Chapter 2: Theoretical Foundations

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Week 2 Glossary Terms:

 Theory

 Classical Conditioning

 Operant Conditioning

 Schema

 Accommodation

 Scaffolding

 Zone of Proximal Development

 Social learning

What is a Theory?
(Paris et al., 2019)(Lumen Learning et al., n.d.)

Students sometimes feel intimidated by theory. Even the phrase, “Now we are going to
look at some theories...” is met with blank stares and other indications that the audience
is now lost. Theories are valuable tools for understanding human behavior; in fact they
are proposed explanations for the “how” and “whys” of development. Have you ever
asked yourself the questions, “Why is my three-year-old so inquisitive?” or “Why are
some fifth graders rejected by their classmates?” Theories can help explain these and
other occurrences. Developmental theories offer explanations about how we develop,
why we change over time and the kinds of influences that impact development.
A theory guides and helps us interpret research findings as well. It provides the
researcher with a blueprint or model to be used to help piece together various studies.
Think of theories as guidelines much like directions that come with an appliance or
other object that requires assembly. The instructions can help one piece together smaller
parts more easily than if trial and error are used.

Theories can be developed using induction in which a number of single cases are
observed and after patterns or similarities are noted, the theorist develops ideas based on
these examples. Established theories are then tested through research; however, not all
theories are equally suited to scientific investigation. Some theories are difficult to test
but are still useful in stimulating debate or providing concepts that have practical
application. Keep in mind that theories are not facts; they are guidelines for
investigation and practice, and they gain credibility through research that fails to
disprove them .

Let’s take a look at some key theories in Child Development.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Sigmund Freud’s Psychosexual Theory

(Carter et al., 2019)

We begin with the often controversial figure, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Freud has
been a very influential figure in the area of development; his view of development and
psychopathology dominated the field of psychiatry until the growth of behaviorism in
the 1950s. His assumptions that personality forms during the first few years of life and
that the ways in which parents or other caregivers interact with children have a long-
lasting impact on children’s emotional states have guided parents, educators, clinicians,
and policy-makers for many years. We have only recently begun to recognize that early
childhood experiences do not always result in certain personality traits or emotional
states. There is a growing body of literature addressing resilience in children who come
from harsh backgrounds and yet develop without damaging emotional scars (O’Grady
& Metz, 1987). Freud has stimulated an enormous amount of research and generated
many ideas. Agreeing with Freud’s theory in its entirety, however, is hardly necessary
for appreciating the contribution he has made to the field of development.

Freud’s theory of self suggests that there are three parts of the self:

The id is the part of the self that is inborn. It responds to biological urges without pause
and is guided by the principle of pleasure: if it feels good, it is the thing to do. A
newborn is all id. The newborn cries when hungry, defecates when the urge strikes.

The ego develops through interaction with others and is guided by logic or the reality
principle. It has the ability to delay gratification. It knows that urges have to be
managed. It mediates between the id and superego using logic and reality to calm the
other parts of the self.
The superego represents society’s demands for its members. It is guided by a sense of
guilt. Values, morals, and the conscience are all part of the superego. The personality is
thought to develop in response to the child’s ability to learn to manage biological urges.
Parenting is important here. If the parent is either overly punitive or lax, the child may
not progress to the next stage.

Here is a brief introduction to Freud’s stages:

Name of
Description of Stage
Stage
The oral stage lasts from birth until around age two. The infant is all id. At
Oral this stage, all stimulation and comfort is focused on the mouth and is based
Stage on the reflex of sucking. Too much indulgence or too little stimulation may
lead to fixation.
The anal stage coincides with potty training or learning to manage biological
Anal surges. The ego is beginning to develop in this stage. Anal fixation may
Stage result in a person who is compulsively clean and organized or one who is
sloppy and lacks self-control.
Phallic The phallic stage occurs in early childhood and marks the development of
Stage the superego and a sense of masculinity or femininity as culture dictates.
Latency occurs during middle childhood when a child’s urges quiet down
Latency and friendships become the focus. The ego and superego can be refined as
the child learns how to cooperate and negotiate with others.
Genital The genital stage begins with puberty and continues through adulthood. Now
Stage the preoccupation is that of sex and reproduction.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Freud’s Theory

Freud’s theory has been heavily criticized for several reasons. One is that it is very
difficult to test scientifically. How can parenting in infancy be traced to personality in
adulthood? Are there other variables that might better explain development? The theory
is also considered to be sexist in suggesting that women who do not accept an inferior
position in society are somehow psychologically flawed. Freud focuses on the darker
side of human nature and suggests that much of what determines our actions is
unknown to us. So why do we study Freud? As mentioned above, despite the criticisms,
Freud’s assumptions about the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping
our psychological selves have found their way into child development, education, and
parenting practices. Freud’s theory has heuristic value in providing a framework from
which to elaborate and modify subsequent theories of development. Many later theories,
particularly behaviorism and humanism, were challenges to Freud’s views.

Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory

(Learning & Overstreet, 2017)

Now, let’s turn to a less controversial theorist, Erik Erikson. Erikson (1902–1994)
suggested that our relationships and society’s expectations motivate much of our
behavior in his theory of psychosocial development. Erikson was a student of Freud’s
but emphasized the importance of the ego, or conscious thought, in determining our
actions. In other words, he believed that we are not driven by unconscious urges. We
know what motivates us and we consciously think about how to achieve our goals. He is
considered the father of developmental psychology because his model gives us a
guideline for the entire lifespan and suggests certain primary psychological and social
concerns throughout life.

Erikson expanded on his Freud’s by emphasizing the importance of culture in parenting

practices and motivations and adding three stages of adult development (Erikson, 1950,
1968).

He believed that we are aware of what motivates us throughout life and the ego has
greater importance in guiding our actions than does the id. We make conscious choices
in life and these choices focus on meeting certain social and cultural needs rather than
purely biological ones. Humans are motivated, for instance, by the need to feel that the
world is a trustworthy place, that we are capable individuals, that we can make a
contribution to society, and that we have lived a meaningful life. These are all
psychosocial problems.

Erikson divided the lifespan into eight stages. In each stage, we have a major
psychosocial task to accomplish or crisis to overcome. Erikson believed that our
personality continues to take shape throughout our lifespan as we face these challenges
in living. Here is a brief overview of the eight stages:

Name of Stage Description of Stage

Trust vs. mistrust
The infant must have basic needs met in a consistent way in
order to feel that the world is a trustworthy place.
(0–1 years of age)
Autonomy vs. shame Mobile toddlers have newfound freedom they like to exercise
and doubt (1–2 years of and by being allowed to do so, they learn some basic
age) independence.
Initiative vs. guilt
Preschoolers like to initiate activities and emphasize doing
things “all by myself.”
(3–5 years of age)
Industry vs. inferiority School aged children focus on accomplishments and begin
making comparisons between themselves and their
(6–11 years of age) classmates
Identity vs. role Teenagers are trying to gain a sense of identity as they
confusion (adolescence) experiment with various roles, beliefs, and ideas.
Intimacy vs. isolation
Young adults in their 20s and 30s are making first long-term
commitments in intimate relationships.
(young adulthood)
Generativity vs. Adults through their 40s and early 60s focus on being
stagnation productive at work and home and are motivated by wanting
to feel that they’ve made a contribution to society.
(middle adulthood)
Integrity vs. despair Adults look back on their lives and hope to like what
they see, that they have lived well and have a sense of
(late adulthood) integrity because they lived according to their beliefs.

These eight stages form a foundation for discussions on emotional and social
development during the lifespan. Keep in mind, however, that these stages or crises can
occur more than once. For instance, a person may struggle with a lack of trust beyond
infancy under certain circumstances. Erikson’s theory has been criticized for focusing
so heavily on stages and assuming that the completion of one stage is prerequisite for
the next crisis of development. His theory also focuses on the social expectations that
are found in certain cultures, but not in all. For instance, the idea that adolescence is a
time of searching for identity might translate well in the middle-class culture of the
United States, but not as well in cultures where the transition into adulthood coincides
with puberty through rites of passage and where adult roles offer fewer choices.

Behaviorism

(Baker & Sperry, 2024)

While Freud and Erikson looked at what was going on in the mind, behaviorism
rejected any reference to mind and viewed overt and observable behavior as the proper
subject matter of psychology. Through the scientific study of behavior, it was hoped
that laws of learning could be derived that would promote the prediction and control of
behavior .

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov (1880–1937) was a Russian physiologist interested in studying digestion.

As he recorded the amount of salivation his laboratory dogs produced as they ate, he
noticed that they actually began to salivate before the food arrived as the researcher
walked down the hall and toward the cage. “This,” he thought, “is not natural!” One
would expect a dog to automatically salivate when food hit their palate, not before the
food comes. The dogs knew that the food was coming because they had learned to
associate the footsteps with the food. The key word here is learned. A learned response
is called a conditioned response.

