Developmental Psychology :: Psychology Psychological Essays

phylogenesisal Psychology in that respect argon three main theories of development that I shall discuss in this assignment, Cognitive, the main theorist being, Piaget, (1896 - 1980), The, Psychosocial Theory, Erikson, (1902 - 1994), and, The Psychosexual, of, Freud, (1856 - 1939).Cognitive Psychology draws the comparison between the homophile mind and a computer, suggesting that we like the computer process the information we gain ground from around us and then react accordingly. Hearnshaw, (1987), claims that Cognitive Psychology is some(prenominal) one of the oldest and also one of the newest parts of Psychology, cited in ?T. Malim?, (1994). Information is composed by dint of our senses i.e. vision, touch, smell etc and then processed through our brain. Cognitive Psychologists mostly seek explanations of Cognitive development, memory, attention, artificial intelligence, perception and social cognition. The methods used be usually Laboratory experiments under controlled cir cumstances i.e. memory tests, and, Case studies.Piaget, (J), (1896-1980), carried aside case studies on his own nipperren to study the stages of cognitive development. Piaget concluded that the kidskin was an organism which adapts to the environment, he also studied with the opinion that all children went through the same set stages of development and that there were no individual differences.Piagets? Stages of Development - The Sensorimotor stage, (0-2) - Early in the sensorimotor stage the child is alone egocentric, everything is an extension to the self, they can?t distinguish themselves from their environment. The child has no nonion of past or future all it is aware of is the here and now. The child relies entirely on it?s senses i.e. sight, hearing, touch. It is believed by Cognitive Psychologists that ?.. ?To begin with, a baby will rely on in-built behaviours for sucking, crawling and watching? as cited in Moonie, N, (1995). A child does not understand that an object d oes not cease to exist when it is out of sight. However, in contradiction, Bower & Wishart, (1972), used unseeable cameras to see what the child does when an object disappears. The child is shown a bottle in the light, when the child reaches to grasp the bottle the lights are turned out. Bower & Wishart enter that the child continued to reach for the bottle for up to 1.5minutes after the lights are turned out. Another point made by Piaget is that not hardly does the child look for an object, which is hidden, but also the child will not look for it even if part of it is showing.