Prepared by:

ALI HAFIZAR BIN MOHAMAD RAWI

 WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
Derived from Latin words: psyche & logos
 Psyche = soul/emotions (feelings)
 Logos = knowledge/field of studies

Broad definition:
Psychology is the SCIENTIFIC STUDY of BEHAVIOR
& COGNITIVE PROCESSES.
* ** It describes thinking & behavior and looks at the
relationships between them (“the what”) and tries to
explain the causes for them (“the why”)
WHAT IS CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
Study of the mental and emotional
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN
and its part of developmental
psychology, the study of changes in
behavior that occur through the life
span. It is the branch of psychology
that studies the social and mental
development of children.
 WHAT IS CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Development is change.

Child development is a scientific study of

processes of change and stability from
conception through adolescence.

It involves changes in physical, social,

emotional and intellectual functioning over
time.

Changes include alterations in size, shape

and function. It can be either progressive or
regressive.
The study of children is concerned with
two primary types of change over time:

 Quantitative change: refers to the easily

measurable and sometimes obvious
aspects of development (including physical
growth – height & weight, vocabulary,
frequency of communication & years of
education)

 Qualitative change: refers to variations

and modifications in functioning. It is a
change in kind, structure or organization.
 DOMAINS OF DEVELOPMENT
Change & stability occur in various domains of the self.

These domains are intertwined – each affects the

others.

3 main domains:
Physical – growth of the body & brain, sensory
capacities, motor skills & health.
Cognitive – change & stability in mental abilities
(learning, memory, language, thinking, moral
reasoning & creativity).
Psychosocial - change & stability in personality,
emotional life & social relationships.
 HISTORICAL VIEWS OF CHILDREN
(a)Original Sin
-Children are born sinful & initially bad and possessed by the
devil, need purification through baptism
-Parents must discipline children to ensure morality and
ultimate salvation.

(b) Tabula Rasa (John Locke : 1632-1704)

-Children are to begin with nothing at all and all kinds of
experiences can shape their character
-Parent should spend time with their children & help them to
contribute to society

(c) Innate Goodness (Jean- Jacques Rousseau : 1712-1778)

-Children inherently good, but should be permitted to grow
naturally with minimal parental monitoring or constraint
Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) : Theory of Evolution

Natural Selection – certain species were

selected by nature to survive in particular parts of
the world because they had physical
characteristics and behaviors that fit with, or
were adapted to, their surroundings.

Survival of the Fittest – individuals within a

species who best met the survival requirements of
the environment lived long enough to reproduce
and pass their more favorable characteristics to
future generations.
G. Stanley Hall (1844 – 1924)
the normative approach to child study – measures of
behavior are taken on large numbers of children, then
age-related averages are computed to represent the
typical child’s development.

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. (1857-1911)

Providing a score that could successfully predict
school achievement, the Binet test sparked tremendous
interest in individual differences in development.
Comparisons of the intelligence test scores of
children who vary in gender, ethnicity, birth order,
family background, and other characteristics became a
major focus of research.
THEORIES ABOUT CHILD
PSYCHOLOGY
A- STRUCTURAL - ORGANISMIC
PERSPECTIVE
Try to describe the formal structure or organization
of the system
Freud and Piaget interested in psychological
development adopted this approach called
structuralism
They introduce on different aspects of development,
Freud interested in emotion and personality and
Piaget interested in thinking
Both theory devise theories that incorporated their
mutual interest in biology, evolutionary theory was
prominent that time.
They share the view that the organism goes through
an organized or structured series of stages or
discontinuous changes over the course of
development
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Emphasize how the experience of early
childhood shape the development of adult
personality

Have their origins in the belief that:

the most important causes of behavior
are rooted in the unconscious drives
& forces that develop within the mind of an
individual
Conflict of individual’s instinct and societal
norms for behaviour.
Freud’s Three Parts of the Personality
Id • Largest portion of the mind
• Unconscious, present at birth
• Source of biological needs & desires

Ego • Conscious, rational part of personality

• Emerges in early infancy
• Redirects id impulses acceptably

Superego • The conscience

• Develops from ages 3 to 6, from
• interactions with caregivers
Develomenal Stages of Psychosexual Stages by Freud

Psychosexual Stage Approximate Age Description

Oral Birth - 1 year The mouth is the focus of stimulation and

interaction; feeding and weaning are
central.

Anal 1 - 3 years The anus is the focus of stimulation and

interaction; elimination and toilet training
are central.

Phallic 3 - 6 years The genitals (penis, clitoris, and vagina)

are the focus of stimulation; gender role
and moral development are central.

Latency 6 - 12 years A period of suspended sexual activity;

energies shift to physical and intellectual
activities.

Genital 12 - adulthood The genitals are the focus of stimulation

with the onset of puberty; mature sexual
relationships develop.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Development
- Far less emphasis on sexual urges.
- More emphasis on social and cultural
influences on development.
- Development occurs in a sequence of
stages defined by a unique crisis or social
challenge.
- Journey to adulthood is fraught with
obstacles.
The Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development
 PIAGET THEORY
 Jean Piaget (1896-1980), a Swiss scientist.

