Developmental Psychology Notes 3

Behaviorism (cn’t)

Exam 3: Skinner, Piaget, & Freud

B.F. Skinner – Operant Instrumental Conditioning

 B.F. Skinner 1904-1990

 Pioneer of Behaviorism, Pool Professor at Harvard University
 Distinguished his research on Operant Conditioning from Pavlov’s
Classical Conditioning in the following way
o According to Skinner, any stimuli or consequence that causes a
behavior or a response to occur again, or not to occur again, are
effective in modifying that behavior or response
 According to Skinner, the stimuli that he refers to are as follows
o Positive Reinforcers: Stimuli that will increase the probability of a
given behavior to occur again
o Negative Reinforcers: Stimuli that will decrease the probability of
a given behavior to occur again; Also referred to them as
Punishers
 Punishment: Intended to decrease, rather than increase,
the probability of a given behavior to occur again
 Skinner was also known for one of his famous case studies: Skinner
Box
o Small enclosure that housed a tiny mouse to record its operant
behaviors and provide reinforcers
o When the mouse pressed a bar, it would receive food
o Pressing the bar is the operant behavior
 Operant Behavior: Acting upon the environment
o Receiving the food is the positive reinforcer
o From the results of his study, Skinner discovered that behaviors
and reinforcers can be
 measured in discrete units
 recorded and controlled
 findings can be replicated
 Schedules of Reinforcement
o from his research and experiment, Skinner discovered schedules
of reinforcement
o Continuous Reinforcement
o Intermittent Reinforcement
 Fixed Ratio Schedule
 Fixed Interval Schedule
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 Variable Schedule
 Variable Ratio
 Variable Interval
 Wrote a book called Waldon 2, that described a utopian society. Also
provided stages of development/child-rearing (Matching)
o Stage 1: Lower Nursery Stage for Infants (Birth-1 year of age)
o Stage 2: Upper Nursery Stage(1-2 years of age)
o Stage 3: Middle Childhood (3-6 years of age)
o Stage 4: Later Childhood (7-13 years of age)
o Stage 5: Adolescent stage(13 & beyond)
 In the mid-1980s, Skinner rebuked American educators and he labeled
them with the following title: “The Shame of American Education”
o Argued that students could learn twice as much as they currently
learn with the same amount of time and effort
o Skinner proposed that they could achieve this goal by doing the
following:
 The aims of education were clarified
 If each student was permitted to advance at his/her own
pace
 If the problem of motivation was solved with computer-
based self-instruction

Jean Piaget – Cognitive Developmental Stage Theory

 Was a psychologist who had the greatest influence over study of child
development
 Born in Switzerland, 1896 & died 1980 in NYC
 Student of biology & zoology
 Learned that survival requires adaptation; meaning organism must
adapt to constant changes in the environment
 Piaget viewed human cognition/intelligence as the continual struggle of
complex organisms trying to adapt to a complex environment (True or
False)
 Piaget also had an interest in the study of psychology, and after
earning his PhD in biology, he studied the techniques of psychanalysis
 Soon moved from Switzerland to Paris because he was involved in
developing intelligence tests for children (Father of the Intelligence
Tests for Children)
 Piaget described human development in terms of functions and
cognitive structures (True or False)
 Cognitive Structures
 Developmental Psychology Notes 3

o Most fundamental aspect of his theory, is cognitive structures

o Piaget believed that a child understands the world by acting or
operating in it
o For example, an infant’s knowledge of a ball consists of various
actions the child can perform with the ball, such as pushing,
throwing, mouthing it, and so on
o These actions are examples of schemes; the cognitive structures
of infancy
o Cognitive structures are: Flexible & Can change over time
o Development refers to continual reorganization of knowledge
into new and more complex structures or schemes, based on
Piaget’s theory (Matching)
 Functions
o Functions guide human development, and are also central to
Piaget's theory
o 2 General Functions: (Matching)
 Organization: Refers to the understanding that all cognitive
structures are interrelated & that any new knowledge must
fit within the existing cognitive structures
 Adaptation: refers to the tendency of the individual to fit
within his/her environment in ways that promote survival
 According to Piaget, Adaptation has 2 components
that operate closely together:
o Assimilation
 tendency to understand new
experiences in terms of existing
knowledge
 Example: an infant who sucks on
everything & toddlers who call every
male figure “dad”
o Accommodation:
 Occurs when new information is too
different/complex to be integrated into
existing knowledge, meaning cognitive
structures change in response to new
experiences
 Example: Infant or toddler will eventually
learn that not all objects are to be sucked
on/ not every male figure is their dad
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o This working relationship between the two

