Suggested length: 750 words
Explain the nature-nurture issue as well as the continuity-discontinuity issue, and apply these concepts toward five specific theories of development (e.g. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory, Information Processing Theory, etc.) Include brief summaries of each theory and explain how each theory addresses the nature-nurture issue and/or continuity-discontinuity issue. In summary, explain the importance of an eclectic theoretical orientation when explaining human development.
I am pretty much done just need some editing, and rewriting and need the last 2 paragraphs.
Kimberly Rivera
Lifespan, Growth, & development
Assignment 1
The nature-nurture debate is the development influenced by the biological inheritance (nature) or the environment or experience (nurture). For instance if you compare a pair of identical twins that was raised apart in two different type of settings you will be able to see certain traits that they inherited (nature), and the traits that they learned from the type of environment they were raised in (nurture). The continuity-discontinuity issue focuses on how the development was achieved, a gradual or cumulative change (continuity), or through distinct stages (discontinuity). Many scientists have different opinions over these debates and have developed many theories that I will be explaining.
Freud’s Theory. Sigmund Freud developed a psychoanalytic theory that emphasized sexual motivation. Freud viewed development as discontinuous in five psychosexual stages, he believed that even as an infant, one has natural urges that they must meet, and if at any stage pleasure is under gratified or over gratified an individual may become fixated, or locked in, at that stage of development. Freud’s theory of psychosexual development believed that children well organized move through oral, anal, phallic and latency stages before reaching the genital stage. Freud believed that his theory was associated with both nature-nurture, because he described it as natural impulses, and everything influencing our behavior is unconscious.
Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory. Jean Piaget proposed a cognitive development theory in which children use their cognition to adapt to their world. In Piaget’s theory, children go through four discontinuous cognitive stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Nature and nurture interact to produce cognitive development. Nature is emphasized in the maturation of the brain and body and the ability to perceive, learn, act, and motivate. Nurture is emphasized in adaptation; how the child responds to the demands of the environment in ways that meet their own goals.
Skinner’s Operant Conditioning. In Skinner’s Operant Conditioning, the consequences of one’s behavior was either rewarded or punished, and he believed that by doing so, it was shaping development. He emphasized that the pattern of behavioral changes that are brought about by rewards and punishments. Skinner’s theory is continuous, he didn’t believe there was stages for behavior development. He felt that a child’s motivation influenced their behavior and their motivation is different and changes as a child develops. Skinner’s believed in influences from nurture, he felt that parents played a big role in a child’s behavior development. Skinner also felt that each child had different motivations for their actions and they had to learn what the consequences of their actions were.
Ethological Theory.
