Psychodynamic and Social Development Theories

• Behaviour is learned from others' responses.
• Individuals interpret themselves according to how others treat them, and interpret others by analogy to themselves.
• Individual differences, nature vs. nurture, and the active child are connections to larger themes in social development.
• Individual differences refer to the idea that two people growing up in the same area can develop differently.
• Nature vs. nurture is the question of how much of development is influenced by each.
• The active child concept focuses on how some children actively shape their own development through their social interactions and environment.

Self Reflection

• Personal development can be explored by reflecting on the areas of one's social world that had the most impact and how social contexts influenced their development.
• School, peers, family, culture, and media can all influence your personal development
• These experiences as children can be analyzed later in life.

Theories of Social Development

• Psychoanalytic, learning, social cognitive, and ecological theories exist.

Psychoanalytic Developmental Theories

• Psychoanalytic theories had a significant impact on Western culture and theories about personality and social development.
• Development is driven by biological maturation.
• Freud's psychosexual theory is based on behavior motivated by the need to satisfy basic, unconscious drives.
• Erikson's psychosocial theory suggests that development is driven by a series of developmental crises related to age and maturation.
• Freud's concepts are included within sexual desire.

Freud's Psychosexual Development

• Sexual nature motivates behavior in universal developmental stages that present conflicts and erogenous zones.
• Conflict resolution affects development throughout life.
• Three personality structures include the ID, Ego, and Super Ego.
• Frued is considered the father of psychosexual development
• Personality develops through these stages according to Freud.
• Psychosexual development occurs across five stages: oral (0-1), anal (1-3), phallic (3-6), latency (6-12), and genital (12-adulthood).
• Harsh parenting having negative outcomes on children's well-being.
• Conflict can result in fixation at a particular stage.
• Interruptions during any phase can affect development and cause later issues, such as smoking.

Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development

• Erikson accepted basic elements of Freud's theory but added social factors, cultural influences, and contemporary issues.
• There are eight age-related developmental stages, each with a specific crisis that needs to be resolved for growth.
• Basic Trust vs. Mistrust (0-1) involves developing trusting relationships with caregivers.
• Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (1-3) involves developing a sense of independence and autonomy.
• Initiative vs. Guilt (4-6) involves taking initiative in activities and feeling a sense of purpose.
• Industry vs. Inferiority (6 –puberty) involves developing a sense of competence and mastery in skills.
• Identity vs. Role Confusion (adolescence-early adulthood) involves fostering a coherent sense of identity by exploring roles.

Psychoanalytic Theories

• Focus on early emotional relationships and the importance of early childhood.
• Includes current attachment theory and research and the role of unconscious mental activity.
• Erikson's contribution emphasized the quest for identity in adolescence.
• It laid the foundation for research on adolescence.
• The primary issue with related research questions is that they are too broad and cannot be tested
• Focus on internal forces.

Practical Application of Erikson's Theory

• Recognize the stage and devlopmental criis that children you are interacting with are at, with regards to Erikson's theory of psychosocial development
• What central issues must be resolved in this stage?
• Consider how this developmental stage applies to everyday behavior in the classroom/professional working environment.
• Consider also how children's caregivers supporting resolution of said developmental issues

Learning Theories

• Watson's Behaviorism, Skinner's Operant Conditioning, and Social Learning Theory exist.
• Focuses on external forces.

Watson's Behaviorism

Give me a dozen healthy infants... and I can the guarantee to take any of them at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select

• Says you can shape a person into who you want them to be by conditioning

Skinner's Operant Conditioning

• B. F. Skinner proposed that behavior is under environmental control.
• Operant responses are influenced by the outcomes of past behavior.
• Intermittent reinforcement and behavior modification are key concepts.
• For parents and teachers, attention can be a reinforcer, and time-out/temporary isolation can be used.
• Children act out when wanting attention.

Bandura's Social Learning Theory

• Albert Bandura states that most human learning is inherently social and based on observation, attention, and imitation of others' behavior.
• Observational learning involves cognitive processes such as attention, encoding, storing, and retrieving.
• In reciprocal determinism, child and environment influences operate in both directions.
• The Bobo Study showed vicarious reinforcement.

Review of Learning Theory

• Strengths are:
  • Unlike psychoanalytic theories, learning theories are based on principles derived from experiments
  • Resulted in research on parenting and behavior management strategies for youth workers
• Weaknesses are:
  • Focus on behavior, not brain or mind
  • Lack attention to biological influences
  • Minimize impact of perceptual, motor, cognitive, and language development

Theories of Social Cognition

• Children actively process social information and can think and reason about their own and others' thoughts, feelings, motives, and behaviors.
• They use self-socialization to influence their own development (individual differences).