fosters the concept of Constructivism:
 Meaning children actively
create/construct knowledge, rather than
passively receiving it from the
environment
o This process of assimilation, accommodation,
and constructivism of new knowledge begins at
birth and extends throughout life
 Stages of Cognitive Development Theory (Identify Names &
Corresponding Age)
o Stage 1: Sensorimotor Period
 Birth to age of 2
 According to Piaget, infants understand the world through
overt actions performed on it
 These actions reflect sensory motor schemes, which
become progressively more complex and interrelated
 Decentering also occurs, and the infant comes to
understand object permanence:
 Object continues to exist even when the child cannot
see, hear, or feel it
 Also illustrates 2 central themes:
o Progressive Decentering
 infant comes into the world in a profound
state of egocentrism
 inability to distinguish between self and
the external/outer world
 The infant doesn’t know what is specific
to self, such as one’s own perception,
actions, & wishes, and what exists apart
from oneself
o Invariants
 Are the cognitive aspects of development
that changes over time, such as IQ,
physical growth
 Has 6 substages:
o Substage 1: Exercising reflexes
 Birth to 1 month
 Infant’s actions/repertoire is limited to
simple biological reflexes
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 Examples: sucking, grasping, positioning

one’s body toward visual stimulus when
it appears
 Involuntary responses to environmental
stimuli
o Substage 2: Developing Schemes
 1-4 months
 Sensorimotor schemes are cognitive
structures of infancy
 Circular reaction occurs; behavior that is
repeated over and over again and it
becomes circular
 These circular reactions are also called
Primary Circular Reactions because they
involve response consequences that are
centered on the infant’s body rather than
on other objects
 One of the Primary Circular Reactions
that is universal is thumb-sucking
 Others include active visual exploration
of objects and listening to one’s own
vocalization
o Substage 3: Discovering procedures
 4-8 months
 Whereas primary circular reactions are
centered on and around the infant’s
body, secondary circular reactions are
focused on the external world such as,
other objects and events
 Infant does something that leads to an
interesting effect on the environment
 In substages 2&3, the infant achieves
simple coordination of schemes
 Infant can now see an object
 Reach for an object
 And run through a
repertoire/scheme to achieve the
desired outcome/object
o Substage 4: Intentional Behavior
 8-12 months
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 Child will perceive a desirable goal and

develop schemes to achieve it
 In doing so, the child is demonstrating
intentional behavior, which is the
beginning of practical intelligence/The
development of intentional behavior is
the hallmark of practical intelligence
o Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reaction
 12-18 months
 Through deliberate trial-and-error-
exploration the infant is engaging in
means-to-end behavior, of the previous
substages to develop new means
 Further, it is often characterized as the
discovery of new means through active
experimentation (child is engaging in
new activities to achieve a goal)
o Substage 6: Mental representation
 18-24 months
 The toddler is capable, for the very first
time, engaging in representation;
meaning thinking about & acting on the
world internally/covertly, and not merely
externally/overtly
 It is the onset of representation that
defines the movement from the
sensorimotor period to the next period of
cognitive development
o Stage 2: Preoperational Period
 Age 2-7 years
 Operation is defined as an internalized action that is part of
an organized structure
 Child can now use representations, rather than overt
actions, to solve problems ( child can now do math in
his/her head, and other problems)
 The child’s thinking is faster and more efficient, much more
mobile, and often more socially acceptable
 Child’s representational functioning is still limited because
they are still at the stage of egocentrism
 Can lead to temper tantrums
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 individuals who believe that world revolves around

them
 Centration also occurs; refers to the child’s tendency to
focus on only one aspect of a problem at a time
 examples: Conservation tasks (matching)
o two cylinders, one is tall & one is short, both
have same amount of water, if asked, child will
always say taller one has the most water,
because they are solely focused on height
o two rows of Bs, each row has 10 Bs, one of the
rows is stretched out, one has no spaces
between the Bs, If asked, child always say the
longest row has the most Bs because they are
solely focused on length
o Stage 3: Concrete Operational Period
 Age 7-11 years
 Child is gradually mastering conservation tasks
 Once they are finally able to master conservation tasks,
child has the ability to engage in class inclusion; child is
able to focus on all aspects of a task
o Stage 4: Formal Operational Period
 Age 11-15 years
 Beginning of the adolescent period
 Child can engage in hypothetical deductive reasoning*
 Formal operational thinker, begins with possibilities and
ends with reality
 *Example: if A is greater than B, and B is greater than C,
then A is greater than C
 4 General Factors that Contribute to Cognitive Developmental Stage
Theory
o Maturation: ability to learn from one’s environment
o Physical Experience: constant and physical changes of one’s
body
o Social Experience: the ability to interact with the external world
o Equilibrium: tendency to move toward higher and higher levels of
achievement

