Newer Theories

You have surely noticed that the seminal grand theorists (Freud, Erikson, Pavlov, Skinner, Piaget) were all men, scientists from western Europe or North America, born more than a hundred years ago. These background variables are limiting. (Of course, female, non—Western, and contemporary theorists are limited by their backgrounds, too.) Despite their impressive insights, the three grand theories no longer seem as comprehensive as they once did, in part because their limitations have become more apparent.

New theories have emerged that, unlike the grand theories, are multicultural and multidisciplinary and thus are more in accord with the life-span perspective, as explained in Chapter 1. The first theory described below, sociocultural theory, draws on education, anthropology, and history. The second theory, universal theory, has two notable manifestations: humanism arises from theology, political science, and history, and evolutionary psychology from archeology, ethology, and biology.

Sociocultural Theory: Vygotsky and Beyond

The central thesis of sociocultural theory is that human development results from the dynamic interaction between developing persons and their surrounding society. Culture is viewed not as something external that impinges on developing persons but as integral to their development every day via the social context (all the dynamic systems described in Chapter 1).

Social Interaction

The pioneer of the sociocultural perspective was Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), a psychologist from the former Soviet Union, already mentioned in Chapter 1 because aspects of the sociocultural approach are now accepted by virtually all contemporary developmentalists.

Vygotsky was a leader in describing the interaction between culture and education. He noted that each community in his native Russia (comprising Asians and Europeans, of many faiths and many languages) taught children whatever beliefs and habits were valued in each culture. He studied cognitive competency in many people, including children with special needs. For example, his research included how farmers used tools, how illiterate people thought of abstract ideas, and how children learned in school. In his view, each person, schooled or not, develops with the guidance of more skilled members of his or her society, who are tutors or mentors in an apprenticeship in thinking (Vygotsky, 1934/1986).

To describe this process, Vygotsky developed the concept of guided participation, the method used by parents, teachers, and entire societies to teach novices the skills and habits expected within their culture. Tutors engage learners (also called apprentices) in joint activities, offering not only instruction but also “mutual involvement in several widespread cultural practices with great importance for learning: narratives, routines, and play” (Rogoff, 2003, p. 285). Active apprenticeship is a central concept of sociocultural theory because each person depends on others to learn. This process of guided participation is informal, pervasive, and social.

For example, one of my students came to my office with her young son, who eyed my candy dish but did not take any.

In that brief moment, all three of us were engaged in cultural transmission. We were surrounded by cultural traditions and practices, including my authority as professor and the fact that I have an office and a candy dish (a social custom that I learned from one of my teachers). True to my culture, I deferred to the direct authority of the mother, who, true to her culture, had taught her son to be polite and obedient. As an apprentice, he needed to be reminded to say “thank you.” I guided him as well, in part by saying he could have one piece (encouraging math, authority, and moderation all at once). Specifics differ, but all adults teach children skills expected in their society and culture.

All cultural patterns and beliefs are social constructions, not natural laws, according to sociocultural theorists. These theorists find customs to be powerful, shaping the development of every person, and they also find that some assumptions need to shift to allow healthier development. Vygotsky stressed this point, arguing that mentally and physically disabled children should be educated (Vygotsky, 1925/1994). This is a cultural belief that has become law in the United States but is not yet accepted in many other nations.

The Zone of Proximal Development

According to sociocultural theory, all learning is social, whether people are learning a manual skill, a social custom, or a language. As part of the apprenticeship of thinking, a mentor (parent, peer, or professional) finds the learner’s zone of proximal development, which contains the skills, knowledge, and concepts that the learner is close (proximal) to acquiring but cannot yet master without help.

Through sensitive assessment of the learner, the mentor engages the mentee within that zone. Together, in a “process of joint construction,” new knowledge is attained (Valsiner, 2006). The mentor must avoid two opposite dangers: boredom and failure. Some frustration is permitted, but the learner must be actively engaged, never passive or overwhelmed (see Figure 2.2).

