In 1684, Locke had to flee to Holland for political reasons, he met William of Orange there. Returned to England after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. In 1690 wrote his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Attacked the preformationist theories of his day. For those theories, he substituted the notion of empiricism, or that ideas come only from experience. In other words, there are no innate ideas. The tabula rasa or blank slate was his metaphor. Locke also expounded on the difference between simple and complex ideas and between primary and secondary qualities of perception. Locke considered thinking to include sensation and reflection. Locke posited the process of association to create complex ideas from simple ones. In terms of educational theory, Locke believed that imitation and modelling were important, especially early in development. He was against corporal punishment and the use of rewards such as money and sweets. He considered rules useless for children because he thought them not yet capable of understanding such rules.
Locke, in many ways, seems almost modern. He anticipated many of the present day principles of learning and reinforcement. He was however, still a philosopher, not an experimental scientist.
Rousseau rejected Locke's idea of the blank slate. Instead, Rousseau believed that learning was a natural consequence of human existence. Further, he thought socialization unimportant in development, a view which may have stemmed from his early experiences. Like Locke, Rousseau was still a philosopher. Although Rousseau had five children he raised none, having sent them to orphanages. Relatively late in life, at 37, he began to write. Because of his insistence that childhood was different than adulthood and his creation of stages of development, he is known as the "father of developmental psychology." Rousseau wrote Emile, a fictional account of him raising a child according to his precepts. He emphasized how Emile needed to learn independently of Rousseau. Indeed, Rousseau saw his role as a "parent" as being a very passive one. He was able to adopt such a passive stance because he placed primacy on maturation as a developmental phenomenon.
Rousseau, too, anticipates much of modern developmental theory. His insistence on what we would now call "child-centered" rearing sounds contemporary. He anticipates his later day fellow Genevan, Piaget, by positing stages of development. However, in some ways Rousseau's suggestions to leave children to fend for themselves until adolescence sound impossibly idealistic and impractical. By not getting his hands dirty with the actual business of raising children, Rousseau provides little or no validity for his theories.
Gesell is the first true scientist considered in this course. Unlike Locke and Rousseau, Gesell has data. Although his data were derived from what would now be considered an unrepresentative sample, it was still data nonetheless. Gesell anticipated modern interdisciplinary emphasis by defining development as a unitary collection of information from various disciplines while still retaining a holistic view of development. Like Rousseau, Gesell gave primacy to maturation, but, unlike Rousseau, he also believed that the environment played a major role. For Gesell (and for psychology since), the developmental environment begins at conception. The uterine environment, too, can have major effects on development. Gesell's description of the invariant sequences of development, the growth principles, and the variability of rates of development are milestones in the history of developmental psychology. Many of his recommendations for development are with us still: demand feeding, the importance of the first year of life, and the role of maturation compared to the role of the parent.
Gesell is the first scientist considered and thus he published data in addition to theorizing. That those data do not reflect rates found in children today is a minor criticism. Yes, he could have had a more representative sample. But, he did put developmental psychology firmly in the scientific camp. That should be enough of a contribution.
Darwin was one of the most influential men in history. His theory of evolution transformed the world's view of itself in several ways. First, Darwin continued the trend of loss of uniqueness with regard to humankind's view of itself. The naive view of humans as unique and specially created had been under siege since the late Middle Ages (i.e., Galileo and Copernicus). Darwin's theory provided continuity between humans and the rest of nature. Second, Darwin's mechanism of natural selection provided a plausible substitute for creationism, even though Darwin could not provide the details of natural selection. Those details came to light as the science of genetics was born and the theory of evolution merged with genetics to provide the "modern synthesis of biology." Darwin's notion of survival of the fittest was wrong. Instead, modern evolutionary theory substitutes reproduction of the fittest, or differential reproductive success. Third, Darwin pushed back the time horizon of the history of the universe. Instead of Bishop Usher's thousands of years (since the Flood), we now argue over 10-20 billion years (since the Big Bang).
Darwin's effect on science and other areas of human activity cannot be minimized. Some continue to resist the logic and data of evolution in the name of religious literalism. Interestingly, such conflict need not occur as many denominations have demonstrated.
