Child Development From Infancy to Adolescence. Laura E. Levine
or love, to develop. Like many attempts to apply animal behavior to humans, this has turned out not to be the case (Streep, 2015). Although animal behavior can give us some ideas about human behavior, the direct application of one to the other is usually too simplistic. Although there is no evidence for the concept of bonding in human beings, ethological principles contributed to our understanding of the slower, less automatic development of attachment between infant and mother during the first year of life. You will learn more about attachment in Chapter 7.
TRUE/FALSE VIDEO
T/F #5
Infants must have skin-to-skin contact with their mother within the first few hours after birth for bonding, or love, to develop. False
Modern Applications of Evolutionary Theory
Ideas taken from evolutionary theory and ethology have influenced research on several important topics in the field of child development and contributed to a newer approach known as evolutionary developmental psychology, which applies the principles and ideas of evolutionary theory specifically to questions of how and why children develop as they do (Causey, Gardiner, & Bjorklund, 2008; Frankenhuis, Panchanathan, & Nettle, 2016). Children’s behaviors (such as aggression, altruism, and attachment) are seen as adaptations to the environment in two ways: (1) they help prepare them for adult life, and (2) they are adaptive at their own stage of development and in their specific life circumstances.
One example of research based on an evolutionary developmental approach has focused on the onset of puberty in girls, which is affected by many factors but is largely controlled by genes. Research has shown that girls enter puberty at earlier ages when their parents have a high level of conflict with little support or satisfaction in their marriage, when their father is absent or severely dysfunctional, or when they have an insecure relationship with their mother at age 15 months (Belsky, Houts, & Fearon, 2010; Webster, Graber, Gesselman, Crosier, & Schember, 2014). Evolutionary developmental psychologists point to the fact that a girl with a dysfunctional childhood may not be able to count on reaching adulthood successfully; therefore, an early puberty may be adaptive because it helps ensure that she will be able to pass on her genes by enabling her to get pregnant earlier in life.
Check Your Understanding
Knowledge Questions
1 What role does adaptation play in the theory of evolution?
2 How do the processes of animal imprinting and human attachment differ?
3 How is early puberty adaptive for some girls?
Critical Thinking
The theory of evolution proposes that certain genes will survive because they help humans adapt to the environment so they can successfully pass those genes on to the next generation. What behaviors do babies have that ensure their parents will become attached to them and care for them so the child’s genes will be passed down to the next generation?
Ecological Theory
We tend to think of the study of ecology as focusing on plants and animals and their relationships to the environment, but in the 1970s, Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–2005) applied the idea of how organisms interact with their environment to the field of developmental psychology to create a human ecological theory. Using this framework, he defined development as the “interaction between the developing organism and the enduring environments or contexts in which it lives out its life” (Bronfenbrenner, 1975, p. 439). Bronfenbrenner believed we cannot understand the life course of an individual without understanding how that person interacts with all the different facets of his environment. He also believed this interaction is a dynamic process. All aspects of the environment affect the individual, and the individual affects all aspects of his environment.
Ecological theory: Bronfenbrenner’s concept of development as a result of the interaction between an individual and a nested system of influences.
Bronfenbrenner (1977, 1986) proposed that development occurs within a nested set of influences that he divided into five systems: the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem as shown in Figure 2.6. These systems are embedded one within the other, each influencing the other in a back-and-forth fashion. Bronfenbrenner emphasized the importance of understanding the individual, not on her own or with one or two other people, but rather within all these contexts. His theory is, in part, a criticism of some of the techniques of experimental psychology, in which children are tested in the laboratory and the results are then assumed to be true in the child’s natural setting (Bronfenbrenner, 1977).
Urie Bronfenbrenner. Urie Bronfenbrenner developed ecological theory to explain the importance of the different contexts in which children develop.
Cornell University
The microsystem includes the face-to-face interactions a person has in her immediate settings, such as home, school, or friendship groups. The interaction between a mother and a child forms a microsystem, as does the interaction between a child and a peer, or between a pair of siblings. The mesosystem brings together two settings that contain the child. For example, when parents meet and talk to a child’s teacher, the home setting interacts with the school setting and this interaction influences the child’s progress at school. The exosystem consists of settings the child never enters, that is, that are external to the child, but that affect the child’s development nevertheless (Bronfenbrenner, 1986). For example, even if the child never goes to a parent’s workplace, what happens in that setting can have an effect on the child. A job so demanding that it leaves parents exhausted at the end of the day affects the way parents will interact with children when they come home. The macrosystem consists of cultural norms that underlie the institutions and activities that make up someone’s everyday life. For example, the macrosystem in the United States includes the ideology of democracy, as well as the value placed on individual achievement. The chronosystem consists of the events that take place at different times in a child’s life, as well as the time in history in which the child lives. For example, parental divorce affects a 2-year-old child much differently than a teenager. Also, the current experience of divorce, when it has become more common, is different than it would have been in 1940 when it was relatively rare (Bronfenbrenner, 1986).
Microsystem: In ecological theory, the face-to-face interaction of the person in her immediate settings, such as home, school, or friendship groups.
Mesosystem: In ecological theory, the interaction among the various microsystems, such as a child’s school and home.
Exosystem: In ecological theory, settings that the child never enters but that affect the child’s development, such as the parents’ place of work.
Macrosystem: In ecological theory, cultural norms that guide the nature of the organizations and places that make up one’s everyday life.
Chronosystem: In ecological theory, the dimension of time, including one’s age and the time in history in which one lives.
Figure 2.6 Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model.
Source: Adapted from Bronfenbrenner