Sigmund Freud – Psychoanalytic Theory

 Developmental Psychology Notes 3

 After he received his M.D. degree, he became interested in the

technique of hypnosis, and studied with French physician, Jean Charcot
 also during this time, he became interested in the powerful role of the
unconscious
 He established a private practice, where he refined both his theory and
methods of psychoanalysis
 Also worked in considerable pain due to cancer of the jaw, speculated
that he used cocaine to relieve the pressure
 During the Nazi regime, around 1937, Freud was forced to flee to
England where he died in 1939
 5 General Characteristics of Psychoanalytic Theory
o 1) Dynamic Approach
 The central theme of Freud’s development theory is that
every child Is born with a certain amount of sexual energy
called the libido, which is biologically guided to certain
locations on the body, called the erogenous zones: Oral,
anal, and genital areas
 This sexual energy, refers to the ability to experience
sexual pleasure
 The arrival of the libido at each erogenous zones, marks a
new stage within a child’s psychosexual development
o 2) Structural Approach
 The Id:
 The dark, mysterious side of one’s personality.
 Contains everything we inherit from our parents
 The Id is the seat of innate desires, and the main
source of sexual energy
 The Id wants immediate gratification, and not
delayed gratification
 Operates throughout life, especially in our
daydreams, night dreams, and our imaginations, as
well as in our impulsive, selfish, and pleasure-seeking
behaviors
 The Id is referred to as the spoiled child of our
personality
 The Ego:
 The mind’s avenue to the real world
 Occurs because it is required/needed for physical and
psychological survival
 Developmental Psychology Notes 3

 The Ego activities include perception, logical thought,

problem-solving, and memory
 The Ego’s decisions are aided by feelings of anxiety
 When one’s anxiety is so strong that it threatens to
engulf the Ego, defense mechanisms emerge
 These defense mechanisms were developed by
Sigmund Freud and his daughter Anna Freud, as
follows: (Matching)
o 1) Repression: denying/forgetting changer
o 2) Reaction Formation: acting the opposite
from the way one truly feels
o 3) Projection: attributing one’s unacceptable
behaviors to others
o 4) Regression: returning to an earlier form of
behavior
o 5) Fixation: Remaining at the present level of
cognitive development
o 6) Sublimation: Substituting a desire, object, or
person for a less desirable one
o 7) Compensation: Making up for failure in one
area by applying oneself in another area
o 8) Identification: Adopting the characteristics of
an aggressor to make up for one’s own
adequacies
o 9) Displacement: Retaliating against someone
other than the one whom retaliation is desired
 The Superego
 Occurs when children resolve their Oedipus complex,
and develop identification with the same-sex parent
 The Superego is composed of two parts:
o Conscience
 Negative
 Punishes child with feelings of guilt
o Ego-Ideal
 Positive
 Refers to standards of conduct, toward
which the child strives
 Rewards the child with feelings of
positive self-esteem and pride
 Developmental Psychology Notes 3

The Superego opposes both the Id and the Ego

The Superego tries to do away with the spoiled child
personality of the Id, and watches over the thoughts
of the Ego
 According to Freud, thinking is as bad as doing; this is
the Superego’s point of view
o 3) Geographic Approach
 According to Freud, the mind displays 3 regions:
 The Unconscious
o Thoughts and feelings that are repressed and
unknown
o The Id resides in the unconscious (True or
False)
 The Preconscious
o Its thoughts become conscious by forming
mental images or by linking words to form
language
 The Conscious/The Perceptual Conscious
o Is what a person is aware of at any given
moment
 These 3 regions operate together in a holistic manner to
produce behavior
o 4) Psychoanalytic Methods Approach
 There are 3:
 Free Association: Requires that a research subject
orally reports his or her ongoing string of thought
 Dream-Analysis: Involves a subject’s verbal reports of
their mental activity
 Transference: Occurs when the research subject has
positive and/or negative feelings for their therapist;
the subject becomes attracted to OR dislikes their
therapist
o 5) Psychosexual Developmental Stage Approach
 Stage 1: Oral
 Birth to age 1
 Libido located in the mouth
 Infant’s principle source of physical pleasure is
sucking
 All objects tend to find their way to the toddler’s
mouth
 Developmental Psychology Notes 3