Pavlov began to experiment with this concept of classical conditioning. He began to

ring a bell, for instance, prior to introducing the food. Sure enough, after making this
connection several times, the dogs could be made to salivate to the sound of a bell.
Once the bell had become an event to which the dogs had learned to salivate, it was
called a conditioned stimulus. The act of salivating to a bell was a response that had also
been learned, now termed in Pavlov’s jargon, a conditioned response. Notice that the
response, salivation, is the same whether it is conditioned or unconditioned (unlearned
or natural). What changed is the stimulus to which the dog salivates. One is natural
(unconditioned) and one is learned (conditioned).

Let’s think about how classical conditioning is used on us. One of the most widespread
applications of classical conditioning principles was brought to us by the psychologist,
John B. Watson.

John B. Watson

John B. Watson (1878–1958) believed that most of our fears and other emotional
responses are classically conditioned. He had gained a good deal of popularity in the
1920s with his expert advice on parenting offered to the public.

He tried to demonstrate the power of classical conditioning with his famous experiment
with an eighteen-month-old boy named Little Albert. Watson sat Albert down and
introduced a variety of seemingly scary objects to him: a burning piece of newspaper, a
white rat, and so on.Albert remained curious and reached for all of these things. Watson
knew that one of our only inborn fears is the fear of loud noises so he proceeded to
make a loud noise each time he introduced one of Albert’s favorites, a white rat. After
hearing the loud noise several times paired with the rat, Albert soon came to fear the rat
and began to cry when it was introduced. Watson filmed this experiment for posterity
and used it to demonstrate that he could help parents achieve any outcomes they
desired, if they would only follow his advice. Watson wrote columns in newspapers and
in magazines and gained a lot of popularity among parents eager to apply science to
household order.

Operant conditioning, on the other hand, looks at the way the consequences of a
behavior increase or decrease the likelihood of a behavior occurring again. So let’s look
at this a bit more.

B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning

B. F. Skinner (1904–1990), who brought us the principles of operant conditioning,

suggested that reinforcement is a more effective means of encouraging a behavior
than criticism or punishment. By focusing on strengthening desirable behavior, we
have a greater impact than when we emphasize what is undesirable. Reinforcement is
anything that an organism desires and is motivated to obtain.

A reinforcer is something that encourages or promotes a behavior. Some things are

natural rewards. They are considered intrinsic or primary because their value is easily
understood.Think of what kinds of things babies or animals such as puppies find
rewarding. Extrinsic or secondary reinforcers are things that have a value not
immediately understood. Their value is indirect. They can be traded in for what is
ultimately desired.
The use of positive reinforcement involves adding something to a situation in order to
encourage a behavior. For example, if I give a child a cookie for cleaning a room, the
addition of the cookie makes cleaning more likely in the future. Think of ways in which
you positively reinforce others.

Negative reinforcement occurs when taking something unpleasant away from a situation
encourages behavior. For example, I have an alarm clock that makes a very unpleasant,
loud sound when it goes off in the morning. As a result, I get up and turn it off. By
removing the noise, I am reinforced for getting up. Think of ways in which you
negatively reinforce others.

Punishment is an effort to stop a behavior. It means to follow an action with something

unpleasant or painful. Punishment is often less effective than reinforcement for several
reasons. It doesn’t indicate the desired behavior, it may result in suppressing rather than
stopping a behavior, (in other words, the person may not do what they are being
punished for when you’re around, but may do it when you leave), and a focus on
punishment can result in not noticing when the person does well.

Not all behaviors are learned through association or reinforcement. Many of the things
we do are learned by watching others. This is addressed in social learning theory.

Social Learning Theory

(Lumen Learning, 2024a)

Albert Bandura (1925–2021) is a leading contributor to social learning theory. He calls

our attention to the ways in which many of our actions are not learned through
conditioning; rather, they are learned by watching others (Bandura, 1977). Young
children frequently learn behaviors through imitation.

Sometimes, particularly when we do not know what else to do, we learn by modeling or
copying the behavior of others. A kindergartner on their first day of school might
eagerly look at how others are acting and try to act the same way to fit in more quickly.
Adolescents struggling with their identity rely heavily on their peers to act as role-
models. Sometimes we do things because we’ve seen it pay off for someone else. They
were operantly conditioned, but we engage in the behavior because we hope it will
work for us as well. This is referred to as vicarious reinforcement (Bandura et al.,
1963).

