Human development is the concern of many disciplines, including biology, sociology, anthropology, education, and medicine. In addition, the topic cuts across nations and cultures, adding to the diversity of subject matter and approaches. Developmental psychology is concerned with constancy and change in psychological functioning over the life span. As a discipline, it arose shortly after the emergence of scientific psychology in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Its antecedents were different from those that led to the founding of experimental psychology.In its early years, developmental psychology was primarily concerned with child and adolescent development. Later, adult development and aging began to assume more importance. Developmental psychology began as a correlational science, focusing on observation, not on experimentation, and thus differed from traditional research psychology.
Prescientific Antecedents
Views of development have always reflected the culture in which they emerged. In one of the earliest views of the child, preformationism, a homunculus or miniature adult was believed to be contained in the semen or egg at conception. The homunculus was only quantitatively different from the adult. Preformationist views were largely abandoned on the biological level with the development of modern science.
Philosophical Bases of Developmental Psychology
From a philosophical perspective, John Locke (1632-1704) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) are the usual starting points for Western discussions of development. Locke is considered the father of modern learning theory. For him, the child was a tabula rasa or blank slate on which experience writes. The role of Locke and later learning theorists was to emphasize the role of the environment in development.
Rousseau is often identified as the father of classical developmental psychology. In his book Emile (1762), he championed a view that emphasized the natural unfolding of the child based on an innate blueprint. He was one of the first to argue that development took place in stages.
Baby Biographies
可以在“婴儿传记”中找到早期了解发展的尝试,这是对孩子通常由父母写的,经常有偏见的儿童的描述性记载。德国哲学家Dietrich Tiedemann(1748-1803)。创作第一本婴儿传记(1787年)被认为是他的作品的后续行动。大约100年后,另一位德国生物学家Wilhelm Preyer(1841-1897)在头四年中详细说明了儿子的心理发展。他以Die Seele des Kindes(孩子的思想)(1882)的身份出版了结果,这是一部经常被认为是开始现代儿童心理学运动的作品。在美国,最著名的婴儿传记是她始于1890年的《米里森·辛恩(Milicent Shinn,1858- 1940年》)的侄女的观察集。
达尔文的影响
The theory of evolution contained in The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was the starting point for many Western developmental psychologists, both European and American. In addition, Darwin’s emphasis on individual differences and adaptation became important components of developmental psychology.
The German physiologist, Wilhelm Preyer, was inspired by Darwin and, in turn, was the inspiration for other European developmentalists including Karl Buhler (1879-1963). Charlotte Buhler (1893-1974), and William Stern (1871-1938). Darwin’s approach also led to the ethological school of development, which includes the work of Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) and Niko Tinbergen (1907-1988). The research and writing of John Bowlby (1907-1990) and Mary Ainsworth (1913-1999) on loss and attachment are later expressions of this school. More recently, a Darwinian-based approach, “evolutionary psychology,” has emerged.
Among the American pioneers deeply affected by Darwin were G. Stanley Hall, one of America’s first psychologists, and James Mark Baldwin, also a pioneer psychologist. Hall’s main approach to development, recapitulation theory, was derived from Darwin through a German biologist, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). Baldwin’s approach has been linked to the theories of both Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.
The Child Study Movement and G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924)
Among the many contextual forces which contributed to the rise of developmental psychology in the United States, the child study movement was the most important. This movement, which emerged during the latter part of the nineteenth century, focused on the welfare of children and, among other things, helped to bring about the passage of laws governing child labor and compulsory education. Its leadership was assumed by G. Stanley Hall.
