SHDH2189

Developmental Psychology
Lecture 2 - 3:
Theories in Development
Lecturer’s name

Recommended readings
Textbook, Chapters 2 and 3
 Lesson Plan

• Theories in development
1. Evolution theory
2. Psychoanalytic theory (psychosexual stages)
3. Cognitive development theory
4. Learning theory
5. Cultural theory
6. Systems theory
7. Psychosocial theory
8. Eclecticism

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 1. Evolution theory
• The law of natural selection
• Individuals who are best suited to their
environment are most likely to survive and
reproduce
• “survival of the fittest”
• __________ : species change to respond to the
changing environmental conditions
• Emphasises the importance of reproductive
functions as they contribute to fitness and long-
term adaptation
o Adaptive value

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 1. Evolution theory
• The study of the evolutionary origins of mental
structures, emotions, and social behaviours
1. Mating process (reproduction)
o Both males and females like attractive faces;
• males love women with certain range of hip-
to-waist ratio and bigger breasts;
• females love men with greater power…
2. An infant’s smile attracts caregiver’s attention
(adaptive significance) - Human instincts to protect
babies of their own kin, parents are willing to
sacrifice sleep, money, time to protect and nurture
their offsprings
3. Change of behavioural patterns from 2 million
years ago to the modern life
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 2. Psychoanalytic theory

(1) Basic concepts

• Freud believed that all behaviours are
motivated by
• _________________ – a storehouse of
powerful yet primitive motives
• Drives, or libido - sexual and aggressive
forces that desire to be satisfied; Psychic
energy to be expressed
• Three structures of personality
• Id, Ego, Superego

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 Conscious
Ego Contact with
Reality Principle outside world
Secondary-process Thinking
Preconscious
Material just
Superego beneath the
Moral Imperatives surface of
awareness

Unconscious
Id Difficult to
Pleasure Principle
Primary-process Thinking
retrieve material,
well below the
surface of
awareness

Freud’s model of personality structure

 2. Psychoanalytic theory
(1) Basic concepts
• Children develop through a series of stages
• They confront conflicts between biological
drives and social expectations
• Healthy personality development
• Determined by how parents manage child’s
early sexual and aggressive drives
• Focuses on how individuals resolve conflicts
between drives
fixation When a child’s sexual
• Influence of ________:
desires are either overly satisfied or under-
satisfied 7
 Psychosexual stages and fixation
Stage Energy in Conflicts/experiences Adult traits associated
(age) body parts with fixation
Oral Mouth • Weaning Overeating, alcoholic,
(birth to 1) • Oral gratification from cynical, dependency,
sucking, eating, biting passivity, hostility,
Anal Anus • Toilet training Excessive cleanliness,
(1 to 3) • Gratification from expelling stubborn, compulsive,
or withholding feces messiness, rebellious,
destructiveness,
Phallic Genitals • Oedipus complex, Electra Flirty, vanity,
(3 to 6) complex promiscuity, chastity,
• sexual curiosity, pride, lack of genuine
masturbation (= touching feelings
sex organs)
Latency None Period of sexual calmness ---
(6 to Interest in school, hobbies,
puberty) build friendship
Genital Genitals Re-awakening of sexual drives; ---
(Puberty build intimate relationships
onwards
More examples of fixation
 Defense Mechanisms

1. Denial
2. Repression
3. Rationalisation
4. Reaction Formation
5. Displacement
6. Regression
7. Projection
8. Identification
9. Sublimation
More examples for defense mechanisms
Implications for human development

• The psychoanalytic approach recognises:

1. The tension between interpersonal and
intrapsychic demands helps shape
personality
• E.g. Ego develops skills to deal with interpersonal needs

2. The influence of childhood

experiences on adult behaviours
3. The role of sexual impulses during
childhood, e.g. need for hugs and
physical touch from caregivers

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 3. Cognitive development theory

• Cognition (thoughts/ thinking processes)

• The process of organising and making
meaning of experience
oE.g., problem solving, critical analysis,
etc.

• 2 major cognitive development theories

• Piaget’s cognitive development theory
• Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory

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 Piaget’s theory: basic concepts

• Schemes / schemas
• The structure or organisation of action in thought

• Operations
• The mental manipulation of schemes and concepts

• Equilibrium
• Every organism strives to achieve equilibrium
• The balance of organised motor, sensory or cognitive
structures  effective ways to interact with the
environment
• It is achieved through adaptation — gradual
modification of existing schemes and operations in
order to decrease the discrepancy between what is
known and what is being experienced

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 Piaget’s theory: basic concepts
• Adaptation is essential for all organisms for survival
• It includes: Assimilation + Accommodation

(1) Assimilation
• The tendency to use one’s existing schemes to interpret new
experiences
• Preserve existing schemes by incorporating new information,
i.e. using existing knowledge to understanding new experience
• E.g. A child believes dolphins and whales are fish
(2) Accommodation
• The tendency to modify familiar schemes to interpret new
experiences
• Change existing schemes in light of new information  creates
the basis for future assimilation
• E.g. The child understands the differences between dolphins
and whales and fish  dolphins and whales are mammals
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 Examples from
assimilation to accommodation
Piaget’s stage theory of development
1. Sensorimotor stage (0-18 months) (**IntroPsy 0-2)
• Lack of object permanence

2. Preoperational stage (18 months-6 years) (**IntroPsy 2-7)

• Development of symbolic thoughts and languages,
egocentrism, animism, irreversibility, centration, lack of
conservation

3. Concrete operational stage (7-11 years)

• Logical mental operations applied to concrete events and
hierarchical classification, concept of conservation, reversible
thinking

