How Do The Principle Psychological
Perspectives Explain the
Development of Individuals?
Today:
How do Chomsky & Skinner explain
language acquisition?
How do Rogers, Maslow, Selman,
Bandura and Cooley & Mead explain the
development of self.
Language Acquisition
Click on the
button to watch
Alex the parrot.
Does this parrot have
cognitive abilities?
Is Alex using human
language
appropriately?
What does
anthropomorphism mean?
Alex the Parrot 1976-2007
Language Acquisition
Do we learn language, or is language
biologically programmed within us?
Versus
Skinner
Chomsky
Language Acquisition
Behaviourist Perspective
• Skinner says that children imitate a sound
made by others (echoic) and those around
the child respond positively and with
excitement. This acts as a positive
reinforcement so the child repeats sounds
to gain praise and rewards.
• Skinner says language acquisition is a
mixture of trial and error, reinforcement and
imitation.
• Is this nature or nurture?
Language Acquisition
Behaviourist Perspective
• Oxana Malaya is known as a
‘feral child’ because from the
age of 3 she was ‘brought
up’ by dogs.
• When she was discovered at
8 she had barely any
language and behaved like
a dog.
• Watch the clip of her. Do you
think this is evidence for the
behaviourist perspective or
not?
Language Acquisition
Natavist Perspective
• Chomsky said language acquisition has to be
more complex than simple trial and error.
• He said we are born with LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION DEVICE which are innate structures
within us to understand language AND grammar.
He said we therefore just need to master the
words of the language we were born into and
the rest will come naturally.
• Is this nature or nurture?
Language Acquisition
Critical-Period Hypothesis
• This theory states that people must
learn language within a critical
period during early development if
they are to comprehend and
master the structure of language.
• Is this nature or nurture?
• Genie was a neglected child who
was found at the age of 13.
• Watch the clip which explains her
situation. How would you explain
Genie’s lack of language?
Language Acquisition
Semantics
• Semantics refers to
the meaning we give
to words.
• What is this picture
of?
• What meaning/s do
we give to the word?
• How do we attribute
meaning to words?
Language Acquisition
Areas for Debate
• Can animals learn language? (If not, then is language
acquisition biological to humans?)
• Are we all born with the same ability to make sounds?
(think about different languages.)
• How do you explain accents?
• How do you explain semantics?
• Can neglected children speak? What does this tell you (if
anything) about language acquisition?
• Children raised in bilingual homes are often slower to speak
than those who are not, but when they do speak, they
keep each language separate and speak each language
correctly. What does this tell you about language
acquisition?
Language Acquisition
Further Research into Feral Children
More than 50 wild children
have been identified since
the mids1300s.
•Hesse wolf-child
•The Irish sheep-child
•Kaspar Hauser
•The 1st Lithuanian bear-child
•Peter of Hannover
•The 2nd Lithuanian bear-child
•The Karpfen bear-girl
•Tomko of Zips
•The Salzburg Sow-girl
•Clemens the Overdyke pigchild
•Dina Sanichar of Sekandra
•The Indian Panther-child
• The Justedal snow-hen
• The Mauretanian gazellechild
• The Teheran ape-child
• Lucas the South African
Baboon-child
• Edith of Ohio
• Wolf-boy of Kronstadt
• Bear-girl of Kaprfen
• Victor de l’Aveyron
• Bear girl of Fraumark
• Wolf-child of Sekandar
• Confined Child of
Pennsylvania
• John Ssebunya of Uganda
• Duck-boy of Holland
Development of Self - Maslow
Self Actualisation
Esteem Needs
Love & Belonging Needs
Safety Needs
Physiological Needs
Maslow
believed that
people were
constantly
striving to
achieve self
actualisation
Development of Self - Rogers
• Rogers strongly believes in the desire for
people to grow and develop as people.
• He believes people construct their own reality
and in doing so, construct a sense of self
called the ‘ideal self’.
• Personal distress can occur when our ideal self
is unrealistic or too idealistic. We then feel like
a failure.
Click here for full Presentation on Rogers
Development of Self
• Research what Selman, Bandura
and Cooley & Mead say about the
development of Self.
• Identify whether all of the theorists
are looking at the development of
self in terms of nature or nurture.