To make this seemingly abstract process more concrete, consider an example: a father teaching his daughter to ride a bicycle. He begins by rolling her along, supporting her weight while telling her to keep her hands on the handlebars, to push the right and left pedals in rhythm, and to look straight ahead. As she becomes more comfortable and confident, he begins to roll her along more quickly, praising her for steadily pumping. Within a few lessons, he is jogging beside her, holding only the handlebars. When he senses that she could maintain her balance, he urges her to pedal faster while he loosens his grip. Perhaps without realizing it, she rides on her own.

Note that this is not instruction by preset rules or reinforcement. Sociocultural learning is active: No one learns bike-riding by reading and memorizing written instructions, and no good teacher merely repeats a prepared lesson. Because each learner has personal traits, experiences, and aspirations, education must be individualized. Learning styles vary: Some people need more assurance; some learn best by looking, others by hearing. A mentor must sense when support or freedom is needed and how peers can help (they may be the best mentors). Skilled teachers know when the zone of proximal development expands and shifts.

Excursions into and through the zone of proximal development, as illustrated by the boy prompted to say “thank you” and the girl learning to balance on a bike, are commonplace for all of us. Examples are everywhere. At the thousand or so science museums in the United States, children ask numerous questions, and adults guide their scientific knowledge (Haden, 2010). Physical therapists tailor exercises to the particular patient and the surrounding context. For example, when physical therapists provide exercise for patients in intensive care, they not only take into account the illness but also the culture of the ICU (Pawlik & Kress, 2013).

In general, mentors, attuned to ever-shifting abilities and motivation, continually urge a new competence—the next level, not the moon. For their part, learners ask questions, show interest, and demonstrate progress, which guides and inspires the mentors. When education goes well, both are fully engaged and productive within the zone of proximal development. Particular skills and processes vary enormously, but the overall interaction is the same.

Taking Culture into Account

The sociocultural perspective has led contemporary scientists to consider social context in every study. Earlier theorists and researchers are criticized for failing to do so. This newer approach considers not only differences between one nation and another, but also differences between one region and another, between one cohort and another, between one ethnic group and another, and so on. This has led to a wealth of provocative findings, many described later. Here we briefly present only a few:

• Context counts: Children who attend multiethnic schools are less ethnically prejudiced than other children (Killen at al., 2010).
• Among adults, acceptance of same-sex marriage has increased in recent years. This new attitude is true in all cohorts (see Figure 1.4 in the previous chapter) but is particularly evident among certain groups. The reason most often given is sociocultural: Many people say they know people who are homosexual, and that has changed their minds. Of course, the fact that more gay and lesbian adults make public their sexual orientation is itself a sociocultural phenomenon (Pew, 2013).
• The proportion of U.S. elders in nursing homes has declined (now less than 4 percent of those over age 65), again reflecting a sociocultural shift.
• Cultures differ not only in values but also in how strictly or loosely those values are held. People in cultures that accept nonconformists consider themselves more creative and tolerant; others consider them lax and permissive (Gelfand, 2012).

Finally, culture needs to be considered person by person as each individual participates in some aspects of the culture while rejecting or modifying others. Consider two sisters.

These two sisters, both speaking a local language, raised in the same tribal culture (Mayan, in San Pedro, Guatemala), nevertheless followed distinct cultural paths. Later Susana refused an arranged marriage and moved to a nearby town, unlike her unschooled sister who married a man she did not like and stayed close to her childhood home all her life. Culture shapes everyone, but each person experiences it differently.

The Universal Perspective: Humanism and Evolutionary Theory

No developmentalist doubts that each person is unique. Yet many social scientists contend that the sociocultural focus on differences (cultural, ethnic, sexual, economic) depicts a fractured understanding of development. Moreover, no developmentalist doubts that nonhuman animals can help us understand humans, but many think that earlier theories rested too heavily on animal drives and instincts, ignoring the aspects of development that characterize humans.