Bandura suggests that there is interplay between the environment and the individual
(Bandura, 1986). We are not just the product of our surroundings, rather we influence
our surroundings. Parents not only influence their children’s environment, but children
influence parents as well. Parents may respond differently with their first child than
with their fourth. Perhaps they try to be the perfect parents with their firstborn, but by
the time their last child comes along they have very different expectations both of
themselves and their child. Our environment creates us and we create our environment.
Bandura and the Bobo Doll Experiment & Today’s Children and the Media

(Lumen Learning, 2024a; Rasmussen, 2017)

A major influence on children is TV and media. Bandura (Bandura et al., 1963) began a
series of studies to look at the impact of television, particularly commercials, on the
behavior of children. Are children more likely to act out aggressively when they see this
behavior modeled on screen? What if they see it being reinforced? Bandura began by
conducting an experiment in which he showed children a film of a woman hitting an
inflatable clown or bobo doll. Then the children were allowed in the room where they
found the doll and immediately began to hit it. This was without any reinforcement
whatsoever. Not only that, but they found new ways to behave aggressively.

Children view far more television today than in the 1960s. So much, in fact, that they
have been referred to as Generation M (media). The amount of screen time varies by
age. As of 2017, children 0–8 spend an average of 2 hours and 19 minutes. Children 8–
12 years of age spend almost 6 hours a day on screen media. Teenagers 13–18 spend an
average of just under 9 hours a day in entertainment media use.

The prevalence of violence, sexual content, and messages promoting foods high in fat
and sugar in the media are certainly cause for concern and the subject of ongoing
research and policy review. Many children spend even more time on the computer
viewing content from the internet. The amount of time spent connected to the internet
continues to increase with the use of smartphones that essentially serve as mini-
computers. The ways children and adolescents interact with the media continues to
change. The popularity of YouTube and the various social media platforms are
examples of this. What might the implications of this be?

Cognitive Theories

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

(Lumen Learning, 2024b; Lumen Learning et al., n.d.)

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) is one of the most influential cognitive theorists. Piaget was
inspired to explore children’s ability to think and reason by watching his own children’s
development. He was one of the first to recognize and map out the ways in which
children’s thought differs from that of adults. His interest in this area began when he
was asked to test the IQ of children and began to notice that there was a pattern in their
wrong answers. He believed that children’s intellectual skills change over time through
maturation. Children of differing ages interpret the world differently.

Piaget believed our desire to understand the world comes from a need for cognitive
equilibrium. This is an agreement or balance between what we sense in the outside
world and what we know in our minds. If we experience something that we cannot
understand, we try to restore the balance by either changing our thoughts or by altering
the experience to fit into what we do understand. Perhaps you meet someone who is
very different from anyone you know. How do you make sense of this person? You
might use them to establish a new category of people in your mind or you might think
about how they are similar to someone else.

A schema or schemes are categories of knowledge. They are like mental boxes of
concepts. A child has to learn many concepts. They may have a scheme for under and
soft or running and sour. All of these are schemas. Our efforts to understand the world
around us lead us to develop new schemas and to modify old ones.

One way to make sense of new experiences is to focus on how they are similar to what
we already know. This is called assimilation. So the person we meet who is very
different may be understood as being “sort of like my brother” or “his voice sounds a lot
like yours.” A new food may be assimilated when we determine that it tastes like
chicken!

Another way to make sense of the world is to change our mind. We can make a
cognitive accommodation to this new experience by adding a new schema. This food is
unlike anything I’ve tasted before. I now have a new category of foods that are bitter-
sweet in flavor, for instance. This is accommodation. Do you accommodate or
assimilate more frequently? Children accommodate more frequently as they build new
schemas. Adults tend to look for similarity in their experience and assimilate. They may
be less inclined to think outside the box.

Piaget suggested different ways of understanding that are associated with maturation.
He divided this into four stages:

Name of Stage Description of Stage

During the sensorimotor stage children rely on use of the senses and
motor skills. From birth until about age 2, the infant knows by tasting,
Sensorimotor smelling,
Stage
touching, hearing, and moving objects around. This is a real hands-on
type of knowledge.
In the preoperational stage, children from ages 2–7, become able to
think about the world using symbols. A symbol is something that
stands for something else. The use of language, whether it is in the
form of words or gestures, facilitates knowing and communicating
Preoperational
about the world. This is the hallmark of preoperational intelligence and
Stage
occurs in early childhood. However, these children are preoperational
or pre-logical. They still do not understand how the physical world
operates. They may, for instance, fear that they will go down the drain
if they sit at the front of the bathtub, even though they are too big.
Children in the concrete operational stage, ages 7–11, develop the
ability to think logically about the physical world. Middle childhood is
a time of
Concrete
Operational understanding concepts such as size, distance, and constancy of
matter, and cause and effect relationships. A child knows that a
scrambled egg is still an egg and that 8 ounces of water is still 8
ounces no matter what shape of glass contains it.
 During the formal operational stage, children at about age 12 acquire
the

ability to think logically about concrete and abstract events. The

teenager
Formal
Operational
who has reached this stage is able to consider possibilities and to
contemplate ideas about situations that have never been directly
encountered. More abstract understanding of religious ideas or morals
or ethics and abstract principles such as freedom and dignity can be
considered.

