Developmental Psychology

Have you ever wondered how much your genes and your environment have contributed to who you are today? Or do you ask yourself which parenting style is best for raising children? Perhaps you also wonder why children are so different. Developmental psychology deals with all these questions and more . The goal of developmental psychology is to find out how biological and environmental factors affect the intellectual, social and emotional growth of children.

Let's assume Michael (a fictitious example) was born prematurely. When he was eight, his parents divorced and Michael's father took over as the main caregiver for him and his siblings. At 18, Michael is a popular and successful student, with high self-esteem and a positive outlook on life.

Lukas (also a fictitious example) was also born prematurely; his parents separated when he was just four years old. At 18, Lukas is already a drug addict and the father of one child.

Developmental psychology attempts to understand why individual children react so differently to similar environmental conditions and how the relevant research findings can be applied to enable more children to successfully cope with difficult situations. One key term in this context would be a child's resilience . Resilience is defined as a child's ability to maintain physical and mental health despite negative circumstances and influences. In this example, Michael evidently had greater resilience than Lukas.

What should be noted, however, is that developmental psychology does not provide a single correct way to raise a child, nor can it determine whether a disorder in adolescence is related to a specific event in childhood. Psychology is an empirical science based on probabilities and works extensively with statistics (see also: What is Statistics?). However, over time, several theories have also emerged that later influenced empirical developmental psychology. In this regard, a distinction is made between theories of a child's cognitive development and theories of a child's social development. Another branch of developmental psychology deals with the biological foundations of young children.

Theories of cognitive development

One of the most influential theories of children's cognitive development was developed by the Swiss biologist Jean Piaget. Some of you probably know him from your school education class.

Jean Piaget believed that a child's nature and nurture interact. Furthermore, Piaget distinguished between three constructs: assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration.

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For example, a child has learned on a tablet that they have to swipe further to switch apps or select things in general. Accordingly, the child tries to apply this knowledge to the television by swiping across the screen (assimilation). Since the child notices that the television doesn't change channels this way, they have to figure out how to do it and see, for example, a parent using a remote control to change channels (accommodation).

During the failure, an imbalance arises that must be restored through equilibration. Because the child now knows that they have to "swipe" to use a tablet and use the remote control to use a television, the child's cognitive structures have expanded, as they have internalized the "tablet" and "television" schemas.
This also explains why very young children call almost all round objects "ball." Over time, this cognitive schema is then expanded to include "apple (fruit)," "balloon," or "tire."

Theories of social development

Erik Erikson, a psychoanalyst, developed the theory of psychosocial development. Erikson distinguished eight stages of development up to old age. In developmental psychology, however, stages 1 to 5 are more interesting, as they extend up to adulthood.

He therefore assumes that social and emotional development proceeds in a sequence of phases, each characterized by a specific challenge or crisis that must be overcome for healthy development. Unlike Sigmund Freud, who also developed a psychoanalytic theory, Erikson places greater emphasis on social factors, while Freud emphasizes psychic energy and sexual impulses.

Erikson also assumed that a young child's early experiences in the family context have a lasting influence on an individual's relationships with other people.

If you want to know more about Erikson's theory and phases, watch this video.

Theory of Mind is a fundamental theory in developmental psychology. It describes the ability to empathize with the thoughts of others, i.e., to logically deduce their thoughts and beliefs. It is an important building block in children's development. Three-year-olds have a critically limited understanding of the connection between others' beliefs and their actions. A fun experiment was conducted on this topic, based on the "False Belief" task.

This task is designed to test whether a child understands that other people act in accordance with their own beliefs, even when the child knows these assumptions are false. It sounds very complex at first, but it's easy to illustrate. Imagine you show preschool children a box of Smarties, which are also pictured on the lid. If you ask the child what's in the box, they will naturally answer "Smarties." Then you open the box, and pencils appear. Most 5-year-olds would laugh at this. If you ask them what other children would say about what's in the box, they'll say that the child would also say "Smarties," just as they themselves had previously thought. However, this isn't the case with 3-year-olds.

They claim they already knew what was in the box. When asked what other children would say, they state that others would also believe that the box contains pencils.
This seems very theoretical, of course, but just watch it for yourself here:

Funny, right?

Developmental psychology is not only highly theoretical, but also produces experiments that show that children's development can be simply insane and funny for adults, too. Beyond that, however, it also provides a lot of insight into how we might be able to better understand children and see things from their perspective.