 He speculated that children of different ages use

different kinds of thought processes.

 Observed his own children – became convinced that

children’s thinking is very different from that of
adolescents & adults.

 Intelligence – active process in which people acquire

information by interacting with objects, ideas & other
people.

 Through interactions, individuals develop better ways of

adapting to life’s changes.

 Cognitive development – a process of developing the

intellectual means to adapt to the environment.
 Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor Stage:
The infant constructs an understanding of the world
Birth to 2 by coordinating sensory experiences with physical
years of age actions: progressing from reflexive, instinctual action
at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward
end of the stage.
Preoperational Stage:
2 to 7 years The child begins to represent the world with words
of age and images. These words and images reflect
increased symbolic thinking and go beyond the
connection of sensory information and physical action.
Concrete Operational Stage:
7 to 11 years
of age The child can now reason logically about concrete
events and classify objects into different sets.
12 years and Formal Operational Stage
older
The adolescent reasons in more abstract idealistic
and logical ways.
 B- LEARNING PERSPECTIVES
BEHAVIOR THEORY
• Behaviorism focuses on the learning behaviors

• Applied to psychological development :

emphasize to the role of experience, gradual
and continuous view

• Principles of learning shape development

throughout childhood and across the entire life
span
 Classical Conditioning
 Accidental discovery on dogs: A conditioned response to a
previously neutral stimulus.

 Example: Light (conditioned stimulus) – food (unconditioned

stimulus) – salivation (unconditioned response).

 Infants naturally respond with fear to only two events:

Suddenly loosing support (fear of falling)
Sudden loud noises.

 Children learn to be fearful through classical conditioning.

 Children are passive beings who can be molded by

controlling the stimulus-response associations.
 Classical Conditioning

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 Operant Conditioning Theory
 Emphasizes the role of the parent in reinforcing (rewarding) the child’s
behaviors.
 Consequences of a behavior lead to changes in its frequency.

 Behavior patterns will change if the child is rewarded, ignored or punished.

 Conditioning functions:
Shaping behavior - reinforcing a behavior “close” to the desired
behavior.
Chaining behavior - linking together a series of small steps toward the
desired behavior.
 Consequences include:
Positive reinforcement - something that causes an act to increase in the
future, i.e. a child smiles and gets a hug.
Negative reinforcement - child causes unpleasantness to cease, i.e.
parents “lecture” stops when child cleans room.
Punishment - unpleasant act by parent discourages behavior in the
future, i.e. T.V. privileges taken away.
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Operant Conditioning Chamber

Conditioning
 Cognitive Social Learning Theory
The social learning theory of Bandura focuses
on the learning that occurs within a social
context. It considers that people learn from
one another, including such concepts as
observational learning, imitation, and modeling

This learning theory emphasizes the

importance of observing and modeling the
behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions
of others
 Bobo Experiment
Worked with Dorrie and Shiela
Ross
Focused on social modeling
Children exposed to social
models who expressed either
violent or non violent behavior
towards the Bobo dolls
Children exposed to violent
behaviors exhibited aggression
Revealed the phenomenon of
observational learning
found imitation to occur more
often when rewarded rather than
punished, when model has high
status, when model is similar to
child
 INFORMATION-PROCESSING
APPROACHES
Development does not occur in stages
Human input is comparative to the input
functions of a computer
Focuses on the ways children process information
about their world how they manipulate, monitor
and strategise it.
It is more focused on the flow of information
through the cognitive system.
Older children have more complex and a larger
variety of mental processes than those of younger
children
Information Processing Theory
PERSPECTIVES
Contextual theories emphasize the child’s
environment, but they tend to emphasize much
broader aspects of the environment than social
learning theory (which emphasizes modeling and
reinforcement)

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory –

experiences and relationships in layers of
environmental systems impact child development

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory – development

is product of social and cultural experiences
 BRONFENBRENNER’S ECOLOGICAL THEORY
 Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917 – present).

 Focus on the interplay between the child & his/her immediate social &
physical environment

 The child’s experiences are viewed as subsystems within larger systems,

or a set of nested structures.

 Every biological organisms develop in an ecological systems that support

or stiffle its growth

 Highlighted 5 interlocking contextual systems, from the most intimate to

the broadest:
o Microsystem
o Mesosystem
o Exosystem
o Macrosystem
o chronosystem
 Highlighted 5 interlocking contextual systems, from the most
intimate to the broadest:
» Microsystem:
» Immediate environment.
» Includes influences such as physical objects, the structure
of the environment, & the roles of and the relationships
among family members

» Mesosystem:
» Encompasses the connections among settings including the
child & how these connections influence the child.

» Exosystem:
» Represents the linkages among settings, one of which does
not include the child, & how these influences the child.

» Macrosystem: the larger societal values & social policies.

» Chronosystem: historical changes.

 Chronosystem Historical
National customs
Cultural values Macrosystem times,etc.
Social conditions
Economic patterns Exosystem
Political
philosophy Mesosystem
Intimate &
immediate effects: Microsystem
Family, School,Peers,
Playground
Health care services
Religious institutions
Child
Mass media,
education,
Friends of family
Extended family
Legal services, work,
Community/neighbors
Social welfare services
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological model of development
 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Did NOT focus on the individual child but on the child as a
product of social interaction, especially with adults (parents,
teachers).