Universal theories hold that all people share impulses and motivations, which they express in ways most other animals cannot. A universal perspective has been articulated in many developmental theories, each expressed in particular ways but always contending that humans are similar to each other.

Here we describe two of the most prominent of such perspectives: humanism and evolutionary theory. These two may seem to be opposite, in that humanism emphasizes the heights of human striving and evolutionary theory begins with quite simple instincts, but several recent scholars find many similarities in these theories, specifically that the “hierarchy of human motives” (humanism) can be anchored “firmly in the bedrock of modern evolutionary theory” (Kendrik et al., 2010, p. 292).

Humanism

Many scientists are convinced that there is something hopeful, unifying, and noble in the human spirit, something ignored by psychoanalytic theory (which stresses the selfish id and childhood sexuality) and by behaviorism (which seems to ignore free will). The limits of those two major theories were especially apparent to two Americans: Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) and Carl Rogers (1902–1987), both deeply religious men. They had witnessed the Great Depression and two world wars and concluded that traditional psychological theories underrated human potential by focusing on evil, not good. They founded a theory called humanism that became prominent after World War II, as millions read Maslow’s Toward a Psychology of Being (1962/1998) and Rogers’s On Becoming a Person (1961/2004).

Maslow believed that all people—no matter what their culture, gender, or background—have the same basic needs. He arranged these needs in a hierarchy (see Figure 2.3):

1. Physiological: needing food, water, warmth, and air
2. Safety: feeling protected from injury and death
3. Love and belonging: having friends, family, and a community (often religious)
4. Esteem: being respected by the wider community as well as by oneself
5. Self-actualization: becoming truly oneself, fulfilling one’s unique potential while appreciating all of humanity

This pyramid caught on almost immediately; it was one of the most “contagious ideas of behavioral science” since it seemed insightful about human psychology (Kendrick et al., 2010, p. 292). At the highest level, when basic needs have been met, people can be fully themselves—creative, spiritual, curious, appreciative of nature, able to respect everyone else.

One sign of self-actualization is that the person has “peak experiences” when life is so intensely joyful that time stops and self-seeking disappears. Given the stresses and deprivations of modern life, humanists believe that relatively few people reach the self-actualization of level 5. But everyone can—that is the universality of humanism. [Lifespan Link: An extension of this is apparent in self-theory in late adulthood, which appears in Chapter 25.]

Rogers also stressed the need to accept and respect one’s own personhood as well as that of everyone else. He thought that people should give each other unconditional positive regard, which means that they should see (regard) each other with appreciation (positive) without conditions (unconditional).

If parents do not have unconditional positive regard for their children, the danger is that the children will have long-lasting problems with intimacy and self-acceptance (Roth & Assor, 2012). Rogers spent the last years of his life trying to reconcile the factions in Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Russia; he believed all sides need to listen to each other.

As you can see, humanists emphasize what all people have in common, not their national, ethnic, or cultural differences. Maslow contended that everyone must satisfy each lower level of the hierarchy of needs before moving higher. A starving man, for instance, may not be concerned for his own safety when he seeks food (level 1 precedes level 2), or an unloved woman might not care about self-respect because she needs love (level 3 precedes level 4). Destructive and inhumane actions that prevent people from self-actualization may be the consequence of unmet lower needs. At the end of his life, Maslow explained that the highest level transcended selfishness and became selflessness, when a person is able to appreciate all of humanity (Maslow, 1971).

Although humanism does not postulate developmental stages, ideally as people mature they move up the hierarchy. Babies seek food and comfort, and not until adulthood can a person focus wholeheartedly on success and esteem, beyond the immediate approval of friends and family.

Satisfaction of childhood needs is crucial for later self-acceptance, according to Maslow. Thus, when babies cry in hunger, their basic need should be satisfied. People may become thieves or even killers, unable to reach their potential, to self-actualize, if they were unsafe or unloved as children.

