Developmental psychology, as a discipline, is currently undergoing a paradigmatic/
worldview change. Consequently, several different theoretical approaches to the study of development and life course have been proposed and advocated. Different theorists study different aspects of human development and their work is based on the different sets of assumptions they make. These differing assumptions refl ect theoretical debates about four aspects of human behavior:
1. Should it be the individual’s actual behavior or the presumed internal psychological processes that might be refl ected in behavior?
2. Are humans autonomous, self-directed individuals, or do they act largely in response to external events?
3. Is there one theory that explains the development of all people in all places at all times, are there many theories, each specifi c to a historic time and place?
4. The actual methods that should be used to divine the answers to all of these questions.
Different approaches to the study of human development refl ect relatively distinct worldviews. A worldview represents a set of assumptions that a theory may
draw upon to serve as the foundation of that theory’s investigations. The worldview framework was fi rst introduced by philosopher Stephen Pepper (1961) and is viewed as providing the most complete explanation differentiating three worldviews (Goldhauber, 2000). Three worldviews referred to as the mechanistic worldview, the organismic worldview, and the contextualist worldview strive to answer the following three questions put forth by Pepper (Goldhauber, 2000):
1. Is the data on human development an accurate refl ection of development for all times and in all places (universal), or is development so situation- specifi c that it is impossible to generalize across time and place?
2. What causes us to be the way we are, and what causes us to change?
3. How do causes relate to one another? Is it possible to separate causes (reductionistic) or do they interact with each other (holistic)?
1. The Mechanistic Worldview
The Mechanistic Worldview equates living things or organisms to machines or artifacts. These are believed to be composed of parts which are not intrinsically interconnected or interrelated, and their order is imposed from the outside. From a mechanistic viewpoint, human development and behavior are naturally occurring, universal, behavior changes that are measurable and observable, and are therefore predictable, lawful phenomena that can, theoretically at least, be fully understood through the use of systematic, objective empirical research methods (empirical meaning that the methods rely on observation or experimentation). They also believe that behavior is caused either by factors external to the individual (effi cient causes––external factors like parenting style, educational opportunities, and peer group composition), or those defi ning the individual’s biological makeup (material causes––inherited genetic characteristics and more general biological qualities such as temperament or information processing capability). It is a reductionistic paradigm, highly testable. It deals with behavior that is directly present, factual and observable. The researchers/ practitioners separate and dissect a single behavior so that each variable infl uencing that behavior can be examined independent of every other variable.
The preeminent theorists associated with the Mechanistic Worldview are the proponents of the learning theory (also referred to as stimulus-response theory, behavior theory, and social learning theory). They are Ivan Pavlov, BF Skinner, JB Watson and Albert Bandura.
2. The Organismic Worldview
The Organismic Worldview explains rather than predicts. It uses qualitative processes to explain behavior and its causes. From their view point human development is a holistic, sequential process of structural changes that lead to increasingly more
effective modes of adaptation, primarily for maintaining a sense of equilibration––
to exist in harmony with the environment (Piaget, 1950). Change or development is the result of the human being’s effort to stay the same or maintain equilibrium.
Learning and growing, and building on the knowledge already accrued, is the consequence of adapting to the environmental changes.
Organismic Worldview theorists recognize both effi cient (external) and material (genes) causes as important but place even more emphasis on what they see as formal and fi nal causes. Formal causes refl ect the organizational quality of all living systems, while fi nal causes refl ect the organicists’ belief that human development is a directional process. Organicists argue that humans are each more than the sum of their parts and that human beings are actively involved in their own construction.
They say that the organism is composed of interconnected, interrelated parts and go to constitute a complex, organized system.
There are three major issues related to this. The human organism thus can be only studied and understood as a whole entity (a gestalt). Second, the organism is seen as active rather than passive. The change within and its movement is a response to the processes within rather than in response to external or environmental infl uence the source of its acts according to this worldview, the organism is genetically prewired.
And third this change is qualitative and unidirectional. Psychologists operating from this frame of reference defi ne development as a series of progressive changes in structure, directed toward some goal. .
The major theoretical traditions within the Organismic Worldview are the psychoanalytic models associated with the work of Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, and the cognitive developmental model associated with the work of Jean Piaget, Kohlberg’s theory of moral development.
3. Contextualist Worldview
Though the mechanistic and organismic worldviews are very different, nevertheless, they share one important characteristic—each views the process of development as universal. And it is this emphasis that contrasts them to the contextualist worldview.
Contextualists argue that the forces that contribute to development are specifi c to historical time and social place. They do not believe that there are universal laws of development.
Contextualists make their non-universal argument for two reasons: one empirical and one conceptual. From an empirical perspective, they argue individuals are too different and their behaviors too variable to hold on to the ‘universality’ theory.
From a conceptual perspective, contextualists argue that since it is impossible to ever have an objective (i.e., context-free) perspective on human development, then it is impossible to make judgments that are not culturally based. Thus, this worldview is both realistic and idealistic, internally as well as externally driven.
Lev Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory of human development which places great emphasis on the role of culture in fi rst defi ning and then transmitting the sign and symbol systems used in that culture is a good example of a theory rooted in a contextualist worldview. Sign and symbol systems are the ways in which cultures note and code information. They are refl ected in the nature of the language, in ways of quantifying information, in the expression of the arts, and more generally in the ways in which people establish, maintain, and transmit social institutions and relationships across generations.