4. Formal operational stage (11 years on)

• Logical mental operations on abstract ideas, systematic and
reasonable hypothesis testing 18
 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory
• Human development can only be understood within a
social-historical framework
• Cognitive development is a socially constructed process
• Complex forms of thinking in human beings are
originated from in social interactions
• The theory emphasises the social context of cognitive
development
• E.g., an older sibling is effective for promoting
learning in the zone of proximal development

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 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory

• Children learn new cognitive skills guided by a more

skilled partner or an experienced adult
• Scaffolding – the process of guidance
• Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
o the distance between the actual level of a
child’s performance and the potential level that
a child is capable of reaching, with the help
from a more skilled peer or adult
o Importance of assisted discovery
• Provide scaffolding for children’s discovery,
through questions, demonstrations and
explanations
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 4. Learning theories
(a) Classical conditioning (J.B. Watson)
• NS, UCS, UR, CS, CR

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 4. Learning theories
(b) Operant/instrumental conditioning (B.F. Skinner)
• Processes: (+/-) reinforcement, (+/-) punishment
• Schedule of reinforcement
o Fixed/variable ratio, fixed/variable interval

Positive Negative
(Add) (Remove)

Positive Negative
Increase Reinforcement Reinforcement
Bonus for working hard Aspirin relieving headache
Behaviour
GOAL

leads to more hard work leads to more aspirin use

Positive Negative
Decrease Punishment Punishment
Getting speeding ticket Losing the privilege to hang
Behaviour leads to less speeding out late with friends 23
 Examples of Schedule of reinforcement

1. Fixed ratio schedule (FR)

• reward is provided after a fixed number of responses
• E.g. salary of factory worker, piece rate

2. Variable ratio schedule (VR)

• reward is provided after a unpredictably
varying number of responses, e.g. slot machines

3. Fixed interval schedule (FI)

• reward is provided after a fixed amount of time
• E.g. monthly salary, examination

4. Variable interval schedule (VI)

• reward is provided after an unpredictably varying amount of time,
e.g. pop-up quiz 24
 4. Learning theories
(c) Social learning theory / Observational Learning
(Albert Bandura)
• Learning via ______________ and _________
• Role of modeling
o Learning resulting from observing consequences
experienced a model  reinforced or punished for
a behaviour
• 4 major factors
o Attention (Focus)
o Memory (Retention)
o Imitation (Reproduction)
o Motivation (Reasons / benefits)

We learn  we grow 25
 5. Cultural theory

• Culture: the learned systems of meanings and

patterns of behaviours that are shared by a group of
people and transmitted from one generation to the
next
• Culture influences our worldview – the way we make
meaning of our circumstances

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 Cultural determinism
• Cultural determinism
• People’s psychological experiences are shaped by
the expectations, resources and challenges in a
specific cultural group
• People’s behaviours are shaped through
enculturation
o Culture leaders (e.g., parents/teachers) use
strategies to transmit the values to next
generations

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 Culture comparison

• How does culture influence your development?

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 6. Systems theory

• Systems theories describe and account for the

characteristics of systems and the relationships
among the components found within the system

• Only identifying each component cannot fully

understand the whole system
• E.g., language system

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 Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems theory

• Urie Bronfenbrenner argues that individuals develop within a multi-

layered system of relationships
1. Microsystem - Immediate context / setting
o A child’s home, day care, church, grandparents’ home
2. Mesosystem - Interactions between two microsystems
o The interactions between a child’s home, day care, church,
grandparents’ home
3. Exosystem - Settings that do not involve the person directly but
affect the person
o Changes in parents’ workplace  time spent with the child
4. Macrosystem - Culture or society
o Europe, Hong Kong
5. Chronosystem - Environmental events and transitions over one’s
life
o Pandemic, climatic changes, online learning/meeting
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31
 7. Psychosocial theory

• The framework we adopt in this course

(1) Basic concepts
• Emphasis on the interplay among biological,
psychological and societal system

• Stages of development
1. Developmental tasks
2. Psychosocial crisis
3. The central process for resolving the
psychosocial crisis at each stage

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Stages of psychosocial development (Erik Erikson)

0-18 months old

18 months – 3 years old

3 – 5 years old

5 – 13 years old

13-21 years old

21-39 years old

40-65 years old

65 years older +
 Stages of development

• 11 stages of lifespan used in our textbook

• May vary across Different textbooks
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 Developmental tasks

• Havighurst’s concept of developmental tasks

• Process by which humans learn tasks required by
society

• Age-graded expectations
• Tasks change with age

• Sensitive periods
• Periods of development when an individual is
most ready to acquire a new ability (teachable
moments)
• Some tasks if not learned at a particular age (i.e.
the sensitive period) , they will be more difficult to
be learned later in life 35
Developmental Tasks associated with
the Life Stages

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 Take home exercise

• Describe a developmental task that may have

changed in content from the time of your
grandparents to your time
• What are some of these changes?
• What led to the changes?

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 Psychosocial Crises
• Psychosocial crises
• State of tension that results from discrepancies
between the person’s competences at the beginning
of the stage and society’s expectations (Erikson, 1963)
• These conflicts provide opportunities for us to
produce new social capabilities
• What psychological crises are you facing now?

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From your textbook
 Resolving psychosocial crises

• Central process to resolve the crises

• Suggests a way that the person takes in cultural
expectations and results in changes of self-concept
o E.g., Imitation in toddlerhood  sense of
autonomy

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 8. Eclecticism

INTEGRATED APPROACH
• adopt multiple theoretical approaches to explain
individuals’ development
• Benefits of eclecticism
• Build on ideas from several sources
• Avoid rigid loyalty to a single theory
• Allow deeper and more complete
understanding on specific behaviours
• View human beings holistically

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