Rogers agreed that adults who were deprived of unconditional positive regard in childhood might become selfish and antisocial. He developed a widely used method of psychological therapy to help people become more accepting of themselves and therefore of other people.

This theory is still prominent among medical professionals because they now realize that pain is not always physical (the first two levels), it can be social (the next two) (Majercsik, 2005; Zalenski & Raspa, 2006). Even the very sick need love and belonging (family should be with them) and esteem (the dying need respect).

Echoes of humanism are also evident in education and sports: The basic idea here is that people are more effectively motivated when they try to master a body of knowledge or a skill to achieve a “personal best”—that is, to reach the peak of their own potential—than when they strive to be the best in their class or on their team (Ravizza, 2007). One criticism of the theory is that it promotes selfishness and individuality, but that may be unfair: In a massive survey in China, elders who were high in social participation, sharing in common life, were most self-actualized (Chen & Gao, 2013).

Evolutionary Theory

You are familiar with Darwin and his ideas, first published 150 years ago: Essentially he showed that plants, insects, birds, and animals developed over billions of years, as life evolved from primitive cells to humans (Darwin, 1859). But you may not realize that serious research on human development inspired by this theory does not focus primarily on lower creatures, but instead studies the history of human characteristics. Evolutionary psychology is quite recent. As two leaders in this field write:

Evolutionary theory has intriguing explanations for many issues in human development, including women’s nausea in pregnancy, 1-year-olds’ attachment to their parents, rebellion in adolescence, and the growing obesity epidemic. According to this theory, many human impulses, needs, and behaviors evolved to help humans survive and thrive many millennia ago (Konner, 2010).

To understand human development, this theory contends that humans should acknowledge the lives of our early ancestors. For example, many people are terrified of snakes, screaming and breaking into a cold sweat upon seeing one. However, virtually no one is terrified of automobiles. Yet snakes cause less than 1 death in a million, while cars cause more than a hundred times that. The extreme reaction to snakes derives from instinctive fears that evolved over millennia, when snakes were common killers. Thus,

Since our fears have not caught up to modern inventions, we use our minds to protect ourselves with laws regarding seat belts, red lights, and speed limits. Humanity is succeeding in such measures: The U.S. motor-vehicle death rate has been cut in half over the past 20 years. Other modern killers—climate change, drug addiction, obesity, pollution—also require social management because instincts are contrary to knowledge. Evolutionary theory contends that once we recognizing the origins of destructive urges—such as the deadly desire to eat calorie-dense chocolate cake—we will be better able to control them (King, 2013).

According to evolutionary theory, every species has two long-standing, biologically-based drives: survival and reproduction. Understanding these two drives provides insight into protective parenthood, the death of newborns, infant dependency, child immaturity, the onset of puberty, and much more (Konner, 2010). Later chapters will explain these, but here is one example. Adults consider babies cute—despite the reality that babies have little hair, no chins, stubby legs, and round stomachs—all of which are considered ugly in adults. The reason, evolutionary theory contends, is that adults of all species are instinctually attuned to protect and cherish the young. For some, a competing instinct is to perpetuate their own heirs, and that might lead to infanticide, again explained by evolutionary theory (Hrdy, 2009)

A basic idea from evolutionary theory—selective adaptation—proposes that humans today react in ways that helped promote survival and reproduction long ago. In one version of selective adaptation, genes for traits that aid survival and reproduction are selected over time to allow the species to thrive (see Figure 2.4). Some of the best qualities of people—cooperation, spirituality, and self-sacrifice—may have originated thousands of years ago when groups of people survived because they took care of one another. Childhood itself, particularly the long period when children depend on their parents, can be explained via evolution (Konner, 2010).

The process of selective adaptation works as follows: If one person happens to have a gene that makes survival more likely, that gene is likely to be passed on to the next generation because that person survives long enough to reproduce. Such a beneficial gene might have arisen as a mutation, or it might simply be a genetic combination that results in one end of the natural variation in height, body type, anxiety, or any other characteristic. Anyone who inherits such genes has an increased chance of growing up, finding a mate, and bearing children—half of whom would inherit that desirable gene.