霍尔将新的心理学与运动联系在一起。他答应了解孩子“科学”。一种对许多团体,特别是教育者的吸引力。他发表了一系列问卷研究,尽管有缺陷,但试图为各个领域的儿童建立规范。
1891年,霍尔(Hall)发表了第一篇《发展心理学杂志》,《教学神学院》,后来更名为《遗传心理学杂志》(这些早期的遗传学一词是发展的代名词)。他写了《青春期》(1904年),一本两卷书,恢复了古老的词,并提供了比标题所建议的更广泛的发展理论。他还写了《衰老》(1922年),这与下半年有关。尽管所有这些努力,但他经常被确定为“美国发展心理学之父”。
Four Pioneer Developmentalists
詹姆斯·马克·鲍德温(James Mark Baldwin,1861- 1934年)提出了一种舞台发展理论,最初着重于认知发展。后来,他将其扩展到包括社会发展。他在很大程度上是一名理论家,而不是实验学家,并且有证据表明他的工作影响了Vygotsky和Piaget。约翰·杜威(John Dewey)(1859-1952)。美国人可能以对哲学和教育的贡献而闻名,但他还写了关于发展问题的文章。与他的许多美国同时代人相反,他的理论具有背景重点,有时将其与维戈茨基的理论相比。他专注于教育,部分原因是他认为这将建立发展议程。他在芝加哥大学建立了一所“实验室学校”,以观察和试验更自然的孩子。他提出的一些问题今天仍在问。发展的哪个方面是普遍的? Which are expressions of local culture? Alfred Binet (1857-1911), a Frenchman. and the father of modern intelligence testing. conducted research on cognitive functioning, including memory. In addition to being a prolific writer, he was an advocate for educational reform. The experimental laboratory school he founded was probably the first in Europe. Binet’s work in intellectual development introduced many concepts which are still in use today. Maria Montessori (1870-1952), an Italian educator, also wrote extensively on child development. Trained as a physician, she first worked with developmentally disabled children. She investigated the writing of Jean-Marc Itard (1774-1838), whose work is often associated with the beginning of special education and his disciple Edouard Seguin (1812-1880). Many of the techniques she learned from them later became part of her Montessori method.
Psychoanalytic Approaches to Developmental Psychology
Psychoanalytic approaches did not enter mainstream academic psychology until the 1930s, but their influence was eventually profound. Moreover, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of the movement, had an impact on popular culture unequaled by any other psychologist. While his method of psychotherapy is well known, it is not always appreciated that his theory is a theory of development. His followers were numerous and produced many different approaches.
Two important followers were his daughter Anna Freud (1895-1982), who became a distinguished psychologist in her own right, and Erik Erikson (1902-1994). Both are “ego psychologists,” since they were more concerned with the conscious, rational part of the personality. Erikson is best known for his book Childhood and Society (1950), and for his description of the eight stages of man. While accepting Freud’s notions of psychosexual development, he discussed them within a broader cultural context.
对发展心理学有影响的其他心理分析家包括Karen Horney(1885-1952),特别是她在女性心理学方面的工作以及她对生命跨度的成长和自我实现的重视。Carl G. Jung(1875-1961)是成人发展和衰老的理论创新者。梅兰妮·克莱因(Melanie Klein,1882- 1960年)发展了对象关系理论,他是安娜·弗洛伊德(Anna Freud)的竞争对手,并强调了生命的前两年,尤其是母亲的重要性。
Normative Developmental Psychology
Until the 1940s, much of developmental psychology was descriptive and normative. Arnold Gesell (1880-1961) was important in promoting this approach. Although his mentor. G. Stanley Hall, had tried to develop normative data on children, it was the work of Gesell that proved of lasting value. Gesell collected voluminous data on infants and children, particularly on their physical and motor development. Moreover, he organized the information to make it useful and available to parents.
他的工作的影响是鼓励父母放松身心并更多地信任自然界。在卢梭的传统中,孩子的自然发展比对父母或教育者的任何干预更为重要。因此,他成为成熟地位的发言人。格塞尔(Gesell)的许多发展规范如今仍在使用。
The Testing Movement
There had been many early attempts to develop measures of intelligence, notably by Francis Galton (1822-1911), but they proved unproductive. However, Alfred Binet, in Paris, tried a new approach and the tests were almost immediately successful. Binet published scales in 1905, 1908, and 791 t. the year of his death, each scale more sophisticated than the last.
美国人,亨利·科德达德(Henry H. Coddard,1866- 1957年)的G. Stanley Hall的前学生,将Binet秤的版本带到了美国。在尝试了许多正常和残疾儿童的孩子之后,他宣布了这项成功,并立即开始在全国范围内发送他翻译版本的副本。
Another former student of G. Stanley Hall, Lewis M. Terman (1877-1956), also an American, developed the most widely used version of the Binet-Simon scales, eventually referred to as the Stanford-Binet, which became the standard against which all measures of intelligence were compared. Terman also initiated the first longitudinal study of development, beginning in 1921. His sample, selected for being gifted in intelligence, continues to be followed today. Later longitudinal studies included the Harvard Growth Study (1922), the Berkeley Growth Study (1928), and the Fels Institute Study of Human Development (1929).