Lorenz and Tinbergen were ethologists, who along with Karl von Frisch, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1973. Lorenz's early interests lay in the use of behavior as an aid to taxonomy. In particular, he was interested in the taxonomy of ducks (Anatidae). In the 1930s he was able to demonstrate phylectic behavioral differences between duck species. Mating behaviors and displays were of particular use in this analysis. Lorenz's most famous contribution is probably his description of imprinting, a learning phenomenon seen a few species. Imprinting involves learning that takes place during a critical period, a tiny window of time. Imprinting can only take place within that critical period. Imprinting, thus defined, is not seen in humans. Attachment, a similar phenomenon, does occur in humans (see Bowlby, below). Both Lorenz and Tinbergen developed intimate relationships with the animals they studied, and that contributed to their success.
Tinbergen's research style and personality complemented Lorenz's. Where Lorenz was garrulous and expansive, Tinbergen was reserved and thoughtful. Tinbergen's research skills lay in his ability to "ask questions of nature." His four questions: immediate causation, development, evolution, and function still form the basis for modern ethological theorizing. His research with sticklebacks, herring gulls, and digger wasps are classic examples of ethology.
Ethology incubated slowly in Europe in the minds of Lorenz, Tinbergen, von Frisch and others. When ethological notions began to percolate across the Atlantic, the effect was predicable. American behavioral psychologists nearly universally rejected ethological ideas and theory. In the ensuing decades, however, the self-correction so often seen in science happened again. Today, ethological notions, refined and revised, form part of any coherent attempt to explain development. Go to top of page
John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth uncovered the phenomenon of attachment. Bowlby noticed early in his career that children in hospital suffered when left alone for treatment. If isolated long enough, they even rejected their parents or caretakers upon reunion. Bowlby's observations led him to investigate the phenomenon now known as attachment. Using ethology as his conceptual base, Bowlby went on to describe the stages of attachment and disattachment. In the early 1950s, Mary Ainsworth studied by Bowlby in in England. Later she did field work in Uganda. Upon returning to the USA, she studied attachment in 23 families in Baltimore. During that work she developed the "strange situation" paradigm. The strange situation allowed her to discover and assess three types of attachment: secure, avoidant, and ambivalent. Remarkably, those patterns, developed early in life, appear to persist through the lifespan and are a major issue in personality. However, not all theorists agree that the effect is that robust.
Attachment went from an obsure observation of Bowlby's to a major theoretical construct in developmental psychology in the space of 40 years. Attachment provides a kind of link between the animal data of Lorenz and later of Harlow. The phenomenon is not as pronounced as imprinting but it still exhibits the importance of critical periods to development. Go to top of page
Maria Montessori presaged many later theoretical findings in development. Single-handedly she developed a method of instruction which was closely tied to her observations of development. Her most famous legacy is the ever-growing network of Montessori schools. Montessori's educational philosophy was based on letting children develop at their own pace and having the teacher respond to the child, a reversal of traditional education. Many of Rousseau's ideas (see above) found expression in her method. As a part of her method, she developed many classroom materials. Most of these have the property of being self-reinforcing, meaning the child playing with them will know when the task has been successfully completed without the teacher having to note it. Montessori also anticipated Chomsky's notions of the importance of grammar in language. Montessori taught language by having children write first, another of her anticipations of later work.
Her methods, although never mainstream, have nonetheless been influential. Many parents choose to send their pre-schoolers to Montessori schools. Research has demonstrated that many children are helped by in later traditional education by their Montessori experiences. Applying her methods wholesale to large districts seems unlikely, however, given the massive restructuring and retraining such a move would entail. Go to top of page
Werner combined lessons in ethology with lesson in Gestalt psychology to create a new and creative synthesis in developmental psychology. His orthogenetic principle defined development in a more operational way. His focus on self-object identification as a process in development parallels Piaget's views. Werner attempted to create a developmental theory that was truly comparative. Many objected to such a wide cast net. Also, Werner's need to escape the Nazis and to relocate in the USA may have made his theories less well known than otherwise.
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Werner provided a new and original way of looking at development. His ideas have influenced modern psychology. For example, Gibson's theory of perception owes much to Werner and to the Gestalt school. Ekman's research on facial perception was preceded by Werner's physiognomic perception. Go to top of page
Piaget began his academic career as a biologist. An early interest in genetic epistemology, however, detoured his biological career and made him the the canonical theorist in cognitive development. Beginning with the close observation of his three children, he developed a theory of cognitive development that emphasized close interaction with the environment. He posited the mechanisms of assimilation and accomodation that worked closely to modify schemata, the functional units of cognitive development. He also worked out a system of qualitatively different cognitive development stages: sensori-motor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational, to describe the progress of cognitive development. Initially rebuffed by American psychology over his methodology, Piaget's theory has become the starting point for much research in cognitive development. Some of that research has exposed flaws in Piaget's original scheme (i.e., cross-cultural differences, reversibility), but for the most part the core of Piaget's theory remains.
