development:
A. Psychoanalytic theory
B. Social Learning theory
C. Humanistic, Cognitive theory
D. Ethological / environmental theory
E. Contextual theory
3. How theories are used to understand child behavior
and development.

3. Theory
• Theory explain phenomena and make predictions.
• It suggest hypotheses.
• Hypotheses: Specific assumptions and predictions that can be
tested to determine their accuracy.

4. • Developmental theories present systematic ways of thinking
about how human beings grow from babies to adolescents to
adults to elderly people.
• Various changes they undergo as they make this passage.
• Different developmental theories describe different types of
changes.
• Development is most certainly happening all the time, the
changes that occur are generally gradual in nature.

5. • Theories of development:
A. Psychoanalytic theory
B. Social Learning theory
C. Humanistic, Cognitive
theory
D. Ethological/
environmental theory
E. Contextual theory

6. A. Psychoanalytic Theories
• Development as primarily unconscious
• and heavily colored by emotion.
• According to Freud personality consists of three interworking
parts:
1) the id largest part of the mind
2) the ego related to reasoning and is the
conscious
3) the superego develops through interactions with
others

7. • Freud (1917) claimed, our adult personality, is determined by
the way we resolve conflicts between sources of pleasure at
each stage and the demands of reality.
• Problems were the result of experiences early in life.

8. • According to Freud, Conflicts that occur during each of these
stages can have a lifelong influence on personality and
behavior.

9. Freud’s Levels of Mind

10. The conscious mind contains all of the thoughts, memories, feelings, and
wishes of which we are aware at any given moment.
MAKE THIS ADDITION 2+2 = CONSCIOUS MIND
• The preconscious consists of anything that could potentially be brought
into the conscious mind.
• E.g., memories, stored knowledge, phone number
• The unconscious mind is a pool of feelings, thoughts, urges, and
memories that are outside of our conscious awareness. Unconscious
contents feelings of pain, anxiety, conflict, unacceptable sexual
desire, fears, violent motives, selfish needs, irrational wishes etc.

11. 1. Oral Stage: Birth to 11 ⁄ 2 Years
• Infant’s pleasure centers on the
mouth.
• Explanation: Erogenous Zone:
Mouth
2. Anal Stage: 11 ⁄ 2 to 3 Years
• Child’s pleasure focuses on the
anus
• Explanation: Erogenous Zone:
Bowel and Bladder Control

12. 3. Phallic Stage: 3 to 6 Years
• Child’s pleasure focuses on the genitals.
• Erogenous Zone: Genitals
• Children know the difference between males and females.
• Oedipus Complex
• Electra Complex

13. 4. Latency Stage: 6 Years to Puberty
• Child represses sexual interest and develops social and
intellectual skills.
• Erogenous Zone: Sexual Feelings Are Inactive
• Develop social skills, hobbies, values and relationships
• Fixation at this stage can result in immaturity and an inability to
form fulfilling relationships as an adult.

14. 5. Genital Stage: Puberty Onward
• A time of sexual reawakening, source of sexual pleasure
becomes someone outside the family.
• Onset of puberty causes the libido to become active once again.
• Libido: sexual desire or the sex drive

15. 2. Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
• Revisionist (a supporter of a
policy) of Freud’s ideas—
Erik Erikson.
• Erikson’s theory proposes
eight stages of human
development. Each stage
consists of a unique
developmental task that
confronts individuals with a
crisis that must be resolved.

16. • Erik Erikson recognized Freud’s contributions but stressed that
Freud misjudged some important dimensions of human
development.
• According to Freud, the primary motivation for human behavior
is sexual in nature, according to Erikson, it is social and reflects
a desire to affiliate with other people.

18. 1. Trust versus mistrust: Infancy (first year) is Erikson’s first
psychosocial stage.
Trust in infancy sets the stage for a lifelong expectation that the
world will be a good and pleasant place to live.

19. 2. Autonomy versus shame and doubt: Infancy (1 to 3 years).
This stage occurs in late infancy and toddlerhood.
• After gaining trust, infants begin to discover that their behavior
is their own. They start develop independence or autonomy.
• If infants and toddlers are punished too harshly, they are likely
to develop a sense of shame and doubt.

20. 3. Initiative versus guilt: Early childhood (preschool years, 3 to
5 years).
• Preschool children encounter a widening social world, they face
new challenges that require active, purposeful, responsible
behavior.
• Feelings of guilt may arise, if the child is irresponsible and is
made to feel too anxious.

