Developmental psychology essay PDF

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“Developmental Psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with psychological phenomena of all kinds of infants, children, adolescents, adults and old people and all the psychological changes that occur across the lifespan. It includes research into the development of perception, cognition, language, skills, moral attitudes and social relationships.” (Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, 2009). There has been lots of research and theoretical development on the topic surrounding the different stages of development throughout a person's lifespan. This essay will discuss Bowlby's attachment theory and Piaget's cognitive developmental theory, comparing and contrasting each theory and their research methods used. The evolution of Bowlby’s attachment theory as stated by Thornton (2008) begun when he was working as a psychiatrist as he became greatly concerned by the distressed children that came through orphanages after the Second World War. Cassidy and Shaver (2008) state that Bowlby had noticed that two of the boys had experienced unsettling relationships with their mothers. His observations led him to believe that a child’s relationship with their mother was crucial to the child and vital for later functioning. Bowlby (1997) proposes that attachment consists of four phases. In the first stage, the new-born is unable to differentiate one person from another; they behave towards others in ways such as orientation towards that individual and following their eye movements. Generally, a baby will start to cry when they hear a voice or see a face and this behaviour will increase the amount of time that the baby is close to that person. Bowlby (1997) states that during the second phase the baby will continue to behave in the same friendly manner towards others as shown in phase one, but these behaviours are more visible towards their caregiver. This phase tends to last until

about six months of age. As well as the baby being able to change the way they treat people, they have now (in the third phase) developed a range of responses. Bowlby (1997) suggests that these include following their mother when she leaves and greeting her when she comes back as well as using her as a starting point from which to explore their surroundings. The baby will choose others to become secondary attachment figures but strangers are treated with caution. Phase three takes place between six months and continues to around three years of age. Moving on to the fourth phase, Bowlby (1997) notes that this occurs at two or three years of age, the child will observe their mother’s behaviour and recognise what influences it as well as beginning to understand their caregiver’s set-goals and they are being achieved. The child is learning of their mother’s feelings and goals so that a stronger relationship can be formed. One of the developments to attachment theory, as stated by Bowlby (2005), comes from Mary Ainsworth. The research method she used was a short longitudinal study involving ‘The Strange Situation.’ This procedure as noted by Bowlby (2005), involves a twenty minute observation of a one year old broken down into six parts. The baby and mother are placed in a room which has lots of toys for the child to play with. In the next part, the mother will leave the room and then return a few minutes later. This procedure creates a temporary stressful situation in which there is a great opportunity for observers to note down individual differences that the children show towards their caregiver. One weakness of research into attachment is that it raises ethical concerns due to its subject being exclusively young children who themselves cannot understand nor withdraw from the research, nor are they old enough to comprehend the objectives to

give informed consent. Ethical concerns are further raised in that the children are not protected from harm, an example can be seen in Mary Ainsworth's strange situation procedure in which Bowlby (2005) notes that the child is placed in a temporary stressful situation. Children are placed under unnecessary stress which could have an impact on future development. However, they are only placed under the stress for a few minutes and it is a normal everyday situation to be in as children are often exposed to unfamiliar faces on a daily basis. This is a strength as it is high in ecological validity as it shows true behaviours that occur between a child and mother as well as a child and stranger, therefore gaining useful data. A strength of the research methods is that attachment research is mainly conducted through observations which provides detailed, written, qualitative information which looks at a vast range of behaviours, for example seeing a baby follow their mothers eye movements as Bowlby (1997) states. Nevertheless, the majority of attachment research looks at attachment between the mother figure and child as it is usually easier as Bowlby (2005) suggests, obtaining samples of children who are being cared for by their mother as opposed to their father. This is a weakness as research cannot be generalised to the wider population due to unrepresentativeness because not all children are brought up by their mothers but for example brought up by other family members, therefore ignoring individual differences hence lacking usefulness. From a young age, Swedish born Piaget had a vast interest in philosophy and epistemology even though he had studied natural sciences and biology (Gainotti 1997). Sutherland (1992) states that after the birth of his children he began to wonder how we acquire knowledge and he conducted case studies on his own children and created research surrounding that area.