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Piaget changed the way developmental psychologist looked at development. Although other theorists like Werner arrived at similar concepts, Piaget's total synthesis of cognitive development has come to dominate the scene. Although many of Piaget's details have been questioned, his theoretical structure is still up to the test of theories, namely it explains the data and inspires new research. Go to top of page
Kohlberg extended Piaget's work on moral development, extending Piaget's two stages into three. In an unusual career, Kohlberg converted his dissertation topic into his life's work. Using moral dilemmas, he asked children, adolescents, and adults to resolve moral issues. These dilemmas were scored in terms of the subjects's underlying explanations, not the actual outcome of the dilemma. His research led him to formulate six stages of moral development spread over three levels. The levels were labelled: Pre-conventional, conventional, and post-convential, and they showed a fair amount of relationship with advancing age. Later research showed that many moral decisions are still made at pre-conventional levels, that culture plays a role, that the highest levels of moral development are rarely reached, and that women's moral decisions are made on a different basis than men's.
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Kohlberg represents that rarest of cases in science, that of the pioneer who discovers new territory. His work, although a continuation of Piaget's, was nevertheless original in its extension to a whole new theory of moral development. Go to top of page
Pavlov was a Nobel Prize-winning physiologist who discovered classical conditioning in the course of his physiological research. He eventually and begrudingly became a psychologist and in the process helped change the direction of psychological research. Classical conditioning became a major tool in the theoretical formulations of later behaviorists. It allowed them to explain behavior without having to consider consciousness. Pavlov's discovery of classical conditioning provided the first mechanism for explaining learning without reference to the mind. The long-standing doctrine of associationism had its first explanatory mechanism. Later research demonstrated the importance of timing and correlation of the CS--UCS pairing.
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Classical conditioning was the first salvo of the behaviorist revolution. Watson used Pavlov's methods to demonstrate the Conditioned Emotional Response with Little Albert (see below), for instance. American behaviorist theorizing took off with the combination of Watson's manifesto and Pavlov's classical conditioning. Go to top of page
John B. Watson was destined to become a Baptist preacher until his mother died and he felt relieved of his promise to her of attending the seminary. Instead, he went to the newly-formed University of Chicago. There, he studied under Angell and was influenced by Loeb's theory of tropisms. Soon after graduation he moved to the Johns Hopkins University, and soon thereafter became chair because of Baldwin's sexual indiscretions. All along, Watson was thinking about behaviorism. In 1913, he finally published "Psychology as the behaviorist views it." That manifesto revolutionized psychology and, when combined with Pavlov's classical conditioning (see above), became a new paradigm. Watson, like Baldwin before him, paid for his sexual indiscretions by the loss of his job. Interestingly, even in his love letters to Rosalie Rayner he used behaviorist language, "...every fiber of my being resonates..." However, he landed on his feet working for J. Walter Thompson. He kept his hand in psychology somewhat, writing popular articles and even debating McDougall.
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Watson founded behaviorism and agitated for its use in psychological theorizing. His own theorizing in behaviorism was primitive and limited because of his premature exit from academe. He did do much, however, in his new role to popularize behaviorism and to help remake psychology. Go to top of page
Skinner's contribution was radical behaviorism, or more properly, behavior analysis. Behavior analysis sidesteps issues of mind by assuming environmental determininism and by including the internal environment (self talk, covert verbal behavior) as part of the environment. Thus, dualistic issues are resolved and each human becomes subject to a unique set of environmental determinants composed of both external and internal environments. Skinner revived Bacon's inductive method and his lack of theory. Operants, the behaviors emitted by organisms, are selected by the environment in a quasi-evolutionary way. Respondents, the behaviors caused by observable stimuli, were Skinner's term for Pavlovian or classical conditioning. Skinner explored the ramifications of operant conditioning both in the lab and in the field. Schedules of reinforcement, programmed instruction, and behavior modification were three of his most important contributions.
