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The influence of nature and nurture on child development
The influence of nature and nurture on child development
Reflection on behaviorism theory
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Childhood and Adolescence was written by Spencer A. Rathus. In chapter one talks about the history, theories and methods. At the beginning of the chapter it talks the history and what the study of children really is. It also talks about John B. Watson, who was the founder of American behaviorism. His viewed development as learning. In this chapter the book also talks about how back in the Middle ages children were often viewed as something bad and so discipline was harsher. Back in this time children were only nurtured until they were seven. When they turn seven which was called the “age of reason”. After they turned seven they had to work to get food and water. They also had to dress, work, and act like the adults did. Things began to changes …show more content…
He believed that children learn by watching other kids getting something like candy, extra playing time, or social acceptance. Skinner talked about negative and positive reinforcement. He said if a care taker rewards good behavior and looks down on or punish kids for bad behavior that kids will be less likely to behave. This chapter also discusses Ethology and Evolution. Which basically means that kids and people do what comes naturally to them. Charles Darwin, Konrad Lorenz, and Niko Tanbergen were all ethologists. Researchers are always trying to find out how kids learn and one of their solutions is nature and nurture. Nature is things that come naturally to people. It is caused by people’s heritage, nervous system, and maturation. Nurture are things that people learn so they can adapt to their life. It is coming from people’s cultural back group, their opportunity to learn, and the type of education a person has access to. At the end of the chapter it gives some different types of methods of studding children. One of the methods is a case study, according to this book a case study is a carefully drawn account of the behaviors of an individual. For an in formal case study parent keep a journal of what their kids do and
At Harvard, B.F. Skinner looked for a more objective and restrained way to study behavior. Most of his theories were based on self-observation, which influenced him to become a enthusiast for behaviorism. Much of his “self-observed” theories stemmed from Thorndike’s Puzzle Box, a direct antecedent to Skinner’s Box. He developed an “operant conditioning apparatus” to do this, which is also known as the Skinner box. The Skinner box also had a device that recorded each response provided by the animal as well as the unique schedule of reinforcement that the animal was assigned. The design of Skinner boxes can vary ...
B.F. Skinner was considered the father of behavioral approach to psychology and a noticeable spokesperson for behaviorism. According to Corey (2013), he advocated radical behaviorism. In other words it placed a primary importance on the effects of environment on behavior. Skinner was a determinist; he did not consider that humans had free choices. He recognized the existence of feeling and thoughts, but disagreed about them causing humans action. In its place, he underlined the cause-and-effect links between objective, observable environmental conditions and behavior. Skinner claimed that more than enough attention had been given to the internal states of mind and motives, which cannot be observed and changed directly and not enough focus
The book “This Boy’s Life” by Tobias Wolff is a memoir written about the author’s childhood memories and experiences. The author shows many different characters within the book. Many of them are just minor character that does not affect the author much in his life choices and thoughts throughout his growth. But there are some that acts as the protagonist and some the antagonist. One of them is Dwight, the protagonist’s or Jack’s stepfather. This character seems to be one of the characters that inhibit Jack’s choices and decisions. This character plays a huge role in Jack’s life as it leaves a huge scar in his memory. The author here spends the majority of time in this character in the memoir to show the readers the relationship between Jack and Dwight.
According to Philippe Aris a famous sociologist who studied childhood saw it as a social and historical construction (Montgomery 2009) he believed childhood did not really exist until the sixtieth century before that children had been treated as small and inadequate adults (Penn 2008). Sociologist Rinaldi also believed that it is society and different times in history that created childhood (Neaum 2010) Mayall believes children lives are lived through childhoods constructed for them by adults understanding of children and what children are and should be (Kehily 2009) a sociologist who has a different idea would be James and Prout 1990 who believe childhood is both ...
The Victorian Era, between 1837 and 1901, began the first concepts of childhood. Before the Victorian Era, children were treated as equals to adults, and only in the Victorian Age were children regarded as minorities to adults, and thus no longer trusted with certain responsibilities (Kincaid 61-64). However, beginning in the Victorian age, there were more distinct social and economic classes, and each class had different expectations from their children. Working class families had parents who were not in the home and had lots of work to do, and therefore relied on their children to help around the house and care for younger sibling (Frost 12-13). These children were expected to care for their younger siblings as their parents were hard at work to support their family. Nowadays, people get very nervous when they see people at the “young” ages
Strickland, Charles. (1984). The Rise and fall of modern American childhood: Reflections on the history of childhood in the twentieth century. Atlanta, GA: Emory University, Department of History. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED248977)
Skinner came up with operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is when consequences are used to determine whether a certain behavior will be repeated again. In operant conditioning there is positive and negative punishment and positive and negative reinforcement. Positive punishment and positive reinforcement can both be used to increase the likelihood of good behavior, and positive and negative punishment can be used to decrease the likelihood of behavior. Positive reinforcement is when something good is given to enforce the good behavior, and negative reinforcement is when something good is to make sure that the bad behavior doesn’t happen again. Positive punishment is when something bad is given to make sure that the behavior is less likely to happen, and negative punishment is when something bad is taken away to make sure that the desired behavior happens again. Skinner tested this by putting a mouse inside a box and punishing it when it did something that it was not supposed to do and rewarding it when it did something that it was supposed to
The text depicts a historical perspective on Middle Childhood, as during the twentieth century, children were viewed primarily as an economic source of income, in terms of providing for the family. According to the text this happens often in European counties and in parts of the United States. Elizabeth D. Hutchinson, Dimensions of Human Behavior The Changing Life Course 3rd, 2008. In this short review we will look at how this historical perspective in itself is not a question to how, but when these individual give.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was 18th century American psychologist and the founder of operant conditioning in learning. He believed that external force such as environment can affect an individual’s behavior. According to his theory, one must look at the reinforcement and the consequence in order to understand why organism’s behaved in certain ways. Skinner showed how rat can be used in operant conditioning in his laboratory.