Lev Vygotsky(1896-1934)和情境主义
Although Vygotsky has been dead for more than six decades. he is sometimes referred to as the most important contemporary developmentalist. His ideas are particularly suited for the contextualist theoretical framework which has became popular in recent years. Born and raised in Russia, Vygotsky was a Marxist who believed in the importance of the social and historical context to development. At the same time, he had an appreciation of the internal features of development. This ability to consolidate these two diverse positions has led some to see his work as forming the basis for an integrative theory of development.
尽管Vygotsky经常被比较他,但以实质性的方式与他不同。例如,他更加重视父母和老师在认知发展中的作用。他强调了言语的功能,尤其是为了帮助孩子的成长。他的“近端发展区”。已经发现一种描述儿童在当前水平上表现能力的构造对教师特别有用。
学习理论
John Watson (1878-1958), the father of behaviorism, ushered in a movement that differed in important ways from classical developmental psychology. Learning became the central issue for study. Hence, a model based on Locke rather than Rousseau became the standard. In his famous “Little Albert” experiment (1920), Watson attempted to show how a child’s emotional development could be understood in terms of learning. Later, Mary Cover Jones (1896-1987). with Watson’s guidance, conducted a study of a three-year-old boy to demonstrate how undesirable fears could be eliminated, and by so doing, began the field of behavior modification.
After his departure from academic psychology, Watson continued to write about child development, and his work became popular among parents. He was instrumental in promoting a scientific basis for child care. Eventually, he was replaced as the leader of the child-care movement by less rigid and more child-oriented specialists such as Benjamin Spock.
从学习理论之外,仍然感受到了影响。例如,Kurt Lewin(1890-1947)对动机和冲突更感兴趣,而不是学习。他进行了一些精心设计的现场研究,对不断变化的发展心理学产生了实际影响。尽管如此,目前心理学研究的重点仍在学习上,尽管其中一些偏离了沃森的思想。
One variation included the research of a group at Yale University under the intellectual leadership of Clark Hull (1884-1952). This group began a program of research that tried to combine learning theory and psychoanalytic theory. A member of the group, Robert Sears (1908-1989), applied learning principles to an understanding of the socialization of children. His work, with others, resulted in the book Patterns of Child Rearing (Sears, Maccoby, & Levin, 1957), a frequently cited assessment of child-rearing practices and outcomes. While the group was ultimately unsuccessful in uniting learning theory and psychoanalysis, they succeeded in moving developmental psychology away from a descriptive science to an empirically testable one. By the 1950s and 1960s in America, developmental psychology was dominated by these learning theory approaches.
Notable among more recent learning theorists was B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), a strict behaviorist, who stressed the role of operant learning. He and his followers performed many experiments demonstrating the role of reinforcement in everyday development, Skinner’s work led to widespread use of behavior modification techniques, particularly among autistic children and the developmentally disabled. A highly influential contemporary behaviorist, Albert Bandura (1925- ) has focused more on social learning than Skinner. He has emphasized the importance of modeling, and has conducted many experiments demonstrating how socialization takes place, including the development of aggression, altruism, and sex roles. More recently he has focused on issues of health psychology.
The Genetic Epistemology of Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
The impact of Jean Piaget’s theory on U.S. developmental psychology can hardly be overestimated. Although he contributed a chapter to the first Handbook of Child Psychology (1931), his early work was largely ignored in the United States. By the 1950s, however, a revival of his work began. His stage theory soon became the centerpiece for American developmental psychology, attaining its most important role in the 1970s. His theory was not only essential for most psychologists, it became essential for educators as well.
Piaget saw the child as a scientist, actively constructing increasingly more complex views of the world. At each stage of development, the child is constrained by the cognitive structures available. Piaget was criticized for his methodology and his apparent unwillingness to address the approaches of other prominent developmentalists. Although the era of his greatest prominence has passed, his theory still continues to have an impact on a broad range of developmental issues.
Life-Span Psychology
最初,大多数发育心理学都集中在儿童和青少年上。但是,有一些早期的尝试来研究整个寿命。1777年,德国物理学家兼哲学家约翰·特滕斯(Johann Tetens,1736-1807)出版了一本书,解决了当今仍在关注的许多寿命问题。弗里德里希·卡鲁斯(Friedrich Carus)(1770-1808)的发展视图与tetens相似。他写道,衰老不仅仅是损失和衰落,而是增长和完美的场合。Adolphe Quetelet(1796-1874)可能是第一个在整个寿命中收集身体和心理变量的数据。弗朗西斯·加尔顿(Francis Galton,1822-1911)受到Quetelet的启发,于1884年在伦敦建立了一个“人体测量实验室”,在那里他对9,000多人进行了测量。他的数据构成了整个生命周期中选定的身体和心理特征的早期横断面视图。
The work of these pioneers in life-span development was largely ignored. It was not until the 1920s and 1930s, with the publication of several textbooks on development, that life-span approaches became prominent again. There was additional interest in later developmental periods when several longitudinal studies began to come of age. Robert Havighurst (1900-1991) and Bernice Neugarten (1916- ), at the University of Chicago, were active researchers on development in the middle and later years. Later, the University of West Virginia became an important site for research in life-span development.