Thornton (2008) states that there are four stages to Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory. Sensori-motor intelligence is the first stage which starts from birth to eighteen months and this is where the baby begins to develop a basic basis of perception and memory. With time, the baby will see itself as separate from the world and will be able to remember things that they can’t see at present. The period of sensorimotor activity consists of six sub stages, an example of one of these is the stage of reflexes which occurs from birth to one month and is a simple mechanical response to external stimuli such as “blinking at a bright light” as Sutherland (1992, p.9) suggested. Next is the pre-operational thinking stage, this happens from eighteen months to seven years. Thornton (2008) states that a pre-operational child is now able to remember certain actions but cannot piece the two together; their concentration is on the way that things look hence logical connections between one thing and another cannot be understood. Following this is the concrete operational stage which develops from age’s seven to eleven. At this age Thornton (2008) mentions that children are able to solve the conservation, class inclusion, and transitivity task with success and are able to describe how their answers are correct. They no longer have to be dependent on perceptual appearances but now have the knowledge to establish relationships between things. Finally, the formal operational stage occurs from twelve years onwards, Thornton (2008) states that the young adult will see concrete reality as many possible options and therefore will be able to solve problems in many different ways and have diverse moral views. Thinking logically and systematically, they will be able to reason problems using different structures in various ways to find a solution. Once this stage has been reached, formal operational thinking can now be applied to any matter.

Siegler and Alibali (2005) declare that Piaget used a variety of research methods in his work; he conducted observations on his own three children as they were growing up. He often used informal experiments and clinical interviews to support his theory too. Piaget’s tasks he used for observations to support his theory include object permanence, conservation and the three mountains task. An example of his conservation task as mentioned by Carlson, Martin and Buskist (2004), is conservation of mass; this is where the experimenter shows the child two balls of clay that look identical, the experimenter changes one of these and rolls it into a sausage like shape. They then ask the child if the two balls are different or look the same. A strength of Piaget’s theory is that it has generated a vast amount of research over the years, Sutherland (1992) states that Piagetians have replicated Piaget’s tasks all around the world and across various cultures. A recent example of this is the SAVE science research project by Schifter, Ketelhut and Nelson (2012) whereby sixth and seventh grade students participated in a virtual game that assessed children’s understanding of science. After taking part, they were asked what the problem was that they were trying to solve, how they solved the problem, how this was like being a scientist and how it was like or different from taking a test. The results matched with Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. A weakness of the research methods used in Piaget’s theory is that the findings are not very reliable. This is because researchers replicating the experiment often use different resources, word their questions differently and interpret responses and observations. This could possibly be due to mistranslation as Sutherland (1992) suggested. This is a weakness as inconsistencies will be found in the results due to adaptation of the tasks therefore gaining unreliable data.

One similarity between both theories is that they are both useful as they can be applied to a variety of situations and also encourage further research. For example, Piaget’s stages of cognitive development can be applied in a nursery setting as the nursery teacher creates tasks at a pre-operational level which places conceptual bases for a primary school teacher to return to at a concrete operational level as stated by Sutherland (1992). Additionally, Bowlby’s attachment theory is useful as it has guided lots of research in different areas such as attachment between premature babies and their mother’s. An example of this is a study by Brisch, Bechinger, Betzler, Heinemann, Kächelen, Pohlandt, Schmücker, and Buchheim (2005) which used the Strange Situation procedure on a sample of 14 premature babies and conducted adult attachment interviews on 14 mothers. They found that attachment in most very low birth weight babies develop an insecure quality of attachment if they have a neurological impairment. Another similarity between both theories is that they both support nature and nurture. Piaget’s theory supports nurture as Thornton 2008 (p.247) states that “children undoubtedly create their own concepts on the basis of their personal experiences and efforts to make sense of the world.” It also supports nature as Thornton (2008) states that young children have the ability to reason logically at a much earlier age than Piaget thought. This therefore ignores individual differences and proves that genetics have some effect on intelligence. Likewise, attachment theory supports nature as Bowlby (1997) suggests that it is likely that the variation of attachment behaviour from each different child is due to genetic differences. Bowlby (1997) also suggests an over emphasis on nurture as differences in development can be the result of variations from the environment.

A difference between both theories is that Piaget’s theory is discontinuous as it argues that each child must pass through each stage of cognitive development before they pass on to the next. They are also incapable of learning to think in ways connected with the next stage until they are near or in it (Siegler and Alibali 2005.) In contrast, Bowlby’s theory is continuous as attachment is gradual between mother and child. Bowlby (1997) states that after reaching the final stage, a much more complex relationship will be developed. In summary, Bowlby’s attachment theory and Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory are very similar in the way that they both encourage further research that is on-going and visible today. Their contributions to developmental psychology have influenced many psychologists, past and present and will continue to do so for many years to come....