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Skinner expanded on the work of Pavlov and Watson by redefining the human organism's environment to include the things people say to themselves. The same rules of conditioning that apply to the external environment also apply to that internal environment. Skinner created a logical and self-consistent system that continues to have a vocal minority of adherents today. Go to top of page
Bandura extended behavioral theory by emphasizing the role of imitation and modelling in learning. Modeling is a complex consisting of: attention, retention, motor skills, and motivation. Models can be live, symbolic, and verbal. Reinforcement, both direct and vicarious played a major role in whether modelled behaviors were performed those viewing them. Bandura concentrated on the modelling of aggressive behaviors because of the obvious external validity of interventions in that area. Also, aggressive behaviors are seen in all cultures. Bandura's early research with the 'Bobo' doll and modelling opened up a new area of research into the effects of aggressive models. Of late, Bandura has been working on self-efficacy. In terms of developmental theorizing, Bandura was opposed to Piagetian models of development, believing that modelling and the environment play a far greater role in learning than internal variables.
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In many ways, Bandura represents the apex of behavioral theorizing. He extended the simpler models of Skinner and others to imitation learning. Compared to other developmental theorists (Piaget, Kohlberg, Rousseau), Bandura emphasized the role of the environment and attempted to provide a model for analyzing the environment's effects. Go to top of page
Vygotsky's emergence as a leading developmental theorist is remarkable to say the least. His life was marked by a series of lucky and unlucky events. As a young Jew in Imperial Russia he lost his merited place at university only to win it back in a lottery. He quickly demonstrated his potential but was relegated to a provincial position following graduation. At a meeting in Moscow he dazzled an audience with his brilliance so that Luria brought him to Moscow to work. There, he worked at a feverish pace only to succumb to tuberculosis at an early age. After his death, his works were banned. Now, with the opening of the former Soviet records, Vygotsky's work has re-emerged from its long silence, its power to explain still evident. His "zone of proximal development" and his dynamic testing methodology continue to provide useful concepts for developmentally-oriented psychologists to use.
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Vygotsky attempted to provide a synthetic theory of development the like of which has not been attempted since. To Western audiences unaccustomed to using Hegel's dialectic combined with Vygotsky's Marxist view of history, his theories are hard to easily digest. As more of his work is translated, his influence on developmental psychology will continue to grow even so many years after his untimely death. Go to top of page
What more need be said about Freud? Is he still worth the attention of developmentalists? Of course the answer is yes! His bold attempt to analyze human behavior will long stand even without the merit of a scientific or Popperian approach. The stages of personality development, the structure of the personality, and the nature of mental life have become part of the culture. Profitably, Hollywood has latched on to psychoanalysis with a vengeance in its selection of themes for entertainment as any viewing of TV during sweeps week will testify. Freud's emphasis on sex was overstated from our viewpoint but was probably necessary during the Victorian era he in which he lived.
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Freud created, almost single-handedly, a structure for describing the foibles of human nature. His model, psychoanalysis, led to the development of complementary and competing models of both normal and abnormal behavior. The model also led to the creation of a new industry, psychotherapy. That the current scene in psychotherapy looks little like Freud's original conceptions is not really important. The important issue is that his work put all of the current efforts in place. Go to top of page
Erik Erikson was one of those who, inspired by psychoanalysis, nevertheless sought to make it based more on interpersonal issues and less on sex and sexuality. Erikson did not deny the importance of Freud's original contributions, but wanted to anchor them in a social matrix. So, in each of Freud's original stages, Erikson identified the essential social issues which were accompanied them. Erikson is best known, however, for his extension of the Freudian stage concept into adulthood.
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Erikson also contributed early to psychology's current interest in cross-cultural issues. His work with Amerindians, for example, was focused on the search for the universality of Freudian concepts. Go to top of page
Mainly a linguist, nonetheless Chomsky has had an enormous effect on developmental psychology. His book, Syntactic Structures, marks the jumping off point to his work and to the creation of a major area of research within psycholinguistics. In the late 1950's, Skinner and Chomsky debated the nature of language acquisition and two more opposed positions could scarcely be imagined. Skinner represented the viewpoint that language was acquired like any other learned skill, whereas Chomsky defended the position that language is a unique kind of learning. One way to look at their debate is that they were talking past each other. Where Skinner was talking about verbal behavior, Chomsky was talking about the knowledge required to create language. Chomsky also emphasized the importance of deep structure to language understanding. That emphasis has been supported by many studies conducted since the publication of Syntactic Structures. Both children and adults attempt to understand language through the logical connections, contexts, and narratives. Both children and adults will state that they heard the same words before when the deep structures of two similar messages are the same, even when the actual words themselves are different.
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Chomsky's considerable influence on psycholinguistics has come without his attempting to make himself into a psychologist. Rather, psychologists have realized the import of his work to them and have constructed theories and devised experiments to test his ideas. An interesting sidelight to Chomsky is his unalloyed liberal critiques of government and other institutions.