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

Piaget has been criticized for overemphasizing the role that physical maturation plays in
cognitive development and in underestimating the role that culture and interaction (or
experience) plays in cognitive development. Looking across cultures reveals
considerable variation in what children are able to do at various ages. Piaget may have
underestimated what children are capable of given the right circumstances .

Sociocultural Theory

Lev Vygotsky

Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) was a Russian psychologist who wrote in the early 1900s
but whose work was discovered in the United States in the 1960s and became more
widely known in the 1980s. Vygotsky differed with Piaget in that he believed that a
person not only has a set of abilities, but also a set of potential abilities that can be
realized if given the proper guidance from others. His sociocultural theory emphasizes
the importance of culture and interaction in the development of cognitive abilities. He
believed that through guided participation known as scaffolding, with a teacher or
capable peer, a child can learn cognitive skills within a certain range known as the zone
of proximal development (Lumen Learning, 2024b). His belief was that development
occurred first through children’s immediate social interactions, and then moved to the
individual level as they began to internalize their learning (Leon & West Hills
Community College Lemoore, 2021).

Have you ever taught a child to perform a task? Maybe it was brushing their teeth or
preparing food. Chances are you spoke to them and described what you were doing
while you demonstrated the skill and let them work along with you all through the
process. You gave them assistance when they seemed to need it, but once they knew
what to do you stood back and let them go. This is scaffolding and can be seen
demonstrated throughout the world. This approach to teaching has also been adopted by
educators. Rather than assessing students on what they are doing, they should be
understood in terms of what they are capable of doing with the proper guidance. You
can see how Vygotsky would be very popular with modern day educators (Lumen
Learning, 2024b).

Evolutionary Theory

(Lazzara, n.d.)

Evolutionary psychology focuses on how universal patterns of behavior and cognitive

processes have evolved over time. Variations in cognition and behavior would make
individuals more or less successful in reproducing and passing those genes to their
offspring. Evolutionary psychologists study a variety of psychological phenomena that
may have evolved as adaptations, including the fear response, food preferences, mate
selection, and cooperative behaviors (Confer et al., 2010).

Many think of evolution as the development of traits and behaviors that allow us to
survive in a competitive world, like strong leg muscles to run fast, or fists to punch and
defend ourselves. However, physical survival is only important if it eventually
contributes to successful reproduction. That is, even if you live to be a hundred years
old but fail to mate and produce children, your genes will die with your body. Thus,
reproductive success, not survival success, is the engine of evolution by natural
selection.

Charles Darwin describes this process in the theory of evolution by natural selection. In
simple terms, the theory states that organisms that are better suited for their
environment will survive and reproduce, while those that are poorly suited for their
environment will die off. There is a growing interest in applying the principles of
evolutionary psychology to better understand lifespan development in humans.

Lifespan Development and Evolutionary Psychology

As we consider development from conception to death, there will be many opportunities

to understand how evolutionary psychology enhances our understanding of
development. For instance, women and men differ in their preferences for a few key
qualities in long-term mating, because of somewhat distinct adaptive concerns. Modern
women have inherited the evolutionary trait to desire mates who possess resources, have
qualities linked with acquiring resources (for example, ambition, wealth,
industriousness), and are willing to share those resources with them. On the other hand,
men more strongly desire youth and health in women, as both are cues to fertility. These
male and female differences have historically been universal in humans.

Just because a psychological adaptation was advantageous in our history, doesn’t mean
it’s still useful today. For example, even though women may have preferred men with
resources in previous generations, our modern society has advanced such that these
preferences are no longer necessary. Nonetheless, it’s important to consider how our
evolutionary history has shaped our automatic or instinctual desires and reflexes of
today so that we can better shape them for the future ahead.
As we follow the journey of life, from conception to death, think about how the theory
of natural selection and the concepts of evolutionary psychology can enlighten our
understanding of why some automatic reflexes or instinctual desires are more common
than others. Remember that the end product of the theory of evolution by natural
selection is successful survival and reproduction. Can you think of some ways that the
ultimate goal of reproductive success affects our selection of a mate, how we parent
young children, why we are motivated to achieve certain goals, or what differentiates
families with traditionally longer lifespans? In order to achieve reproductive success,
the theory of evolution by natural selection states that organisms should be suited to
their environment. Consider how different environments or cultures require different
traits for successful survival and reproduction. Can you think of some ways that we may
be shifting to be better suited to our changing culture?

References

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