For example, originally all humans probably got sick after drinking cow’s milk; that is, they were lactose intolerant (Suchy, 2010). Then in a few regions thousands of years ago, cattle were domesticated and raised for their meat. In those places, “killing the fatted calf” provided a rare feast for the entire community when a major celebration occurred.

Although more than half of all babies died of malnutrition in ancient times, in cattle-raising regions, if a hungry child chanced to have an aberrant gene for the enzyme that allowed digestion of cow’s milk, and drank some milk intended for a calf, he or she was likely to survive long enough to have children. Indeed, a girl who could digest milk would become fat, experience early puberty, then sustain many pregnancies, and then breast-feed her thriving babies longer than her lactose-intolerant, skinny, malnourished sisters. In that way, the next generation would include more people who inherited that gene.

This process of selective adaptation continues over many generations. An odd gene allowing digestion of cow’s milk became widespread where plant proteins were scarce and cow’s milk meant survival. This might explain why few Scandinavians are lactose-intolerant but many Africans are—a useful fact for Wisconsin dairy farmers who want to ship milk to starving children in Senegal. Once it was understood that milk might make some children sick, better ways to relieve hunger were found. Although malnutrition is still a global problem, fewer children are malnourished than a few decades ago, partly because nutritionists now know which foods are digestible and nourishing for whom.

For groups as well as individuals, the interaction of genes and environment affects survival and reproduction, the two basic drives recognized by evolutionary theory. Genetic variations are particularly beneficial when the environment changes, which is one reason the genetic diversity of humans throughout the world benefits humanity as a whole. If a species’ gene pool does not include variants that allow survival in difficult circumstances (such as exposure to a new disease or to an environmental toxin), the entire species becomes extinct. This explains why biologists worry when a particular species becomes inbred—diversity is protective.

Genetic variation among humans, differential sensitivity, and plasticity (explained in Chapter 1) enable humans to survive and multiply. This statement is true not only for biological traits (such as digestion of milk) but also for psychological traits that originate in the brain (Confer et al., 2010; Tomasello, 2009).

Evolutionary theory contends that certain epigenetic factors foster socialization, parenthood, communication, and language, all of which helped humans a hundred thousand years ago and allowed societies a few thousand years ago to develop writing, then books, and then universities. As a result, humans learn from history and from strangers in distant continents. The fact that you are reading this book, accepting some ideas and rejecting others, is part of the human heritage that will aid future generations, according to evolutionary theory.

In recent years, “evolutionary psychology has grown from being viewed as a fringe theoretical perspective to occupying a central place within psychological science” (Confer et al., 2010). This theory is insightful and intriguing, but some interpretations are hotly disputed.

For instance, an evolutionary account of mental disorders suggests that some symptoms (such as an overactive imagination or a crushing anxiety) are normal extremes of adaptive traits. This implies that few people should be considered mentally ill, an implication rejected by many psychologists. Also controversial are explanations of sex differences, as the following explains.

Many women reject the evolutionary explanation for sex differences. They contend that hypothetical scenarios do not reflect actual experience, and that patriarchy and sexism, not genes, produce mating attitudes and patterns (Vandernassen, 2005; Varga et al., 2011).

Similar controversies arise with other applications of evolutionary theory. People do not always act as evolutionary theory predicts: Parents sometimes abandon newborns, adults sometimes handle snakes, and so on. In the survey of Mexican American college students that was cited in A View from Science, more than one-third did not follow the typical pattern for their gender (Cramer et al., 2009).

Nonetheless, evolutionary theorists contend that humans need to understand the universal, biological impulses within our species, in order to control destructive reactions (e.g., we need to make “crimes of passion” illegal) and to promote constructive ones (to protect against newer dangers, by manufacturing safer cars and guns).