PSY 205 Week 1 Developmental Theories and Research Methods Example

One Child, Three Theories: Comparing Developmental Explanations for a Boy Entering Foster Care

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

PSY/205: Life Span Human Development

Week 1 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The child, his family and the caseworker are composites written for a model paper; theories and research come from the sources listed.

Developmental psychology studies how people change and stay the same from conception to death. Early thinkers debated whether development was driven mostly by nature or nurture and whether it proceeded gradually or in stages. Today, most researchers see development as the product of many interacting influences. This paper compares three major theories by applying them to one composite case and then explains how researchers would study such a case over time.

The Case

Jayden is seven. Two weeks ago, a child welfare agency in Phoenix removed him and his younger sister from their mother's care after repeated neglect. He now lives with foster parents across town and attends a new school. His teacher reports that he barely speaks in class, does not finish work and sometimes hides under his desk. At his foster home, he asks every night when he will see his mother and says the removal happened because he "was bad." His caseworker wants to understand what he is going through and how to help.

Erikson's Psychosocial Theory

Erikson described eight stages across the lifespan, each centered on a psychosocial conflict. At seven, Jayden faces Erikson's conflict of industry versus inferiority, building or losing a sense of competence through schoolwork, skills and friendships. Unfinished assignments and silence in class suggest he is moving toward inferiority. Erikson also held that earlier stages influence later ones. Jayden's experience of neglect may have weakened the basic trust built in infancy, and removal from his mother may have shaken it further, making new adults hard to rely on.

Erikson's theory captures the emotional and social side of Jayden's difficulties and offers a lifespan view, but its stages are broad and hard to test with research.

Piaget's Cognitive Theory

Piaget proposed that children move through stages of thinking: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. At seven, Jayden is entering concrete operations, able to reason logically about concrete events but still limited in understanding complex, abstract causes. His belief that he caused the removal reflects this. He cannot yet grasp the adult reasons involved, such as his mother's struggles or agency rules, so he explains events through his own behavior.

Piaget's theory explains Jayden's reasoning well and suggests a practical step: adults should explain the removal in concrete, simple terms and repeat that it was not his fault. Later research found that children can sometimes reason more maturely than Piaget expected, and his theory says little about emotions and relationships.

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model

Bronfenbrenner (1977) argued that development should be studied in the real settings where it occurs and described those settings as nested systems: the microsystem, where the child spends each day, such as home and school, the mesosystem of connections between them, the exosystem of settings that affect the child indirectly and the macrosystem of culture and policy. Jayden's microsystems have all changed at once: new home, new school, new caregivers. The mesosystem matters too; if foster parents and teacher communicate, his days become more consistent. The exosystem includes the child welfare agency and family court, whose decisions about visits shape his life. The macrosystem includes state policies on foster care placement and family reunification.

This model explains why Jayden's behavior cannot be understood by looking at him alone and points to many places where help can be offered.

Jayden's silence in class belongs to a system that changed all at once: a home, a school, a family and a court calendar.

Development as a Transaction

Sameroff (2010) proposed a transactional view in which children and their environments continually influence each other over time, so that development cannot be traced to nature or nurture alone. Jayden's withdrawal may lead his teacher to expect little from him, which may deepen his sense of inferiority. If his foster parents respond to his questions patiently, he may begin to trust them, which in turn helps him settle at school. Each response changes the next.

Comparing the Theories

Erikson explains Jayden's emotional struggle and the long-term stakes for trust and competence. Piaget explains the thinking behind his self-blame. Bronfenbrenner explains the many systems shaping his days and where to intervene. The transactional view connects them by showing how child and environment shape each other. No single theory is complete; together they guide the caseworker's actions: consistent adults, simple explanations, communication between home and school and visits arranged so Jayden can keep contact with his family when safe.

Room for Resilience

Theories that focus on risk can make outcomes sound fixed. Masten (2001) reviewed research on resilience and concluded that positive adaptation despite adversity usually comes from ordinary protective processes, such as relationships with caring adults, problem-solving skills and effective schools, rather than from rare personal qualities. For Jayden, this means that a patient foster parent, a teacher who notices small successes and regular, safe contact with his sister could support recovery. Resilience research shifts the question from what is wrong to what can help.

How Researchers Would Study This

Researchers use several designs to study development. A cross-sectional study would compare children of different ages in foster care at one time, which is quick but cannot show how individuals change. A longitudinal study would follow children like Jayden for years, showing how early experiences relate to later outcomes, but it is slow and loses participants as families move. A sequential design would follow several age groups over time, combining the advantages of both. Because researchers cannot ethically assign children to foster care, these studies are correlational; they reveal associations, not causes, unless they compare groups carefully or use natural experiments.

Conclusion

Applying three theories to one child shows that development is shaped by emotion, thinking and the systems around a child, all at once. Each theory adds something the others miss, and research designs that follow children over time can test how experiences like foster care shape later development. For Jayden, the theories point to the same practical message: stable adults and clear, kind explanations matter.

References

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32(7), 513-531. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.32.7.513

Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3), 227-238. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.227

Sameroff, A. (2010). A unified theory of development: A dialectic integration of nature and nurture. Child Development, 81(1), 6-22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01378.x