Childhood is one of the first biological life cycles we encounter. The experience that we go through shape what we will become. Here in America, as we began to industrialize, we began to have a different view of what childhood should be than in other parts of the world. In Taiwan and in Indonesia athletic shoes are made by children who work in factories instead of going to school. About 215 million of the world’s children work typical long hours for low wages. People in America might find this disturbing because we think of childhood as the first 12 years of life a carefree time of learning and play. But according to historian Philippe Aries (1965) explains, the whole idea of childhood is fairly new. During the middle ages, children of 4 and
Chapter 9 is all about the process of adolescence developed in the children’s life. The chapter explained how the puberty starts, how the changes in body and mind developed according to the sex in puberty, how the children faced some barriers during early and late maturation, how some of the eating disorders occurred, how puberty connected with the formal operational thoughts (Intuitive and Analytic thought), in what way the brain developed in stage of puberty, and how do middle schools provide knowledge about adolescence. In my case, I started my puberty from the age of 14. As the chapter talks that genetic factor also plays role in puberty. For example, my mom told me that she reached puberty at age 14 which lead me to pass through same age
Childhood is the most precious time of a person’s life, full of new discoveries and observations about the world around them. Children learn to become independent and take care of themselves. Their curious eyes explore everything around them and they absorb knowledge from their parents and their teachers. They also learn to make friends and learn how to share with one another. As children get older, they learn how to bond with others in school and become more involved with sports and learning how to be in a group setting. Middle childhood is when children are between the ages of 6 to 12 years of age. They are learning the foundations of forming friendships, learning morals, and being active members at school and at home. During middle childhood, children go through physical, emotional, cognitive, and affective changes that help them define themselves as individuals and how parents can promote their child’s growth and development during this stage of life.
I think that B.F. Skinner shares my philosophy in the behavioral aspects of education. There are many points that have expanded my philosophy. One was the operant conditioning theory, which is when the behavior is changed through positive and negative consequences depending on one’s behavior. Positive Reinforcements can be anything from food and candy to a toy or sticker. Negative reinforcement could be a timeout, scolding, or maybe a spanking. It all depends on their behavior. One thing that surprised me was when Skinner said, “punishment is generally ineffective in controlling undesirable behavior.” I thought that was always the best route to go. Skinner also states that it is better to just ignore the bad behavior until it stops. That to me doesn’t sound like the best idea considering that the child wont know that is not how they are supposed to act and if you don’t let them know then they wont stop. I guess that people didn’t believe that it could work so he put it to the test. He tried it on his daughter and though it took some time he finally found that there are better ways ...
Skinner believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of the action and its consequences. He coined the phrase operant conditioning. His experiments thought us that behaviors that are reinforced tend to be repeated and the ones not reinforced tend fade away. He was able to prove is his theory with famous “skinner box”. This experiment used animals to show if given reinforcements like food they behavior will repeat. When the animal was given a punishment or negative reinforcement the animal was less likely to do it again. This experiment still holds true today. While educators do not put their students in a box and give them electrical shocks when they are wrong, They do however promote good behaviors such as the token economy, where they provide gold stars on a big board which will condition the kids to want to get the stars for a special treat at the end of the specified time. Teachers now focus more on positive reinforcement rather than punishment. It tends to reap better benefits.
My physical development was not so difficult for me. I experienced the growth spurt when I was10 to 15-years old. I didn’t think it was difficult time for me because my range of growth spurt was not so large. Additionally, I did not belong to sports club, so I did not feel uncomfortable when I move my body. I think I am a late bloomer because I have never had boyfriend. But I think it is advantage for me because I am not a “boy-crazy”. I know some friends who are early bloomer and being “boy-crazy”, I do not want to be like them. I have my own interest and I have something what I want to do besides dating with boys. My physical developments have some effects on my character of today. I think it is because I was taller than others since very young, my friends often said to me “you are like my elder sister.” This phrase makes me think that I need to be like elder sister when I was child. It is related to more about psychological development, but this way of thinking came from my height. One of other physical development related issue that makes me struggle is my period. Every time I am in period, I have pain in stomach and back; I feel sleepy, hungry, and irritating; and I have skin problems. I think there are more people who have more heavy symptoms of period, however, sometimes I cannot endure these. My physical developments have some effects on me, but it was not so difficult for me to pass through.