Student: EDDIE MATEO COLLADO
Subject: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR
Biological psychology
Humans, like other animal species, have a typical life course that consists of successive
phases of growth, each of which is characterized by a distinct set of physical, physiological, and
behavioral features. These phases are prenatal life, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and
adulthood (including old age). Human development, or developmental psychology, is a field of
study that attempts to describe and explain the changes in human cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral capabilities and functioning over the entire life span, from the fetus to old age.
Most scientific research on human development has concentrated on the period from
birth through early adolescence, owing to both the rapidity and magnitude of the psychological
changes observed during those phases and to the fact that they culminate in the optimum
mental functioning of early adulthood. A primary motivation of many investigators in the field
has been to determine how the culminating mental abilities of adulthood were reached during
the preceding phases.
Theories of Development
The systematic study of children is less than 200 years old, and the vast majority of its
research has been published since the mid-1940s. Basic philosophical differences over the
fundamental nature of children and their growth occupied psychologists during much of the
20th century. The most important of such controversies concerned the relative importance of
genetic endowment and environment, or “nature” and “nurture,” in determining development
during infancy and childhood. Most researchers came to recognize, however, that it is the
interaction of inborn biological factors with external factors, rather than the mutually exclusive
action or predominance of one or the other force, that guides and influences human
development. The advances in cognition, emotion, and behaviour that normally occur at certain
points in the life span require both maturation (genetically driven biological changes in the
central nervous system) and events, experiences, and influences in the physical and social
environment. Generally, maturation by itself cannot cause a psychological function to emerge;
it does, however, permit such a function to occur and sets limits on its earliest time of
appearance.
Psychoanalytic theories
Early psychoanalytic theories of human behaviour were set forth most notably by
Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Freud’s ideas were influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory
of evolution and by the physical concept of energy as applied to the central nervous system.
Freud’s most basic hypothesis was that each child is born with a source of basic psychological
energy called libido. Further, each child’s libido becomes successively focused on various parts
of the body (in addition to people and objects) in the course of his or her emotional
development.
During the first postnatal year, libido is initially focused on the mouth and its activities;
nursing enables the infant to derive gratification through a pleasurable reduction of tension in
the oral region. Freud called this the oral stage of development.
During the second year, the source of excitation is said to shift to the anal area, and the
start of toilet training leads the child to invest libido in the anal functions. Freud called this
period of development the anal stage.
During the period from three through six years, the child’s attention is attracted to
sensations from the genitals, and Freud called this stage the phallic stage. The half dozen years
before puberty are called the latency stage.
During the final and so-called genital stage of development, mature gratification is
sought in a heterosexual love relationship with another. Freud believed that adult emotional
problems result from either deprivation or excessive gratification during the oral, anal, or
phallic stages. A child with libido fixated at one of these stages would in adulthood show
specific neurotic symptoms, such as anxiety.
Freud devised an influential theory of personality structure. According to him, a wholly
unconscious mental structure called the id contains a person’s inborn, inherited drives and
instinctual forces and is closely identified with his or her basic psychological energy (libido).
During infancy and childhood, the ego, which is the reality-oriented portion of the personality,
develops to balance and complement the id. The ego utilizes a variety of conscious and
unconscious mental processes to try to satisfy id instincts while also trying to maintain the
individual comfortably in relation to the environment. Although id impulses are constantly
directed toward obtaining immediate gratification of one’s major instinctual drives (sex,
affection, aggression, self-preservation), the ego functions to set limits on this process. In
Freud’s language, as the child grows, the reality principle gradually begins to control the
pleasure principle; the child learns that the environment does not always permit immediate
gratification. Child development, according to Freud, is thus primarily concerned with the
emergence of the functions of the ego, which is responsible for channeling the discharge of
fundamental drives and for controlling intellectual and perceptual functions in the process of
negotiating realistically with the outside world.
Although Freud made great contributions to psychological theory—particularly in his
concept of unconscious urges and motivations—his elegant concepts cannot be verified
through scientific experimentation and empirical observation. But his concentration on
emotional development in early childhood influenced even those schools of thought that
rejected his theories. The belief that personality is affected by both biological and psychosocial
forces operating principally within the family, with the major foundations being laid early in life,
continues to prove fruitful in research on infant and child development.
Freud’s emphasis on biological and psychosexual motives in personality development
was modified by German-born American psychoanalyst Erik Erikson to include psychosocial and
social factors. Erikson viewed emotional development over the life span as a sequence of stages
during which there occur important inner conflicts whose successful resolution depends on
both the child and his or her environment. These conflicts can be thought of as interactions
between instinctual drives and motives on the one hand and social and other external factors
on the other.
Erikson evolved eight stages of development, the first four of which are:
(1) infancy, trust versus mistrust,
(2) early childhood, autonomy versus shame and doubt,
(3) preschool, initiative versus guilt, and
(4) school age, industry versus inferiority.
