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Overview of Adolescent Psychology Theories

Feb 18, 2025

Lecture Notes: Adolescent Psychology - Developmental Science

Introduction to Developmental Science

  • Developmental Science: A field focused on understanding constancy and change throughout the lifespan.
  • Key Focus: How people grow and change.

Theory

  • Definition: An orderly, integrated set of statements to describe, explain, and predict aspects of the natural world.
  • Characteristics:
    • Make predictions.
    • Serve as an organizing framework.
    • Must be researchable.
  • Example: Darwin’s theory of evolution:
    • Describes: Traits in a population vary; some individuals are better suited to their environment.
    • Explains: Advantageous traits lead to better survival and reproduction.
    • Predicts: Advantageous traits become more common over time.

Basic Issues in Development

  • Continuity vs Discontinuity: Is development a gradual, continuous process or a series of distinct stages?
    • Continuous: Gradual augmentation of the same types of skills.
    • Discontinuous: Emergence of new ways of understanding and responding at specific times.
  • Universal vs Multiple Courses: Is there one path of development for all, or multiple pathways?
    • Stage Theories: Assume a universal sequence of development.
    • Contexts: Unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances leading to different pathways.
  • Nature vs Nurture: What roles do genetics (nature) and environment (nurture) play?
    • Stability often linked to nature; plasticity linked to nurture.

Lifespan Perspective

  • Characteristics of Development:
    • Lifelong
    • Multidimensional and multidirectional
    • Highly plastic
    • Affected by multiple interacting forces
  • Historical Changes: U.S life expectancy has risen from 50 years in 1900 to 79 years today, reflecting lifelong developmental gains.

Domains of Development

  • Physical, Cognitive, Emotional
  • Multidimensional: Affected by biological, psychological, and social forces.
  • Multidirectional: Includes both growth and decline, gains and losses.
  • Plasticity: Although it decreases over time, plasticity is always present.

Influences on Development

  • Age-Graded: Related to age and predictable (e.g., walking, puberty).
  • History-Graded: Unique to a particular historical era (e.g., pandemics).
  • Non-Normative: Irregular events that do not follow a predictable timetable (e.g., illness, tragedy).

Scientific Beginnings and Earlier Theories

  • Normative Period: Development viewed through an evolutionary lens by G. Stanley Hall.
    • Development as a maturational process.
  • Mental Testing Movement: Alfred Binet developed intelligence tests to identify children with learning difficulties.

Psychoanalytic Perspective

  • Key Figures: Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson
  • Psychosexual Theory (Freud):
    • Focus on managing children's sexual and aggressive drives for personality development.
    • Structures of Personality: Id, Ego, Superego
  • Psychosocial Theory (Erikson):
    • Emphasizes the role of ego in acquiring attitudes and skills.
    • Stages include: Trust vs Mistrust, Autonomy vs Shame/Doubt, Initiative vs Guilt.

Behaviorism and Social Learning

  • Key Figures: John Watson, B.F. Skinner, Albert Bandura
  • Behaviorism: Focus on observable events, stimuli, and responses.
  • Social Learning Theory (Bandura): Emphasizes modeling or observational learning.
  • Criticisms: Narrow view of environmental influences.

Cognitive Development Theory

  • Key Figure: Jean Piaget
  • Concept: Children actively construct knowledge as they explore their world.
  • Criticisms: Underestimated children’s capabilities, lacks attention to social/cultural influences.

Other Theories

  • Information Processing: Mind as a symbol-manipulating system.
  • Developmental Neuroscience: Links between brain changes and cognitive development.
  • Ethology and Evolutionary Development: Focus on survival value of behavior.
  • Sociocultural Theory (Vygotsky): Emphasizes cultural transmission through social interaction.
  • Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner): Development within interacting systems (e.g., microsystem, mesosystem).