 When and how long infants are breastfed, and how

they are weaned from the breast will have the
strongest long-term influences on the child’s
behavior
 If infants are weaned too soon/late, they become
fixated; remaining at the present level of
development
 This oral behavior encompasses:
o Alcoholism
o Nail-biting
o Smoking
o Demanding personality
 Stage 2: Anal
 1-3 years of age
 The physical source of the pleasure is having bowel
movements and later, withholding them (leading to
constipation)
 Positive toilet training experiences are the major
concerns during this stage; if toilet training is too
difficult it leads to an Anal Personality
o Consists of the following behaviors which all
transition to later adulthood:
 Over-controlling
 Compulsive
 Stingy
 Hostile
 Defiant
 Also can be extremely neat and rigid
 Stage 3: Phallic
o 3 to 6 years of age
o Physical pleasure is derived from direct
stimulation of the genital organs/ Erogenous
zone is in the genital area
o Stimulation is produced by touching or
masturbation
o Children become sexually attracted to the
opposite-sex parent
o But soon they experience feelings of conflict,
because they realize that the same-sex parent
 Developmental Psychology Notes 3

is a powerful rival for the attention of the

opposite-sex parent (Oedipus or Electra
Complex/Conflict)
o These complexes can be solved by children in 2
ways:
 Repressing their desires into the
unconscious; if they are repressed or
denied then they are forgotten
 Child will compensate for the loss of the
opposite-sex parent by adopting the
characteristics of the same-sex parent
(Identification defense mechanism)
o If the Oedipus and Electra Complex are not
resolved it leads to the following behaviors in
adulthood:
 Impotency for men and frigidity for
women
 Stage 4: Latency Period
o 6 to 12 years of age
o Puberty occurs
o Libido remains repressed and inactive
o The child turns their thoughts to school
activities and play extremely well with same-
sex children
o During this period, the child requires cognitive
skills and assimilates cultural values, and the
child’s world expands to include teachers,
neighbors, peers, club leaders, coaches, and
other role model
 Stage 5: Genital Stage
o Adolescent period – age 13
o Libido reemerges at puberty
o Child also develops an attraction for the
opposite sex child in the form of a playmate
o The goal of this stage is mature, adult,
sexuality with the biological aim of
reproduction
 Most Famous Case Study – Analysis of a Phobia in 5-year old boy Little
Hans
 Developmental Psychology Notes 3

o When Hans was 5 years old:

 Anxiety attacks
 A Phobia occurs
 Fear that a horse would bite him or fall on him was so
strong that Little Hans would not leave his home
 Especially afraid of horses that pulled heavy loads in
carts or were completely white with a black muzzle
and wore blinders
 A fantasy occurs
 During the night, a large giraffe appeared in his room
along with a crumpled giraffe
 The large giraffe would call out to Hans, because the
crumpled giraffe was taken away
 Eventually the large giraffe would stop calling out to
Hans, and the boy would sit on the crumpled giraffe
o From analysis of the phobia & fantasy, Freud identified 3 things:
 Oedipus Conflict
 Sibling Rivalry
 Fear of Punishment due to masturbation
o According to Freud, the horse represented Hans’s father, who
had a mustache which represented the black muzzle, and also
wore eyeglasses, representing blinders
 The father was so white and pale that the color
represented the color of the horse
o Hans’s fear that the horse would bite him, was symbolic to
castration, because of his sexual longing for his mother and for
masturbating
o Anxiety occurred due to engaging in masturbation and his
mother threatening him with castration if he continued the
behavior
o Further, the fear that a horse may fall on him, was symbolic to
Hans’s fear that his father would die or leave him due to his
sexual longing for his mother
o Further, the giraffe fantasy was also interpreted as Hans’s wish
for possessing his mother by sitting on the crumpled giraffe
o Freud also noticed a phallic symbol: the neck of the giraffe
o According to Freud, Hans’s feelings of loss of attention and love,
after the birth of his sister, are expressed in his fear that a cart
 Developmental Psychology Notes 3

pulling heavy loads might spill over, and the contents represent
his mother
 The items that spill over represents his love and attention
for his baby sister
o Hans eventually resolved the Oedipus Complex and recovered
from his fear of horses, and was able to develop a healthy adult
personality

Erik Erikson – Psychosocial Theory

 Psychoanalyst
 His research on various cultures, convinced him to add a psychosocial
dimension to Freud’s theory
 Erikson divides the entire life cycle into 8 stages of man; these 8
stages refer to 8 critical periods when the Ego identity reaches its
climax