Understanding Theoretical Estimates in Human Development

Theoretical Estimates

Rationalism

Rationalism: All we know is already in our minds at birth. Learning is an upgrade of that knowledge. The environment acts as a trigger.

Evolutionary Psychology

Nativist approaches. Representatives: Chomsky.

Partnership

Knowledge is the mental representation of the associations observed in the external world. The basis of knowledge is sensory experience: Empiricism.

• Neoassociationism: Partnerships between mental events.
• Connectionism: Representing knowledge as multiple, massive, and distributed (meta fora of the brain).

Constructivism

Synthesis between rationalism and partnerships. Sources of knowledge: the innate and the empirical. The resulting internal representations of actions in the world are active constructions.

Representatives

Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner.

Human Development as a Whole

Includes all existence, the entire life cycle from birth (and even before) to death. PE is given in relation to other sciences, like biology or sociology. It is an immature discipline due to the non-resolution of certain dualisms:

• Heredity and environment
• The development and learning
• The general intelligence and emotional intelligence
• The individual and social

Current Outlook

• Computer metaphor and neuroscience
• Social influence in development
• The importance of thought processes and potentials
• Attention to similarities and differences
• The study of the initial state
• Reference to developmental disorders

The Scientific Method

The Hypothetical-Deductive Method

• Observable facts
• Theories proposed to explain these facts
• Derivation of predictions from the theory
• Formulation of testable hypotheses
• Conducting experiments that test hypotheses
• Results that confirm or refute the hypothesis
• Refinements that lead to new theories

The Variable Age

Designs used:

• Transverse observation of different subjects at one time
• Longitudinal observation of the same subjects over time

The Theory of Evolution

Important Concepts

• Phylogeny: Evolution of the species (under consideration of the Theory of Evolution)
• Ontogeny: Evolution of an individual organism (the subject of study of PE)

Metaphorically, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. The main problem is explaining the emergence of complexity from simple elements (to avoid circular reasoning). A comprehensive and totalitarian theory, such as Darwinism, is not valid to explain the diversity and complexity of evolutionary changes.

The Notion of Emergence

In an organization, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts individually. Natural laws are emerging processes.

Laws are rules of collective behavior arising from more primitive rules of conduct and have predictive power in certain circumstances.