Centers of Research in Developmental Psychology
The Iowa Child Welfare Research Station was founded after World War I through the efforts of an Iowa housewife, Cora Bussey Hillis. She argued that if useful research could be conducted in order to understand animals, equally effective research should be directed to an understanding of the child. The Iowa Station was the first of many child development research centers to be established in the United States. Beginning in the 1920s, a number of institutes were established through the efforts of Lawrence K. Frank, initially with money provided by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund.
发展心理学组织和期刊
There are literally hundreds of organizations which are concerned with issues of human development. Many developmental psychologists belong to the American Psychological Association (APA), which includes divisions devoted to Developmental Psychology; Adult Development and Aging; and Child, Youth and Family Services. The APA publishes several relevant journals, including Developmental Psychology and Psychology and Aging. The American Psychological Society is also the organizational home for many American developmental psychologists. Increasingly, however, developmentalists are found in specialty organizations. One prominent developmental organization is the Society for Research in Child Development, begun in 1933, with its own journal. Child Development, and a monograph series.
The Future of Developmental Psychology
理论家似乎不再致力于发展的“宏伟理论”。他们满足于提供微型理论。对各个年龄段的发展都更加关注,因此“生命发展”一词更准确地反映了科学。随着发展心理学家越来越意识到环境在发展中的重要性,他们已成为改善这种背景的声音倡导者,尤其是争辩政府政策的变化。人们对价值在发展中重要的意识提高。科学不能提供这些价值观。尽管发展心理学传统上强调了研究,但已经出现了一种称为应用发育心理学的新专科。
参考:
- Aries. P. ( 1962). Centuries of childhood. New York: Random House. A view of children through history.
- Borstelmann. L J. (7983). Children before psychology:Ideas about children from antiquity to the late 1800s. In P. H. Mussen (Ed.). Handbook of child psychology: Vol.1 History. theory. and methods (4th ed.. pp. 1-40). NewYork: Wiley.
- Cairns. R. B. 1997). The making of developmental psychology. In W. Damon (Ed.). Handbook of child psychology (5th ed.. pp. 25-105). New York: Wiley. A comprehensive history of developmental psychology.
- 查尔斯。D. C.(1970)。生命发展心理学的历史先例。在L. R. Goulet和P. B. Baltes(编辑)中。生命发展心理学:研究与理论。纽约:学术出版社。
- 迪克森。R. A ..&Lerner。R. M.(1988)。发展心理学系统的历史。在M. H. Bornstein和M. E. Lamb(编辑)中。发展心理学:高级教科书(第3-50页)。新泽西州希尔斯代尔:埃尔鲍姆。
- 埃卡德。G .. Bringman。W. G ..&春天。L.(编辑)。(1985)。对发展心理学史的贡献。柏林:莫顿。包含有关欧洲发展心理学贡献者的几篇重要论文。
- 希尔加德。E. R.(1987)。美国心理学。纽约:Harcourt Brace。关于发展心理学的一章,带有相关的个人轶事和纪念。
- Kessen. W. (1965). The child. New York: Wiley. An excellent source for original readings.
- 勒纳。R. M.(1983)。发展心理学:历史和哲学观点。希尔斯代尔。NJ:Erlbaum。对于强调生命发展的发展特别有用。
- 帕克。R. D .. Ornstein。P. A.,Rieser。J. J.和Zahn-Waxler,C。(编辑)。(1994)。一个世纪的发展心理学。华盛顿特区:美国心理学会。(1992年出版的原始作品。)一系列出色的历史文章,包括一些有用的概述材料。
- Ross, D. ( 1972). G. Stanley Hall: The psychologist as prophet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. A rich biography of the father of American developmental psychology.
- Sears, R. R. (1975). Your ancients revisited: A history of child development. In E. M. Hetherington (Ed.). Review of child development research (Vol. 5. pp. 1-73). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. A history by one of the important contributors to the field.
- 森。M.J .E。(1975)。对美国儿童发展运动的见解。儿童发展研究协会的专着。40(序列号161)。
Back to发展心理学