The Theories of Russian Psychologist Lev Vygotsky Also Emphasize the Importance of Social

1. 1. I think that social forces are the most important of the factors that influence lifespan development. In his psychosocial theory of development, Erik Erikson strongly underscores the role of culture and society on child development. For example, the first stage of Erikson's theory of psychosocial development occurs between birth and one year of age, and it is based on the development of trust between infants and their main caregivers.

The theories of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky also emphasize the importance of social processes on development by what he called the social origins of mind. Vygotsky proposed that development and learning is dependent on a dynamic interaction between children and their social and cultural context which includes everyday experiences with the people in their lives such as parents, caregivers, siblings and peers.

Albert Bandura is the originator of social learning theory. This theory explains human behavior in terms of continuous back and forth interactions between people, their behavior, and their environments. Bandura theories stressed that most human behavior is learned through observing and interacting with others. Human beings are the most complex and behaviorally flexible of animals because they are relatively immature and helpless, and they get an extended time for learning and adaptation. This is the time they spend under great social influence for what to do and how to behave as well as for what is needed to be learned to grow and develop.

1. 2. The behavior of infants, young children and older individuals varies across cultures. According to their specific goals for the children in their society, the people of different cultures have different child rearing practices, and they have different behavioral outcomes. What is viewed in one culture as normal developmental processes may be seen by another culture as problematic or even pathological. In general, although the ability to behave in a particular way is genetically and biologically determined. However, socio-cultural experiences tend to determine how these capacities play out in real-world situations. Modern models of child development have also incorporated the concepts of feedback mechanisms and homeostatic functions that cause children and their caregivers to behave interdependently. In addition to these social factors, there are physiological factors. For example, it has been shown that mothers who have an increased hormonal response when interacting with their infants are more sensitive to their child’s moods, emotions, and physical sensations. This hormone, oxytocin, has also been shown to have positive effects on prosocial behavior. This heightened responsiveness and compassion will likely mean that these mothers will be able to infer and extrapolate on what is needed in terms of good infant care. Thus, in my opinion, infant care is a combination of physiologically induced responses together with the results of actions and reactions by baby and caregivers, which is social as well as culturally and temperamentally mediated.

When men care for children, research shows that they interact with children differently from women. Researchers have found that men tend to encourage babies to act engage their curiosity through activity and exploration, whereas, mothers tend to be more conservative. The mother would often move in sooner than fathers to assist the child or remove obstacles. Fathers tend to spend a larger proportion of their time in play with infants than do mothers. Fathers' play tends to be more physically arousing and unpredictable, and mothers play is more verbally-oriented and connected with the use of toys (Parke 1996). In spite of these differences, however, results from a study by developmental psychologist Michael Lamb comparing the biological responses of men and women to videotapes of crying infants, found their physiological responses were indistinguishable (Lamb, 1978). A previous study by Parke and Sawin also found that fathers fed their babies as effectively and efficiently as mothers, knowing when to soothe and burp the babies, whether or not the fathers had previous infant caregiving experiences (Parke & Sawin, 1975).

Adult-infant interactions are highly mediated by cultural influences. For example, parents in other cultures such as Sweden and Israel have been observed as displaying little or no gender differences in their type of play with infants and toddlers. It has also been observed that Chinese, Thai, and Aka pygmy parents rarely even engage in physical play with their children.

Male caregiver involvement, has been pinpointed as having positive effects on child development. Studying the effects of fathers' participation in the daily care of their infants, Pedersen found that the more actively involved a baby was with the father, the higher that baby scored on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (Pedersen, et al, 1980). Parke and Sawin (1975) also found that the more a father participated in caring for his baby, the more socially responsive and resilient to stress the baby turned out to behave.

1. Research by Bowlby and Ainsworth has shown that the quality of infant attachment can affect a person’s relationships well into later life. Bowlby’s major conclusion, grounded in the available empirical evidence, was that to grow up mentally healthy, “the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother (or mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment.”
2. Attachment theory goes on to state that the good continuity of care that infants receive helps them develop a sense of trust, which further encourages good growth and development. A caregiver who is available and responsive to a baby's needs helps form the basis for secure attachment.. Good attachments lay a foundation for being able to form good relationships, to be able to seek out support when needed, and to be able to draw thrive when support is given.

Temperament is made up of the differences that individuals have with emotional and physical reactivity and self-regulation. It is influenced by heredity, feedback, and life experiences. A child’s unique personal characteristics affect their day-to-day interactions and the development of their relationships. Differences in temperament occur almos6 at the beginning of infancy and may be shaped by societal norms, community group dynamics, child-rearing practices, and community values.

Individual differences in child temperament are often predictive of later development issues and mental health risk factors. The effect of temperament on development is largely dependent on by the “goodness of fit” between the temperaments of both the child and the caregiver. Many studies have found associations between parenting and child temperament in terms of how well the family unit gets on together. Thus, an easily soothed or sociable child may elicit warm responses, while an irritable or withdrawn child may elicit parental disapproval or withdrawal of attention. Over time, these interactions offer comfort and predictability for both caregiver and child, forming the basis of a nurturing, reciprocal relationship. The infant and the caregiver are, thus, both active partners in their interaction. Both’s temperaments play a role in the quality of their interactions. A good match of temperaments will help support optimal child development.

4. Parents the world over share the challenge of potty training and look forward to having a clean and dry. However, different cultures as well as different families have diverse expectations of what an infant or a toddler should be doing at any given stage of development, and potty training is no exception. While in the US, most potty training is focused on the 2 to 3-year-old age groups, methods of much earlier infant toilet training are widely used in Asia and Africa. A society's specific infant training practices are adaptive to survival and cultural. The different expectations of infant behavior of the East African Digo, for example, produces a markedly different toilet training approach than in America.