Selman's Theory of Role Taking

-Stages of perspective taking evolve in stages,

• stage 1 (ages 6-8): Children learn that others can have a different perspective, but assume it's because they have different information.
• stage 2 (ages 8-10):, They recognize that someone else can have a different view, but they can't yet compare.
• stage 3 (ages 10-12): Children systematically compare points of view.
• stage 4 (ages 12 years and older): they compare from an outside perspective

Dodge's Information-Processing Theory of Social Problem Skills

• Children can use aggression as a problem-solving skill.
• Dodge's information-processing theory: some will have a hostile attribution bias:
  • Dodge introduced the idea that some children have a general expectation that others are antagonistic towards them and are likely to take an approach of retaliation
• When children have negative social interactions, they usually would like to get even

Dweck's Theory of Self Attribution and Achievement

• Learning goals vs. performance goals exist
• Differences in attributions include entity/helpless orientation, incremental/mastery orientation, entity theory (fixed mindset), and incremental theory (growth mindset).
• Childrens motivation can be from; learning goals or performance goals
• There is difference between fixed mindset vs growth mindset

Perspectives on Social Cognitive Theories

• Children seek information about the social world.
• Effect of social cues is influenced by their interpretations and supported by research
• Insight into biological factors in social development

Developmental Social Neuroscience

• There's a crucial that plays the different social environments in shaping the developing brain.
• Adverse rearing conditions (orphanages) can disrupt hormonal systems (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (hpa) axis), leading to atypical hormonal responses in social situations.
• A developmental social neuroscience approach should study the neural consequences of early social stress, particularly in children exposed to adverse rearing conditions.

The Science of Neglect

• The Science of Neglect is the reason why there is so much focus on children- they are the next generation of society
• Neglect fails to provide the basic functionings of the brain and can further deeply affect the development of a child's synapses and neurological based functions
• Healthy development requires adult interactions.
• Over any other kind of maltreatment children are most likely to be neglected

Ecological Theories

• Ethological theories exist that understand development in terms of evolutionary heritage.
• Evolutionary theories explore how certain genes predispose people to behave in survival-appropriate ways, or imprinting
• Imprinting shows how evolution applies to development.

Bioecological Theory

• Child's environment contains a a series of nested structures that impact development.
• Microsystem (family; bidirectional relationship)
• Mesosystem (microsystem interconnections)
• Exosystem (indirect, but influential), Macrosystem (larger cultural and social context)
• Chronosystem (temporal dimension change over time)

Analyzing ADHD Using the Bioecological Model

• ADHD is caused within the microsystem because of heritability, parent behaviour, prenatal environment
• Treatment approaches exist in the microsystem (doctors), exosystem (the drug industry), and macrosystem (the government).
• There is a degree of external influence on medication availability

The Media

• Multiple levels of the bioecological model are all relevant when considering media
• Chronosystem: the amount of time an individual spends on a device
• Macrosystem: cultural views and government
• Exosystem: parental pressures
• Microsystem: Parental monitoring

Media and Child Development

• Impact of digital media on child development
• Younger children primarily engage in entertainment or educational media.
• Older children shift towards interactive media uses
• Activity like video calls with friends and family are considered moderationaly beneficial
• There are risk factors that influence quality of media and interpretation of this body of information

Older Children's Exposure to Media

• More than 3/4s of teens and tweens regularly use social media

Social Media

• Study indicates that 2/3s of tweens and teens view online video on a daily basis
• There is concern about children being exposed to violent or harmful media.
• 79% of people in emerging economies were very concerned about children viewing harmful and immoral content

Physical Inactivity

• The sedentary way of life of children associating with being online has a high risk of obesity.
• Recommended time online is not usually met with recommended levels of exercise

Pornograpy Concerns

• There is concern and data that suggests potential harmful exposure
• 63% reported consuming pornongraphy whether accidental and/or intentional and also aggressive and/or harmful.

Social Media Statistics

• In 2021, 84% of American teens used at least one social media platform (varied platforms) daily; may be addicted.
• Mixed review for well being, while still creating pressure, sleep interferance and feelings of exclusion can be involved
• Provides support and community building
• Cyberbulling concerns
• There are some methodological issues in studies including a self reporting bias
• Positives and negatives

Addressing the negative effects/weapons of media

• Controls that parents make on children.
• Talking and discussion of pornography with a trusted adult
• Legal governmental controls to aid to the negative impacts Current Perspectives
• Evolutionary theories are grounded in an understanding of genetics.
• Placement through high degrees of variables between the two individuals and also the world around them

Explore key concepts in psychodynamic and social development theories, including Freud's psychosexual stages, Erikson's psychosocial stages, and the impact of environment and personality on development. Understand how these theories explain behavior, social interactions, and personal development.