PSY 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Social Learning Theory, Arnold Gesell, Ecological Systems Theory

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1101
• Professor: Eleanor Riesen

Document Summary

Theory & research in human development 9/14/2014 8:18:00 pm. A theory is an orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains, and predicts behavior. (depends on scientific verification) Important because: provide organizing frameworks for our observations of people & theories that are verified by research provide a sound basis for practical action. Continuous a process of gradually augmenting the same types of skills that were there to begin with. Discontinuous a process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at specific times. Theories that accept the discontinuous perspective regard development as taking place in stages. Stages qualitative changes in thinking, feeling, and behaving that characterize specific periods of development. Stage theorists assume that people everywhere follow the same steps of development Nature inborn biological givens; the hereditary information we receive from our parents at the moment of conception.