EDY 2312/5312 – Managing

Behaviour in Schools

Lecture 3 2019

Lecture 3: Theories of Behaviour Development

 What is behaviour?
 Behaviour is the range of actions and mannerisms that someone or something
behaves in a particular situation conjunction with themselves or their environment,
which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical
environment.

 Behaviour formation is influenced many factors:

 Genes – hereditary,
 Peers
 Family
 Environment
 Experiences, etc.

 Behaviour is reinforced through repetition, positive and negative reinforcements

 Child Development Theories: A Background
 Theories of development provide a framework for thinking about
human growth and learning. But why do we study development?
What can we learn from psychological theories of development? If
you have ever wondered about what motivates human thought and
behaviour, understanding these theories can provide useful insight
into individuals and society.
 Interest in the field of child development finally began to emerge
early in the 20th century, but it tended to focus on abnormal
behaviour. Eventually, researchers became increasingly interested
in other topics including typical child development as well as the
influences on development.

 Why is it important to study how children grow, learn and change?

An understanding of child development is essential because it
allows us to fully appreciate the cognitive, emotional, physical,
social, and educational growth that children go through from birth
and into early adulthood. Some of the major theories of child
development are known as grand theories; they attempt to
describe every aspect of development, often using a stage
approach.
 Theories of Behaviour Development
 Theories allow us to see the world coherently and to act on the world in a rational way.
Many theories have evolved over the past century in Western cultures that attempt to
explain how human personality develops, why we behave as we do, what environmental
conditions motivate us to act certain ways, and how these factors are interrelated.
 Theories perform a number of functions. First, they allow us to organize our observations
and to deal meaningfully with information that would otherwise be chaotic and useless.
Second, theories allow us to see relationships among facts and uncover implications that
would not otherwise be evident in isolated bits of data. Third, they stimulate inquiry as we
search for knowledge about many different and often puzzling aspects of behaviour.
Therefore a theory inspires research that can be used to verify, disprove, or modify that
theory.
 Over the past two decades, the universal applicability of traditional theoretical models of
development has been challenged. Many of the long-standing theories presented were
formulated by Western white persons about Western white people.
 Cross-cultural social scientists are putting the older theoretical models to the test on a
broader scale in scholarly debates in university settings, in international conferences, and
in chat rooms and online discussion groups. This is leading to newer perspectives and
understanding on individual development in all domains.
 Sigmund Freud - Psychosexual Developmental Theory

 Psychoanalytic theory originated with the work of Sigmund Freud. Through his clinical
work with patients suffering from mental illness, Freud came to believe that childhood
experiences and unconscious desires influenced behaviour. According to Freud,
conflicts that occur during each of these stages can have a lifelong influence on
personality and behaviour.

 Freud proposed one of the best-known grand theories of child development. According
to Freud’s psychosexual theory, child development occurs in a series of stages focused
on different pleasure areas of the body. During each stage, the child encounters
conflicts that play a significant role in the course of development.

 His theory suggested that the energy of the libido was focused on different erogenous
zones at specific stages. Failure to progress through a stage can result in a fixation at
that point in development, which Freud believed could have an influence on adult
behaviour.
 Psychoanalytic Theory – Sigmund Freud
 Freud proposed that people operate from three states of being: the id, which seeks
self-gratification; the superego, which seeks what is morally proper; and the ego,
which is the rational mediator between the id and superego. Freud used a variety of
therapeutic techniques to tap into the unconscious thoughts of his patients, which
he thought was the source of his patients’ distress.

Advantages
The theory emphasizes the importance of childhood experiences. It initiated and
addressed the importance of the unconscious, sexual and aggressive drives that
make up the majority of all human beings' personalities. The approach also explains
defence mechanisms and why every individual reacts differently to similar situations.

Limits
Sigmund Freud failed to include evidence of the impact of the environment on the
individual throughout his theory. The theory is lacking in empirical data and too
focused on pathology (experience). This theory lacks consideration of culture and its
influence on personality.
 Erikson's Psychosocial Developmental Theory

 Erikson's eight-stage theory of psychosocial development describes growth and

change throughout life, focusing on social interaction and conflicts that arise during
different stages of development.

 While Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development shared some similarities with

Freud's, it is dramatically different in many ways. Rather than focusing on sexual interest
as a driving force in development, Erikson believed that social interaction and
experience played decisive roles.

Infant Toddler Preschool School age Adolescent Young Adulthood Mature

adult adult

0 – 11/2 1-3 4-6 7 - 12 12 - 18 19 - 40 41 - 65 65+

 Behavioural Theory – Palvov, Watson & Skinner

 Behaviourists are interested in how people learn to behave in particular ways.

