The psychology of development is responsible for the study of the human being at all stages of his life, studies how cognition develops and how behavior changes during the growth phase, is an interesting discipline that brings a multiplicity of knowledge to the field of applied psychology and, therefore, to understand it and not get lost in the middle , we will describe the six main theories about human development.
To explain the data we have now, we’ll talk about some that may be a little outdated, however, their exposure and understanding are critical to explaining the advances that have been made in developmental psychology in recent decades. about six theories about human development: Gestalt, psychoanalysis, conductism, cognitive psychology, Piaget and Vygotsky.
- The psychology of Gestalt was one of the first scientific trends that emerged in psychology.
- His knowledge is now assimilated.
- But his approach to the study of perception was certainly revolutionary.
- In addition.
- Although Gestalt psychologists are less well known in the development study.
- The truth is that they have also excelled in this field.
The Gestalt argues that, to learn, we used a number of structures, structures that would have a physical basis and impose their qualities in relation to our development; on the other hand, they could be defined as complex totalities, the result of the decomposition of complex units. Maybe we can explain it a little better.
According to Gestalt, development is based on biological structures that we learn to use as we grow. So, wouldn’t there be? Development? Genesis and evolutionary stages, only the gradual discovery of the brain’s capabilities. Current research shows that this is not true and that there is genesis and evolution in cognitive processes.
Psychoanalysis is a stream of thought with a well-known father: Sigmund Freud, his focus is on unconscious impulses and their effects on our behavior, although he does not use a scientific method and his assumptions lack the principle of parsimony, it has had a great impact on the study of development and his theories have led to a revolution in the conception that psychology had of childhood and adolescence.
With regard to human development, he believes that this is because the child needs to meet a range of needs at each evolutionary stage, so he classifies development into a series of steps as the satisfaction of this set of needs is established. Psychoanalysis has also emphasized the importance of sexuality at all stages of our development, including the former.
Conductism was born in response to the reduced scientific attitude of psychoanalysis, he is extremely positivist, everything that cannot be measured directly is outside the study of psychology, so only the relationship between perceived stimuli and the behavior they provoked was studied, ignoring any intermediate variables that could not be measured.
For behavioralists, development is understood only with the different types of learning that are considered in this context, the child is born with a series of unconditional and innate responses that, through experience, are associated with other stimuli, through very simple processes, generate a multiplicity of complex behaviors. The problem with this development theory is that it can be considered too reductionist.
It has appeared as a reaction to behaviorism and is interested in the study of internal processes that can occur between a certain stimulus and a certain behavior. Study the mental processes behind behavior. This is where the computational and connectionist perspectives of the human brain are born. Today, cognitive psychology is the most sustained perspective, especially in Europe.
As for the study of development, cognitive psychology suggests that the individual is an information producer who builds internal representations of what the world is like; their position is closer to Piaget and Vygotsky by this constructivist principle; however, when processes are defined as associations, you turn away from them and approach behaviorism.
Piaget is one of the great references of human development theories, he is considered one of the fathers of constructivism, part of the idea that the child builds his world and how he builds it is based on the problems presented to him. on the formation of knowledge.
From his constructivist perspective, he developed a theory that divides development into a series of steps, these steps are universal and all individuals would overcome them at similar ages.
Lev Vygotski was another great reference in theories of human development; like Piaget, he proposed the development of a constructivist perspective; however, despite agreeing with this perspective, he focused on different points: while Piaget focused on how the individual interacted with his environment, Vygotsky focused on the cultural and social effects that influenced development.
For Vygotsky, development was inseparable from the social environment, as culture and society convey forms of behavior and organization of knowledge, of course, this is not a process of copying and pasting, the child builds his reality through what society shows him. is known as socio-constructivism.
It is an interesting paradigm with many possibilities, although many people consider that Vygotsky’s thinking is opposite to Piaget’s, in reality, these two theories can be easily reconciled, but for that to happen, we need to have a broader perspective, acting in different levels. and ways to investigate.