21. • 4. Industry versus inferiority: Middle and late childhood
(elementary school years, 6 years to puberty).
• Children now need to direct their energy toward mastering
knowledge and intellectual skills. The negative outcome is that
the child may develop a sense of inferiority, feeling
incompetent and unproductive.

22. • 5. Identity versus identity confusion: Adolescence (10 to 20
years)
• During the adolescent years individuals face finding out who
they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in
life.
• If adolescents explore roles in a healthy manner and arrive at a
positive path to follow in life, they achieve a positive identity;
if they do not, identity confusion reigns.

23. 6. Intimacy versus isolation: Early adulthood (20s, 30s).
• At this time, individuals face the developmental task of forming
intimate relationships.
• If young adults form healthy friendships and an intimate
relationship with another, intimacy will be achieved
• If not, loneliness and emotional isolation will result.

24. • 7. Generativity versus stagnation: Middle adulthood (40s,
50s).
• By generativity Erikson means primarily a concern for helping
the younger generation to develop and lead useful lives.
• The feeling of having done nothing to help the next generation
is stagnation.

25. 8. Integrity versus despair: Late adulthood (60s onward).
• During this stage, a person reflects on the past. If the person’s
life review reveals a life well spent, integrity will be achieved,
if not, despair will result.

26. B. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
• Social learning theory was given by Albert Bandura (1925–
2021).
• Bandura emphasizes modeling, also known as imitation or
observational learning, as a powerful source of development.

27. • In Bandura’s early work, found that diverse factors affect
children’s motivation to imitate:
 Their own history of reinforcement or punishment for the
behavior.
 The promise of future reinforcement or punishment.
 Even observations of the model being reinforced or
punished.

28. • But today, his theory stresses the importance of cognition,
or thinking.
• The most recent revision of Bandura’s (1992, 2001) theory
places such strong emphasis on how we think about
ourselves and other people that he calls it a social-cognitive
rather than a social learning approach.

29. • Social cognitive theory holds that behavior, environment, and
cognition are the key factors in development.
For example: imagine a parent who often remarks, “I’m glad I
kept working on that task, even though it was hard,” and who
encourages persistence by saying, “I know you can do a good job
on that homework!”
• Soon the child starts to view herself as hardworking and high-
achieving and selects people with these characteristics as
models.
• In this way, as individuals acquire attitudes, values, and
convictions about themselves, they control their own learning
and behavior.

30. C. HUMANISTIC/COGNITIVE THEORY
1. Humanistic Psychology
• Humans are inherently good.
• Our lives are characterized by choices, creativity, and
growth.

31. Motivation
• Rogers believed that the actualization tendency is the one
overriding motivator of behavior.
• It promotes behavior that results in physiological maintenance,
growth, maturation, and fulfillment of potentials.
• The needs are not always conscious.
• Example: hunger, can affect behavior without awareness.

32. Personality development and structure
• In Rogers's view, we are constantly developing and growing in
our efforts toward actualization.
• The child tends to repeat only those behaviors that result in
positively valued experiences, which are those that promote
actualization.
• As the child interacts with significant others in the
environment, a sense of self emerges.

33. • As the self develops, the person acquires a need for positive
regard from others and, as a result, strives for their approval and
respect. Thus, the values of other people are "introjected" or
accepted by the person as her or his own.
• The developing self has its own interests, and for this reason,
Rogers spoke of self-actualization.
• Self-actualization tendency an outgrowth of the actualizing
tendency and therefore another kind of motivation, involves the
capacity of many activities to maintain and enhance the self.

34. 2. Cognitive Theory
• Swiss cognitive theorist Jean
Piaget
• Cognitive theory emphasize
conscious thoughts.

35. (1). Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory
• Piaget’s theory states that children go through four stages of
cognitive development as they actively construct their
understanding of the world.
1. The sensorimotor stage
2. The preoperational stage
3. The concrete operational stage
4. The formal operational stage

36. 1. The sensorimotor stage: birth to
about 2 years of age.
In this stage, infants construct an
understanding of the world by
coordinating sensory experiences
(such as seeing and hearing) with
physical, motoric actions.

37. 2. The preoperational stage: 2 to 7 years of age.
In this stage, children begin to go beyond simply connecting
sensory information with physical action and represent the world
with words, images, and drawings.

38. 3. The concrete operational stage: 7 to 11 years of age.
• In this stage, children can perform operations that involve
objects, and they can reason logically when the reasoning can
be applied to specific or concrete examples.
Reversibility
Transitivity
Assimilation

39. 4. The formal operational stage: 11 and 15 and continue
through adulthood.
• Individuals think in abstract and more logical terms.
• They might think about what an ideal parent is like and
compare their parents to this ideal standard.

