Evolutionary psychology: what it is, and main authors and theories

This branch of psychology studies the changes produced in the mind throughout life.

It is evident that we are not the same at birth, at five, at fifteen, at thirty or at eighty. And the fact is that from the moment we are conceived until we die we are in a continuous process of change: throughout our lives, we will evolve and develop as individuals, and we will gradually acquire different capacities and skills as our organism matures both biologically and through experience and learning.

This is a developmental process that does not end until the moment of death, and has been studied by different disciplines. One of them is evolutionary psychologyof which we are going to speak in this article.

Developmental psychology: basic definition

Developmental psychology is considered to be the branch of psychology that studies the development of human beings throughout their life cycle.. It is a discipline born from the interest in understanding the multiple changes that manifest the mind and behavior of a being in continuous development from birth to the grave.

Although traditionally the studies of developmental psychology have focused mainly on child development, it is very important to highlight the fact that this discipline covers the whole life cycle: adolescence, maturity and senescence are also the object of researched and very relevant studies despite having received a lower level of attention (being perhaps the adult stage the least researched of all in this regard).

This discipline emphasizes the processes of change through which the subject goes through throughout his or her life, taking into account the presence of distinctive and individual elements that make us unique but of similarities with regard to the development process in question. It also takes into account that in such development we will find both Biological and environmental factors.. The sociocultural environment, the degree of biological maturation and the interaction of the organism with the world are valued.

Physical, socio-affective, communicative and cognitive development are some of the main elements that this branch of psychology analyzes and assesses the evolution of which some models or paradigms have different theories and focus more or less on specific aspects. Developmental psychology allows us to assess the point of view and knowledge of each subject based on how someone with a given level of development perceives the world. The usefulness of this is broad, since thanks to the understanding of these factors we can adjust education, jobs or services offered to different sectors of the population taking into account their needs.

The beginnings of this branch of psychology

Although one of its most representative authors is Jean Piaget, this discipline has multiple precursors to take into account. The first scientific records of developmental milestones date back to the 17th century, with the appearance of the first diaries or biographies of infants in which in which sensory, motor, cognitive and language behavior were observed (Tiedemann). Darwin would also make observations regarding the evolving behavior of children, making his own biography as a baby and recording his son's progress.

The first properly scientific study on child development is that of Preyer, who came to develop scientific observation standards to record the behavior of children and animals and published in 1882 "The Soul of the Child".

The institutional establishment of education as compulsory in childhood led to an in-depth study of the psyche and developmental processes. At this stage, Binet would elaborate the first intelligence test dedicated to children. At the same time, authors such as Montessori authors such as Montessori emerged and contributed to the elaboration of alternative educational systems. Stanley Hall is also an essential precursor figure, owing to him the introduction in developmental psychology of the study of the adolescent subject.

Likewise, currents such as psychoanalysis would be born, which would begin to give importance to the experiences and child development as an explanation of adult behavior. Freud himself would elaborate a series of phases of psychosexual development that would contemplate different changes linked to his theory, as well as Anna Freud and Melanie Klein would also stand out in the field of child development as the main exponents of this current.

Some of the theories and models proposed from this current

Developmental psychology has generated, throughout its history, a great number of theories and models. Winnicott, Spitz, Wallon, Anna Freud, Mahler, Watson, Bandura, Case, Fischer, Newgarten... all of them are names of authors and authors relevant in the evolution of this discipline. Some of the best known and classic ones, however, are those listed below.

Freud's contribution

Although the Freudian conception of child development is not particularly popular today and is not usually among the most accepted explanatory models, it is true that Freud's contribution is one of the oldest and best known models in psychology on record. Freud considered that the personality was structured by three instances, the Ego or drive part, the Superego or critical, censorious and moral part and the Ego or element that integrates the information of both and configures the rational and conscious way of acting based on the principle of reality. The baby would not have an Ego during birthThe first being pure, and the first being formed as the subject evolves and differentiates from the environment.

Among many other contributions, he also highlights the following of a sequence of development in the form of phases, in which it is possible to suffer regressions or blockages that prevent the subject from advancing appropriately in his development and generate fixations. We are talking about phases that Freud links to sexual development, being called stages of psychosexual development and receiving a name according to the main focus of the search for gratification and conflict resolution at the poles of satisfaction-frustration, authority-rebelliousness and oedipal conflict.

The stages in question are oral (first year of life), anal (between one and three years of age), phallic (from three to six years of age), latency (in which sexuality is repressed, and goes from six to puberty) and genital (from adolescence onwards).

