Facts About Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychology, otherwise known as human development, refers to the scientific study of systematic psychological changes occurring in human beings throughout their life. At first, developmental psychology focused on infants and children but eventually expanded to include development in adolescents and adults, the aging process, as well as the entire human life.
Developmental psychology is involved with studying changes across motor skills and other psycho-physiological processes. Likewise, it studies cognitive development on aspects such as problem solving, moral and conceptual understanding, and language acquisition. Human development is also concerned with social, personality, and emotional development as well as self-concept and identity formation.
There are many theories that attempts to explain human development. The most prominent ones include the Stage Theory of Jean Piaget, Social Contextualism of Lev Vygotsky, Social Learning Theory of Albert Bandura, among others. Historical theories, such as the Stages of Psychosocial Development by Erik Erikson, Behaviorism by John Watson and B.F. Skinner. There are other theories that have made an important contribution in the field of human behavior such as the Attachment theory and the Stages of Moral Reasoning of Lawrence Kohlberg.
Research on human development is based on four main theories namely Maturational Theory, Psychoanalytic Theory, Learning Theory, and Cognitive Theory. Here we will discuss the main contention of each.
According to the Maturational Theory, the primary principle in developmental change is maturation, which is defined as physiological “ripening” particularly of the nervous system. Arnold Gessell, who is the principal proponent of the theory in the United States, discovered that the developmental growth of the child follows a specific pattern of development. He gave a detailed description of the ways in which behavior will change with age. Gessell believed that human differences are more related to their heredity than environment.
The Psychoanalytic Theory centers around the psychoanalytic principle of Sigmund Freud. This principle states that children are motivated by their sexual and aggressive impulses. Their development stems from a complicated interaction between their needs, sexual impulses, as well as the demands of their environment. The latter is first symbolized by loving and restricting parents and second by the child’s own version of parental demands.
The Learning Theory states that the development of the child is based on their experience with reward and punishment. They learn certain responses from adults by associating with reinforcement. A mother who consistently smiles at their children every time they should politeness to adults reinforces the learning of manners. It is then the job of the adult to set up the environment in a manner that will provide suitable and efficient reinforcements for desired behavior.
Cognitive Theory believes that the major factor in the development of a child is their natural motivation. It may include the child’s desire to satisfy their curiosity, develop mastery of challenging tasks, and minimize the inconsistencies and ambiguities they discover in the world about children. The theory states that a child formulates their own theories about their environment and relationships based on different aspects. Initially, the theories are primitive but become realistic after being tested against the experience of the child.
Psychology Fitness is a helpful tool for finding information about developmental psychology as well as related information about psychology online.

Tagged as: Psychology Online