Focus on DYADIC INTERACTIONS (e.g., child being

taught by a parent how to perform some culturally specific
action), rather than child by himself.

Social world mediates children's cognitive development.

Cognitive development occurs as child's thinking is molded
by society in the form of parents, teachers, and peers.

Children use psychological tools such as language, numbering

system & maps to develop higher levels of thinking.
D- ETHOLOGICAL & EVOLUTIONARY
PERSPECTIVES
ETHOLOGICAL THEORY
Ethology is concerned with the adaptive, or survival, value of
behaviour and its evolutionary history.

Ethology theory stresses:

a-Behaviour is strongly influenced by biology, tied to evolution and
characterised by critical or sensitive periods.( Darwin root)
b- The sensitivity to different kinds of experience varies over the life
span.
c-The powerful roles that evolution and biological foundations play in
development

Ethologists believe that most psychologists underestimate the

importance of sensitive periods in early development
 Evolutionary Theory
 Evolutionary psychologists believed that human beings use
complex and creative reasoning while trying to get out of
troubles or dangerous situations.

 In life, we face different problems in different contexts. For

example, an aboriginal child who lives in a rural area has many
different types of experiences and problem solving skills
(catching fish in the river, finding food in the jungle etc.)
compared to a child who lives in a big city.

 The evolutionarists believe that our human cognition is how we

adapt to the types of problems that are important to solve in
the environment or context we are in.

 In short, we can say that the evolutionarists are interested in

behaviours that children develop that are important for them
to survive in different context.
 E- DYNAMIC SYSTEM PERSPECTIVES
 DST sees child development as a system of interacting parts.
 This is most like the transactional model mentioned above: everything
affects everything else and it's all very complicated.
 The child is constantly changing the environment and the environment
is constantly changing the child.
 Example: The family: if parents have a bad relationship, it may have
effects on the child.
Child psychologists often want to bring the whole family in if one
child is having a problem; dad's drinking problem affects family
finances and mom's mood, resulting in harsher punishment and fewer
opportunities like after-school tutoring.
So all these things affect the child: everything affects everything else.
 The child inherits not only the parents' genes but also the parents'
environment and from the moment of conception they are constantly
interacting.
ISSUES REVOLVING AROUND THE THEORIES
Nature vs. Nurture
Nature – inborn biological givens – the hereditary information children
receive from their parents at the moment of concept that signals the body
to grow and affects all their characteristics and skills.
Nurture – the complex forces of the physical and social world that
influence children’s biological make up and psychological experiences
before and after birth.
 Continuity vs. Discontinuity
 Continuous theory of development: development follows a smooth
progression from infancy to adulthood, with a single quantitative dimension
 Discontinuous (stage) theory of development: development occurs in
stages, each qualitatively different from the one before
 Stability v. Change
 Stability – children who are high or low in a characteristic will remain so at
later ages.
 Change – children who are high or low in a characteristic can change at
later ages, typically due to changes in the environment in either a positive
or negative way.
 METHODS GATHERING DATA ABOUT
CHILDREN
Children Self Reports
- Information about children

Report by Family Member, Teacher, and Peers

- Information from people know a child well

Naturalistic Observation
- Researchers directly observe and record behavior
rather than relying on subject descriptions.
- Researcher records behavior as it occurs naturally
- Virtually impossible to determine cause and effect
 RESEARCH DESIGN
Correlational Method
 Collects a set of facts organized into two or more categories
measure parents’ disciplinary style
measure children’s behavior

 Examine the relationship between categories

 Correlation reveals relationships among facts

e.g., more democratic parents have children who behave better

 Correlation cannot prove causation

Do democratic parents produce better behaved children?
Do better behaved children encourage parents to be democratic?
May be an unmeasured common factor
e.g., good neighborhoods produce democratic
adults and well-behaved children

• Numerical indication of magnitude and direction

of the relationship between two variables
Positive correlation—two variables vary
systematically in the SAME direction
Negative correlation—two variables vary
systematically in OPPOSITE directions
Experimental Design
 Direct way to test a hypothesis about a cause-effect
relationship between factors

 Factors are called variables

 One variable is controlled by the experimenter

e.g., democratic vs. authoritarian classroom

 The other is observed and measured

e.g., cooperative behavior among students

 Simplest is experimental vs. control group

experimental gets treatment
control does not
Experimental Variable
Independent variable (IV)
the controlled factor in an experiment (i.e. the one you
manipulate)
hypothesized to cause an effect on another variable

Dependent variable (DV)

the measured facts
hypothesized to be influenced by IV
Case Study Approach

• Collect various information about aspects of a subject to

be studied

• Allows an in-depth view of the person

• Make a conclusion about a subject understudied, but the

information may not generalize to other people because
of the unique of the person

• Generally used to investigate rare, unusual, or extreme

conditions
 Cross-sectional study
Involves studying people all at one time

 Longitudinal study
Study the same group of respondent within a
certain time frame usually several years
THE END............