Melanie Klein and child development

Another psychodynamic author of great importance in the study of child development was Melanie Klein, who considered that the human being is motivated by establishing relationships with others. considered that the human being is motivated by establishing relationships with others, and that the human being is motivated by establishing relationships with others..

This author, who would develop the study of the child from symbolic play and the theory of object relations, considered that the self existed from birth and that the human being went through two fundamental stages in the first year of life: schizo-paranoid position (in which the subject does not differentiate people as a whole but divides between good and bad parts as if they were differentiated elements) and depressive position (in which there is recognition of objects and people as a whole, guilt appearing when understanding that what was previously considered a good object and a bad object are part of the same object).

Eriksson's stages and crises

Perhaps one of the most far-reaching psychoanalytic contributions, in the sense that it covers not only childhood but the whole life cycle, is that of Eriksson. This author, a disciple of Anna Freud, considered that society and culture had a much more important role to play in the psychoanalytic process. society and culture had a much more relevant role in shaping the personality throughout life. throughout life. He identified a series of stages based on the existence of crises (as human beings have to face the search for satisfaction of their own needs and environmental demands) during psychosocial development.

During the first year of life the baby has to face the crisis of basic Trust vs. Distrust, learning or not to trust others and the world. The second phase is that of Autonomy vs. Shame, between the first and third year of life, in which the child must seek to seek independence and autonomy in basic skills..

Then the subject must face the crisis of Initiative vs. Guilt, seeking a balance between having his/her own initiative and accepting the responsibility of not imposing him/herself on others. The fourth stage (6-12 years) is that of industriousness vs. inferiority, in which social skills are learned. Then, between the ages of twelve and twenty, the subject would reach the crisis of Identity vs. Role Confusion (in which he/she searches for his/her own identity).

From there to approximately forty years of age, the crisis of Intimacy vs. Isolation would emerge as the stage in which the subject seeks to generate strong bonds of love and commitment with friends and partners. The seventh crisis or stage occurs between forty and sixty-five years of age, being that of Generativity vs. Stagnation in which one seeks to be productive in order to provide welfare for future generations. Finally, during old age, the Integrity vs. Despair phase is reached, as a time of looking back and valuing life as meaningful or disappointing..

Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory

Perhaps the best known and most accepted model of developmental psychology is that of Jean Piaget, whom some authors consider the true father of the discipline. Piaget's theory tries to explain how human cognition evolves and adapts throughout development.

The developing subject generates different mental structures and schemata that allow him/her to explain the world from his/her own action on it (being the action and interaction of the subject with the environment necessary for development to exist). The child acts on the basis of two main functions: organization (understood as the tendency to elaborate progressively more complex mental structures) and adaptation (which in turn can arise as assimilation of new information as something added to what is already known or accommodation of pre-existing schemes to this if it is necessary to change them to adapt to the new information).

This theory assumes that throughout development more and more complex capacities and schemes of thought emerge, subject passes through various stages or periods of development.. For this author, the biological/organic prevails over the social, depending on and following developmental learning.

The author identifies the sensorimotor period (in which the merely reflexive schemes of interaction last until approximately two years of age), the preoperational period (in which he begins to learn to use symbols and abstractions between two and six years of age), the period of concrete operations (between seven and eleven years of age), and the period of formal operations (in which hypothetical-deductive thinking and the ability to solve logical problems appear from approximately twelve or fifteen years of age, in which appears the capacity to make different mental operations and to solve logical problems) and that of the formal operations (in which from approximately twelve or fifteen years of age a hypothetical-deductive thought and a capacity of complete abstraction, typical of adults, appears).

Vygotsky's sociocultural model

Another of the great authors of developmental psychology, Vygotsky considered that it was learning that made us develop. Cognitive growth is learned from interaction, not the other way around. The most relevant concept of this author is the Zone of Proximal Development, which marks the difference between what the subject is capable of doing by himself and what he can achieve with the existence of external help, in such a way that through the provision of aids we can contribute to develop and optimize the subject's abilities..

Culture and society largely mark the child's development, through processes of internalization of external information obtained through action. The child first learns interpersonally and then learns intrapersonally.

Bronfenbrenner's ecological model

This author's model describes and the importance of the different ecological systems in which the child moves. in which the child moves in order to evaluate his development and performance.

Microsystem (each of the systems and environments in which the child participates directly, such as family and school), mesosystem (relationships between the components of the microsystems), exosystem (the set of elements that influence the child without the child participating directly in them) and macrosystem (the cultural context) are, together with the chronosystem (events and changes that may occur over time), the aspects that this author values most at a structural level.

Bibliographical references:

• Sanz, L.J. (2012). Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación. Manual CEDE de Preparación PIR, 10. CEDE: Madrid.