These two examples illustrate the basic tenet of B. F. Skinner’s (1904–1990) theory of operant conditioning, which holds that behavior becomes more or less probable depending on its consequences. According to Skinner, a behavior followed by a rewarding or pleasant outcome, called reinforcement, will be more likely to recur, but one followed by an aversive or unpleasant outcome, called punishment, will be less likely to recur.
Operant conditioning explains much about human behavior, including how we learn skills and habits. Behaviorist ideas about operant conditioning are woven into the fabric of North American culture and are often applied to understand parenting and parent–child interactions (Troutman, 2015). Developmental scientists, however, tend to disagree with operant conditioning’s emphasis on external events (reinforcing and punishing consequences) over internal events (thoughts and emotions) as influences on behavior (Crain, 2016). That is, controlling a child’s environment can influence his or her development, but recall that children are active in their own development. Change can occur through a child’s own thoughts and actions. A child can devise new ideas and learn independently, without experiencing reinforcement or punishment.
Social Learning Theory
Like behaviorists, Albert Bandura (1925–) believed that the physical and social environments are important, but he also advocated for the role of thought and emotion as contributors to development. According to Bandura’s social learning theory, children actively process information—they think and they feel emotion—and their thoughts and feelings influence their behavior. The physical and social environment influences children’s behavior through their effect on their thoughts and emotions. For example, the teenager who breaks his curfew and is met by upset parents may experience remorse, which may then make him less likely to come home late in the future. In this example, the social environment (a discussion with upset parents) influenced the teen’s thoughts and emotions (feeling bad for upsetting his parents), which then influenced the teen’s behavior (not breaking curfew in the future). In other words, our thoughts and emotions about the consequences of our behavior influence our future behavior. We do not need to experience punishment or reinforcement to change our behavior (Bandura, 2012). We can learn by thinking about the potential consequences of our actions.
One of Bandura’s most enduring ideas about development is that people learn through observing and imitating others, which he referred to as observational learning (Bandura, 2010). This finding suggests that children who observe violence rewarded, such as a child grabbing (and successfully obtaining) another child’s toy, may imitate what they see and use aggressive means to take other children’s toys. People also learn by observing the consequences of others’ actions. A child observer might be less likely to imitate a child who takes another child’s toy if the aggressor is scolded by a teacher and placed in timeout. Observational learning is one of the most powerful ways in which we learn.
Bandura believed that children are active contributors to their development as described by his concept of reciprocal determinism, according to which individuals’ personal characteristics, behaviors, and environments interact and influence each other (Bandura, 2011). Children’s characteristics determine their behavior and the environments they seek. Children who are athletically inclined (personal characteristic) tend to engage in sports activities (behavior) and seek out environments that support their athletic interests, such as groups of children who play sports, like softball or dodgeball. Environments (children’s softball team), in turn, influence children’s personal characteristics (interest in athletic ability) and behaviors (playing softball). This is an example of the complex interplay among person, behavior, and physical and social environment that underlies much of what we will discuss throughout this book.
Behaviorist theories have made important contributions to understanding child development. Concepts such as observational learning, reinforcement, and punishment hold implications for parents, teachers, and anyone who works with children. Social learning theory and reciprocal determinism offer a more complex explanation for development and behavior than do behaviorist theories. We will revisit these concepts in later chapters.
Cognitive Theories
Cognitive theorists view cognition—thought—as essential to understanding children’s functioning. In this section, we look at some of the ideas offered by cognitive-developmental theory and information processing theory.
Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory
Swiss scholar Jean Piaget (1896–1980) was the first scientist to systematically examine infants’ and children’s thinking and reasoning. Piaget believed that to understand children, we must understand how they think, because thinking influences all behavior. Piaget’s cognitive-developmental theory views children and adults as active explorers of their world, driven to learn by interacting with the world around them and organizing what they learn into cognitive schemas, or concepts, ideas, and ways of interacting with the world. Through these interactions, they construct and refine their own cognitive schemas, thereby contributing to their own cognitive development.
Piaget proposed that children’s drive to explore and understand the world—to construct more sophisticated cognitive schemas—propels them through four stages of cognitive development, as shown in Table 1.2.
Table 1.2
Piaget’s cognitive-developmental theory transformed the field of developmental psychology and remains one of the most widely cited developmental theories. It was the first to consider how infants and children think and to view people as active contributors to their development. In addition, Piaget’s concept of cognitive stages and the suggestion that children’s reasoning is limited by their stage has implications for education—specifically, the idea that effective instruction must match the child’s developmental level.
Some critics of cognitive-developmental theory argue that Piaget focused too heavily on cognition and ignored emotional and social factors in development (Crain, 2016). Others believe that Piaget neglected the influence of contextual factors by assuming that cognitive-developmental stages are universal—that all individuals everywhere progress through the stages in a sequence that does not vary. Some cognitive theorists argue that cognitive development is not a discontinuous, stage-like process but instead is a continuous process (Birney & Sternberg, 2011), as described in the following section.
Information Processing Theory
A developmental scientist presents a 5-year-old child with a puzzle in which a dog, cat, and mouse must find their way to a bone, piece of fish, and hunk of cheese. To solve the puzzle, the child must move all three animals to the appropriate locations. How will the child approach this task? Which item will she move first? What steps will she take? What factors influence whether and how quickly a child completes this task? Finally, how does the 5-year-old child’s process and performance differ from that of children older and younger than her?
The problem described above illustrates the questions studied by developmental scientists who favor information processing theory, which posits that the mind works in ways similar to a computer in that information enters and then is manipulated, stored, recalled, and used to solve problems (Halford & Andrews, 2011). Unlike the theories we have discussed thus far, information processing theory is not one theory that is attributed to an individual theorist. Instead, there are many information processing theories, and each emphasizes a different aspect of thinking (Callaghan & Corbit, 2015; Müller & Kerns, 2015; Ristic & Enns, 2015). Some theories focus on how children perceive, focus on, and take in information. Others examine how people store information, create memories, and remember information. Still others examine problem solving—how children approach and solve problems at home, at school, and in the peer group.
According to information