PSYC20008 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Naturalistic Observation, Behaviorism, Toilet Training
3 Jul 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PSYC20008 Lecturer: Katherine Johnson Developmental Psychology
1
LECTURE 1 (WEEK 1)
Cognitive, Biological & Social Development
Historical accounts of development
• Plato
o Emphasised self-control & discipline as most important elements of
education
o Children born with innate knowledge
• Aristotle
o Education should meet needs of child
o All knowledge comes from experience
o Infant mind a black board
• Middle ages view of children
o Many centuries, kids seen as mini fully formed adults (paintings)
o Socially, kids treated like adults (working, mingling with adults by 6/7)
o Some thought
▪ Children enter world with god-given purity and innocence
▪ children bear mankind’s original sin
o Preformationist view
▪ Scientists thought tiny, fully formed human/homunculus present
▪ Debate if in sperm or egg
▪ 5th century BC - 18th century
• Locke
o 1690: Tabula rasa - blank slate
o Children neither innately good or bad
o Ideas fit with European enlightenment (equality for all)
o Focus on growth of child’s character
▪ Self-control, rewards & punishment underpinned philosophy
o Discipline > freedom
o Children not empty containers, have own modes of feeling & thinking
o Grow according to nature’s plan, urges them to develop different
capacities at different stages
o People inherently good; can live happily according to spontaneous
passions but enslaved by social forces
o Urged parents to give children maximum freedom because they’ll
learn spontaneously
• Charles Darwin
o Theory of evolution inspired research on nature of child development
▪ Might develop insight into nature of humans
o Baby biography: one of 1st methods of studying children
▪ Conducted careful observations of son, published 1877
▪ Noted motor, sensory, emotional growth
• Alfred Binet
o & colleagues, pioneered systematic testing of kids’ intelligence
▪ Among 1st to study differences between same aged children
▪ Binet-Simon intelligence test
o Believed key components of intelligence to be: high-level abilities
(problem solving, reasoning, judgement)
