How Do the Major Theories of Child Development Essay

Social experiences play a vital role in the development of children. Theories of child development have been created to help us to understand how children’s minds develop, taking into account the differences between cultures around the world. Some of these theories explore the possibility that children gain knowledge, develop new concepts and bridge new ideas through interaction with experience and cognitive schemata. Some theories explore the theory that development also plays a role in social experience. There are many theories of development, but some are more influential and have inspired a lot of research. There are four main contrasting theories of child development that not only help us to understand child development as a whole, but also assist us in the understanding of the role of social experiences in child development. These four theories of development are often referred to as the ‘grand theories’ as they cover all aspects of child development, not just specific parts. The four grande theories are behaviourist theory, the social learning model, constructivist theory, and social constructivist theory. This essay will discuss and outling the four main theories of development, compare and contrast some of the concepts of the main theories, then discuss whether or not the theory is able to explain the role of social experiences in child development. Behaviourism used to be the most dominant theory in psychology throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. The evidence provided by the behaviourist experimental technique has been was very important to the discipline of psychology, and many of the theories have stood up to the test of time. Behaviourist psychologists such as were Ivan Pavlov, John Watson and B. F. Skinner. They used techniques such as conditioning (classical conditioning and operand conditioning) to explore the theories of child development. The behaviourist view on child development is that children learn by conditioning, which means that children’s behaviour is affected by a series of rewards and punishments. This learning theory suggests that children are not active in the process of learning; it is as though they are allowing themselves to be shaped by agents in the environment around them, such as teachers and parental models. One criticism of the behaviourist approach is it’s inability to explain the role of social experiences in child development. This is because behaviourism is primarily focused on experimental and scientific methods, and it is limited in the respect that it does not take into account aspects of human nature which can not be measured by the experimental method alone. Emotions and feelings require can not be fully understood by observation alone; it requires a certain degree of introspection. The behaviourist model has explained some very important aspects of cognative development and learning, but more recent theories have shown that the shaping of a child’s mind is far more complex than conditioning alone. In the 1960’s, the social learning model was created and it was proposed that children learn through simply observing other people around them. Role models are an important part of the social learning model. Research has shown that children will often imitate aggression that they have witnessed through watching other people (Liebert et al. , 1977). This is in contrast with the behaviourist learning theory that children learn through reward and punishment. In 1965, Bandura conducted a study where he explored the hypothesis that children can experience social learning without conditioning. He argued that while children learn by observing and mimicking others, they are also extracting concepts and ideas from what they are observing, and making sense of situations on their own. This is in contrast to the behaviourist view that children are not active agents in their own learning. One criticism of this research is that while this is an insight into how children learn by observation, it tells us very little about the cognitive processes and the development of social schemata. The constructivist view of development was formed by Piaget in the 1920’s and 30’s. Jean Piaget’s stage theory suggests that there are four stages of development that every child will experience and progress through, regardless of culture. Piaget also developed the concept of schemata, and the theory that children gained knowledge through interaction between experiences and schematic concepts. Piaget’s theory is contrary to the behaviourist model as he believed that through observation, children ‘construct’ their own understanding of the world, based on their own experiences and prior knowledge. Piaget believed that this type of learning was more influential than instruction from a teacher or caregiver. Piaget and Binet conducted research into the role of cognitive schema and it’s involvement in the process of learning. They carried out an experiment where they conducted a series of intelligence tests on both children and adults. From this research, Piaget found that children and adults look at the world differently, which as a result causes children to build upon their own schemata on their own term. This is because their reasoning differs from that of adults, so they need to make sense of the world using their own rational. Piaget emphasised the importance of interaction with peers in development. Children learn through socialising with one another, and surprisingly they do not appear to benefit in the same way from contact with Adults. Piaget reasoned that children benefit from exposing one another to conflicting perspectives, which causes them to adapt and develop their cognitive schema. This development does not occur when children are in contact with adults, as they see adults as authority figures, and thus would be willing to accept an adult viewpoint without questioning it, which does not allow them to form new ideas or critique old ideas. The fourth and final theory of development that will be discussed is the social constructivism theory. This theory is similar to the constructivist theory as it proposes that children are active agents in their own learning and development. The social constructivism theory extends the constructivism model by introducing the roles of other agents, and by emphasising the role of interaction in the process of learning. The constructive theory places emphasis on social interaction as an important tool in cognitive development, and that schema are formed by children mostly through social interaction, not just through creating the ideas on their own . Vygotsky was a social constructivist whose theories can be contrasted with Piaget’s contructivist theories. Piaget believed that children are the main agents in developing their own knowledge and cognitive schemata about the things they have experiences in the environment. In contrast, Vygotsky placed more emphasis on the development of social schemata through the internalisation of social interactions using cultural tools such as language and expressions. The social constructivist model can be contrasted with social learning theories because it emphasises interaction with people and the environment, and put less emphases on observation. It can also be contrasted with behaviourism as the theory does not appear to value the possible effects of reward and punishment. The main differences between Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s theories is that Vygotsky believed that children play the most important part in shaping their cognitive development, which is in contrast to Piaget’s theory of the four universal stages of development. Vygotsky did not incorporate stages of development into his theory, and instead tended to focus on more social factors and role of language and other social tools. Vigotsky’s (1978) social constructivist approach was able to explore the social influences on cognitive development. Piaget’s theory was more focused on children creating new knowledge and cognitive schema through their own self exploration. Crain (2000) believed that some theories focus too much on learning by instruction, and that children were able to learn on their own and through social interaction, so it it important to allow them to explore this in order for them to be active, imaginative and ‘childish’. However other theories have suggested that if the process of learning under instruction is left too late then it may be too late to teach children more dult styles of thinking and reasoning. The social learning theory is possibly the model that places the least emphases on social experiences out of the four primary learning theories. The social part of the theory is the process of learning through observation. This theory does not place much emphasis on how social experiences relate to the development of cognitive schema, or how cognitive schemata facilitate social experiences. Children gain knowledge and bridge pathways through simply watching others in the environment around them. It can be seen from the descriptions of the four main theories of development that not all of them take into account of the role of social experiences in child development. They all appear to make valid claims about the different ways in which children develop complex ideas about the world. From studying these four theories, it seems as though children develop through many different means. Internal structures, role models, and traditional teachings in school, all play an important role in shaping a childs development. Social interaction is possibly equaly as important, if not more important in facilitating normal development in children.