40. D. ETHOLOGICAL/ ENVIRONMENTAL THEORY
1. Ethological Theory
• Ethology stresses that behavior is
strongly influenced by biology, is
tied to evolution, and is
characterized by critical or sensitive
periods.
• European zoologist Konrad Lorenz
(1903–1989) helped bring ethology
to prominence.

41. • John Bowlby (1969), first applied this perspective to the infant
and caregiver bond.
• Quality of attachment to the caregiver leads to child’s feelings
of security and capacity to form trusting relationships.

42. • Four stages of attachment
1.Preattachment phase (birth to 6 weeks)
• Grasping, smiling, crying, and gazing into the adult’s eyes, help
bring newborn babies into close contact with other humans,
who comfort them.
• They are not yet attached to her, since they do not mind being
left with an unfamiliar adult.

43. 2. “Attachment-in-the-making” phase (6 weeks to 6–8 months)
• During this phase, infants respond differently to a familiar
caregiver than to a stranger.
Stranger Mother

44. 3. “Clear-cut” attachment phase (6–8 months to 18 months–
2 years)
• Now attachment to the familiar caregiver is evident.
• Babies display separation anxiety, becoming upset when their
trusted caregiver leaves.

45. 4. Formation of a reciprocal relationship (18 months to 2 years
and on)
• Rapid growth in representation and language enables toddlers
to understand some of the factors that influence the parent’s
coming and going and to predict her return.

46. • Environmental theory is also called Ecological theory.
• Ecological theory given by Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–2005).
• Development reflects the influence of several environmental
systems.
2. Environmental Theory

47. • Bronfenbrenner’s
environmental systems
theory focuses on five
environmental systems:
» Microsystem
» Mesosystem
» Exosystem
» Macrosystem
» Chronosystem

48. (1). The microsystem
• Setting in which the individual lives.
• These contexts include the person’s family, peers, school, and
neighborhood.
• It is in the microsystem that the most direct interactions with
social agents take place with parents, peers, and teachers.

49. (2).The mesosystem
• It involves relations between microsystems or connections
between contexts (environment).

50. (3). The exosystem
• It consists of links between a social setting in which the
individual does not have an active role and the individual’s
immediate context.
• Exosystem can be temporary, like a parent being laid off from
their job, or long-term, like the death of an extended family
member.

51. (4). The macrosystem
• It involves the culture in which individuals live.
• Culture refers to the behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other
products of a group of people that are passed on from
generation to generation.

52. (5). The chronosystem
• It consists of the shaping of environmental events and
transitions over the life course, as well as sociohistorical
circumstances.
• For example, divorce is one transition.

53. • Two major theorists, pioneered this perspective: Lev Vygotsky
and Urie Bronfenbrenner
• Vygotsky portrayed the child’s development as inseparable
from social and cultural activities.
• Cognitive development involves learning to use the inventions
of society, such as language, mathematical systems, and
memory strategies.
E. Contextual Theory

54. • Children’s social interaction with more-skilled adults and peers
is indispensable to their cognitive development.
• Through this interaction, they learn to use the tools that will
help them adapt and be successful in their culture.

55. Theories Help Understand Child Behavior and
Development
Psychoanalytic
• Psychoanalytic theory helps the child or adolescent understand
and manage feelings more effectively. Recognize and change
poor coping strategies.
• Re-examine negative feelings about self and others.

56. Humanistic: Rich environment, where learners could follow
their interests to reach their full potentials. Child will be a well
adjusted, and well balanced person and will possess certain
traits.

57. Ethological theory: help us understand of human infant &
caregiver relationship.
Infant smiling, babbling, grasping, and crying are built-in
social signals that encourage the caregiver to approach, care
for, and interact with the baby.
Environmental theory: has an effect on child’s development.
• Each layer is complex.
• Conflict within any environmental system ripples throughout
other systems.

58. Contextual theory: Children strive for social connection,
actively participating in the conversations and social activities
from which their development springs.
According to Vygotsky (1978), learning occurs through social
interaction with a skillful tutor. The tutor may model behaviors or
provide verbal instructions for the child.
The child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided
by the tutor then internalizes the information, using it to guide or
regulate their own performance.

59. Recommended Reading
• John-Santrock-Life-Span-Development-13th-Edition-2010
• Development Through the Lifespan by Laura E. Berk
• Psychology A Behavioral Overview by Alan Poling, Henry
Schlinger, Stephen Starin, Elbert Blakely