Examining Developmental Theories



Examining Developmental Theories

Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory

The Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980), has influenced the development of psychology in the field of cognitive development greatly. In many studies, his theoretical and empirical findings were reviewed, amended and corrected. In almost any textbook of the developmental psychology, his findings are presented in detail.

According to Piaget, every man is born with two fundamental trends; one is the tendency to adaptation, to adapt to the environment. It comprises two complementary processes: assimilation (environmental change) and the accommodation (the change in behavior). The other is the tendency to organize, integrate their processes into coherent systems. Each person strives through adaptation and assimilation and always restores equilibrium, i.e. an equilibrium condition. They want harmony in their life and the surroundings. For example, people feel a certain tension when they do not understand or do not know about anything, and then they come over to this disequilibrium by learning.

The Piaget theory covers both sensorimotor and behavioral patterns and other operational and cognitive schemata. So abstract forms of human actions and thought processes are meant, which are similar in their basic structure. At the beginning of the child's development, there prevail sensorimotor schemas, wherein the term refers to the fact that the child perceived about his senses and the effect of his behavior. In these schemes, the mind plays no significant role. Only from the 2nd Age, cognitive schemas are developed, such as the classification scheme (the ability to organize things for certain characteristics such as color etc).

Piaget believes that the (small) child develops his understanding of the world (knowledge) constructed in the automatic analysis of its environment, cognitive schemas are first derived from sensory motor. Cognitive development is otherwise affected by four factors: the aging, the contact with the environment (i.e., physical experience on the one hand and mathematical experiences on the other, the latter being acquired by the internal coordination of actions), social communication (learning from others, lessons etc.) and equilibration (self-regulating forces in the child, through which it is trying to achieve equilibrium) (Piaget, 1964).

Erikson Behavior and Learning Theory

Erikson was a psychoanalyst noted for his contributions to developmental psychology. He developed a theory of personality development which he called as “Behavior and Learning theory". It describes eight stages of life or psychosocial stages (crisis or conflict in the development of life, which people have to face), which are:

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