Development of self

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Development of self
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How did you become you?

• What do you think are the factors that
  contributed in the making of you?
• Think about how you would explain how you
  developed into you. What sorts of explanations
  might you give?
• How do you think you might research this? What
  experiments or research might you do?
• Which of the debates might influence your
  understanding of the development of self?

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Key questions

• Some key questions have been asked in the study
  of the development of self. Questions such as
• Is self or identity fixed or fluid? For
  example is your personality and who you are the
  same throughout time and in each situation.
• Is there one true version of self or do we have
  multiple selves?
• Is self nature or nurture?
• Can we apply the nomothetic approach to self,
  such as personality measurements? Or are we all
  uniquely different?
• How much of an influence are our early
  experiences on the way we develop and behave as
  an adult?
• Do we go through distinct stages in the
  development of self?

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Theories

• We are going to briefly look at some of the key
  theories related to the development of self.
  These are
• Cooley Looking glass self
• Mead I/Me
• Skinner Behaviourist approach to understanding
  self
• Piaget Cognitive-developmental approach
• Bandura Social learning theory
• Rogers and Kelly Humanistic perspective
• Maslow Hierarchy of needs
• Selman Theory of role-taking
• We will also look
• Freud - Psychodynamics

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Development of self

• Early researchers such as Cooley (1902) and Mead
  (1934) suggest that our development of self
  relies on our interactions with others
• Children become aware of judgements made by
  others such as naughty good bright slow
  boisterous feminine
• Through these labels children develop a sense of
  who they are their self-concept.
• Cooley called this the looking-glass self since
  it reflects what other people think of us
• Selman (1980) suggests the growth of role-taking
  skills demonstrates a mature understanding of
  self and other people. To know another person
  one must take on their perspective, thoughts and
  feelings. And this requires cognitive competence.

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Different ways of looking at self

• There are some theorists that suggest that we
  have multiple selves. In other words we may be
  different in different situations or with
  different people. We may take on different roles
  that represent different parts of ourselves. For
  example, I am a mother, a wife, a teacher, a
  belly dancer!
• Goffman (1959) suggested we play out different
  aspects of ourselves as though we are in a play
  we are the audience, the actor and the character.
  
• Have you ever noticed that you behaved
  differently in different situations? self as
  character
• Have you ever behaved in a particular way because
  you were worried about what people might think of
  you? self as audience
• George Herbert Mead (1934) talked of self as
  I/Me that the different ways we refer to
  ourselves reflect the different aspects of
  ourselves how we see ourselves and how we
  perceive that others see us

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Behaviourist approach to understanding self

• Behaviourists believe that as babies we are all
  quite similar and have the potential to grow-up
  to be very similar adults
• However our experiences shape how we develop and
  as a result each one of us is different with our
  own unique patterns of behaviour
• For example if you grow-up in a loving caring
  environment you may turn out to be optimistic and
  confident
• If however, you grow-up in an environment
  deprived of love you may turn out to be withdrawn
  and unsociable

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Behaviourist approach to self

• Behaviourists believe that we are shaped by
  classical and operant conditioning
• Remember Pavlov and the experiment he carried out
  on dogs? Pavlov paired the stimulus of food with
  a bell so that eventually the dogs salivated to
  the sound of the bell alone.
• Watson and Rayner (1920) did an experiment on an
  infant to prove that fears could be developed in
  the same way
• How do you think they did this?

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Behaviourism Watson and Rayner

• Little Albert was conditioned to fear white rats.
  
• Each time that Watson presented a white rat to
  little Albert it was accompanied by the sound of
  a loud gong.
• How might this relate to the development of
  self/identity?
• As humans our emotional responses can be
  conditioned to the environment. Things or people
  present when a child feels happy/scared/sad
  become the stimulus for those feelings later in
  life.

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Behaviourism - Skinner

• Remember the experiment Skinner did with rats?
• Skinner placed rats in a maze with different
  levers for food or electric shocks and used these
  to shape their behaviour and how they moved
  around the maze. The rats saw food as a reward
  and would return to levers with food or press
  levers that represented food. They avoided levers
  that provided punishment the electric shock and
  even learned to press some levers that stopped
  the electric shock and therefore avoided it
  negative reinforcement.
• How can this be applied to humans?

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Behaviourism - Skinner

• Parents and key workers unconsciously shape
  childrens behaviour and development of
  personality through rewards and punishments
• A child who is praised for being helpful around
  the home is more likely to repeat that behaviour.

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Social Learning approach

• Remember Banduras bobo doll experiment?
• 3 groups of children were shown the same video
  footage of an adult playing aggressively with a
  large doll. One group saw the adult being told
  off, the next group saw no punishment and the
  third group saw the adult being praised.
• When children were presented with the doll, all
  but the first group repeated the behaviour.
  Observational learning
• How might this apply to development of self?

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Social Learning approach

• You learn how to behave in different situations
  by watching others around you, particularly
  significant others such as parents, teachers,
  peers
• If you see your parent cry and get upset each
  time they make a mistake you too may develop this
  way of dealing with situations that involve a
  risk of error
• Think about some of the fears you have. Have you
  learnt those fears from watching other peoples
  responses? Why are small children often afraid of
  spiders or wasps?

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Humanist perspectives on self

• Humanists such as Maslow, Kelly and Rogers are
  interested in how we experience the world
• George Kelly felt that we derive feelings about
  us/world through experiences and interactions. We
  then modify/extend them by testing them out.
• Carl Rogers developed a therapy that was client
  centred and he encouraged his patients to
  restructure their life by following their true
  self not their social self.
• Rogers has a huge impact on counselling and
  psychology and promotes the idea that we are in
  control and can make conscious decisions for
  ourselves

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Maslow

• Maslow developed a hierarchy of needs
• He felt that we could not reach the top of our
  potential unless other needs were met

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Cognitive-developmental

• Cognitive-developmentalists such as Piaget,
  believe that childrens self-concept is
  distinctively linked to their cognitive
  development.
• Therefore they can only begin to develop an
  understanding of themselves as their cognitive
  skills develop
• Piaget believed that up until the age of around 6
  or 7 children can only see the world from their
  own point of view. He called this egocentrism.
• E.g. If you ask a small child to tell you what
  someone else can see from the other side of the
  room they will describe things from their
  perspective.
• Or a child might tell you that they have a sister
  but strongly deny that their sister has a sister!!

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Summary

• So far we have suggested that childrens
  development of self is dependent on a number of
  things
• Development of self is dependent on interactions
  with others, including reinforcement
• Others provide labels that become a means of
  comparison in the development of self e.g.
  clever, tall
• Children imitate and model themselves on
  significant others
• Through imitation we learn social roles which can
  be described like a play we act out the role of
  mother, daughter, friend and so on

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Summary

• We have considered the behaviourist, social
  learning, humanist and cognitive-developmental
  perspectives on the development of self.
• Next time we will look at Freuds psychodynamic
  theory of self.

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Bibliography

• Birch A., (1997) Developmental Psychology from
  infancy to adulthood 2nd Ed., New York Palgrave
• Flanagan C., (1996) Applying Psychology to early
  child development, London Hodder Education