 People learn to respond to the stimuli in their environment, and their responses
shape their behaviour. Some learning is based on classical conditioning, using
a subject’s reflex/innate responses—other learning derives from operant
conditioning, where the consequences of the behaviour alter the strength of the
behaviour.
 Behaviourists deem learning to be a process called “conditioning,” whereby
individuals, as a result of their experience within an environmental context,
establish an association or linkage between two events.
 Behaviourists use concepts such as reinforcement, which can be either rewards
or punishments, to shape desired behaviour. Behaviour modification is an
approach that applies behavioural/learning theory to the problem of altering
maladaptive behaviour
 Behaviourism is a learning theory that only focuses on objectively observable
behaviours and discounts any independent activities of the mind. Behaviour
theorists define learning as nothing more than the acquisition of new behaviour
 Classical conditioning
 Classical conditioning refers to learning by association, and involves
the conditioning of innate bodily reflexes with new stimuli.
 Pavlov with dogs
 Watson with little Albert
 B.F Skinner - Operant Conditioning
 Behaviour which is reinforced tends to be repeated (i.e.,
strengthened); behaviour which is not reinforced tends to die out-or
be extinguished (i.e., weakened).
According to Freud, children's pleasure-seeking urges (governed by the
id) are focused on a different area of the body, called an erogenous
zone, at each of the five stages of development: oral, anal, phallic,
latency, and genital.
 John Bowlby - Attachment Theory
 John Bowbly proposed one of the earliest theories of social development. Bowlby
believed that early relationships with caregivers play a major role in child
development and continue to influence social relationships throughout life.

 Bowlby's attachment theory suggested that children are born with an innate need to
form attachments. Such attachments aid in survival by ensuring that the child
receives care and protection. Not only that, but these attachments are characterized
by clear behavioural and motivational patterns. In other words, both children and
caregivers engage in behaviours designed to ensure proximity. Children strive to
stay close and connected to their caregivers who in turn provide safe haven and a
secure base for exploration.
Albert Bandura - Social Learning Theory

 Bandura believed that the conditioning and reinforcement process could not
sufficiently explain all of human learning. For example, how can the conditioning
process account for learned behaviours that have not been reinforced through
classical or operant conditioning?
 Bandura's child development theory suggests that observation plays a critical role
in learning, but this observation does not necessarily need to take the form of
watching a live model. Instead, people can also learn by listening to verbal
instructions about how to perform a behaviour as well as through observing either
real or fictional characters display behaviours in books or films.
 Urie Bronfenbrenner - Ecological Theory
 The five systems explain how everything in a child and the child's environment affects how a
child grows and develops. (Bronfenbrenner, 1979)

 Lev Vygotsky - Sociocultural Theory

 Vygotsky believed that children learn actively and through hands-on

experiences. His sociocultural theory also suggested that parents,
caregivers, peers and the culture at large were responsible for developing
higher order functions.

 In Vygotsky's view, learning is an inherently social process. Through

interacting with others, learning becomes integrated into an individual's
understanding of the world. This child development theory also introduced
the concept of the zone of proximal development, which is the gap
between what a person can do with help and what they can do on their
own. It is with the help of more knowledgeable others that people are able
to progressively learn and increase their skills and scope of understanding.
 Lev Vygotsky - Sociocultural Theory
 This is an emerging theory in psychology that looks at the important contributions
that society makes to individual development. This theory stresses the interaction
between developing people and the culture in which they live. It suggests that
human learning is largely a social process.
Cognitive Theory - Jean Piaget

 Piaget used chronological age only as a broad and general indicator of

cognitive functioning and relied instead on observed behaviors. These
observed behaviors served for Piaget as the primary indicators of the child’s
ever-increasing complexity in cognitive development.
 Piaget identified these developmental phases as:
1) sensorimotor (birth to 2 years),
2) preoperational (2 to 7 years),
3) concrete operations (7 to 11 years), and
4) formal operations (12 year and over).
Humanistic Theory –
Abraham Maslow & Carl Rogers

 Humanistic psychology maintains that human beings are

different from all other organisms in that they actively
intervene in the course of events to control their destinies
and to shape the world around them.
One of the key concepts advanced by Maslow is the hierarchy of needs. Maslow felt
that human beings have certain basic needs that they must meet before they can
fulfil their other developmental needs.
 Summary of the Theories

 Each developmental theory has its proponents and critics. Yet different
tasks and components of development simply call for different theories.
Most psychologists prefer an eclectic approach to development.
 Continuity theories of development suggest that human development is
gradual and uninterrupted, whereas discontinuity models suggest humans
pass through a set sequence of stages, characterized by distinct states of
ego
formation, identity, or thought.
 Social scientists continue the debate about the role of nature or nurture for
human development.
 Tutorial Activity

 Many theories have tried to explain how human personality develops,

why we behave as we do, what environmental conditions motivate us to
act certain ways, and how these factors are interrelated.
In pairs carry out a brief literature review of the following human
behaviour development theories and present in class:
 Psychoanalytic theory
 Psychosocial development theory
 Behaviourism theory
 Cognitive development theory
 Sociocultural theory
 Ecological systems theory
 Humanistic Theory