Talk:Developmental psychology

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This article is within the scope of Psychology WikiProject, which collaborates on Psychology and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details on the project. B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale. Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit · refresh)

Contents 1 Image 2 Evolutionary process 3 Removed mention of movie "Sixth Sense" 4 Psychology side bar (template) 5 Steiner's descriptions of child development 6 History 7 Intelligence 8 Quality 9 Comment from subpage 10 Template:Humandevelopment

[edit] Image

Is the image entirely relevent?--82.32.0.26 21:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

How about an image that portrays a life-span approach to developmental psychology? --Mcfa0750 04:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evolutionary process

Evolutionary process is continuos and develops in a step-wise fashion. This should also applies to the evolutionary development of cognition. It is my belief that cognition is developed in modular blocks. As evolutionary process progresses from species to species, these blocks are preseved, modified, expanded, etc. Human brain is at the top of such process. -- (207.162.148.213) 20:40, 4 September 2003

[edit] Removed mention of movie "Sixth Sense"

I removed a recent addition that featured the movie "Sixth Sense" as a popular culture reference to Developmental Psychology. I really liked this film, but it's just not related to Developmental Psychology (which is an area of scientific study). This movie does feature Child Psychopathology (which is a mental health profession). Maybe that would be a better page for this? -- khg 08:41, 15 April 2004

[edit] Psychology side bar (template)

A side bar was added to the article about Developmental Psychology. It contained a list of some areas, sub areas, and therapeutic approaches of Psychology. There are two reasons I felt it should be removed. First, it cluttered the article without any real benefit. There is already a set of hierarchical categories to help people find out about other areas of Psychology. You can also already navigate directly to related areas of Psychology from the final paragraph. Second, I am concerned that this side-bar is convoluted and biased in its structure. An example of it being convoluted is listing both therapeutic techniques (e.g., psychodynamic) and research areas (e.g., cognitive psychology) as “approaches.” An example of bias is the way it gives a select group of sub-areas in Psychology (e.g., Evolutionary, Self) the same status as broad areas of research (e.g., Cognitive, Social , Developmental). I tried to find a page to edit the side-bar, but couldn’t. Could someone please explain where the discussion and development of these things is happening? -- khg 15:03, 1 November 2004

The Psychology side bar (template) was already here when I looked recently (November 2005), but I added it to several other pages 19 November 2005. Although I don't agree that it adds nothing (and neither would the many others who've made or approve of similar templates for other subjects), I think it's worth having a conversation about its contents. I saw a claim somewhere that the items included were based on a review of what was most often referenced in textbooks (the template does not contain "self psychology" now), but I can't find that comment now; it's not on the template's page. -DoctorW 10:56, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

DoctorW, thank you for showing me where to go to edit the side-bar. Somebody added the sidebar back soon after I removed it. I never felt it worth continuing to debate. But I still feel it's clutter. The fields that are related to Developmental Psychology are listed in the text with direct links. At its best, that makes the side-bar redundant. And I still feel the bar is biased. Notice how it puts Humanistic, Gestalt, Evolutionary, Sensory, and Linguistics on par with areas like Clinical, Developmental, Social, and Cognitive. The former are arguably sub-topics of the latter. I know you might make convincing arguments that some of the former deserve to be viewed as independent branches of Psychology. But shouldn't the inter-relationships between sub-disciplines be a topic for the relevant articles? I just feel sticking these things into a side-bar implicitly endorses one way of organizing psychological knowledge. -- khg, 6 January, 2006

[edit] Steiner's descriptions of child development

There is a question as to whether these should be included; one user removed them with the justification that 'developmental psychology comes from a specific literature of peer-reviewed scientific research'. This is an artificial distinction; Steiner's model of development is more widely used practically than most of those cited. I have restored the reference. Hgilbert 01:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry; the fact that Developmental psychology is a scientific endeavor based on the conversations among researchers grounded in research (versus models that are not subjected to scientific scrutiny and are not a part of the main conversations researchers are engaged in) is not an artificial distinction. It is fundamental to whether the model belongs on this page versus another page. Whether or not Steiner's model can be considered to be used "widely" or not in education is irrelevant. If you think it is, make your argument for adding something about it on an "education" page. Steiner's model is certainly not a prominent one in Developmental psychology! I am familiar with its role as an educational model, but as far as I know (and I'm a Developmental psychologist), it plays no role at all in Developmental psychology. Also, I notice that all of the pages you (hgilbert) have edited have to do with Rudolf Steiner; you should be careful not to veer over the line into POV advocacy--this is an encyclopedia that strives for NPOV (see also Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). -DoctorW 00:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I have reread the Neutral point of view article carefully, and it clearly states that Wiki's version of neutrality is to include all relevant viewpoints. To exclude one because you do not agree with it or have not heard of it is not adequate. Steiner's is a serious model of child development, taught at a number of universities and colleges that I know about; there are a large number of book published that cover his model; there are a large number of educational institutions that use it practically (more than 2,500 to date, and increasing rather than decreasing). I know of no serious refutations of his work, which is in harmony with (but preceded) some of the other theories you do mention. I am not trying to put more emphasis on this model in the article than it deserves, which would be breaking NPOV; a factual mention is not a promotion of NPOV. I suggest you reread Wiki's policy. -- Hgilbert

You are continuing to ignore the title of this page, "Developmental psychology." It is not "Education." In over 8 years of bachelor's, master's, and doctoral course work in Developmental psychology at leading universities, and in my years of research afterward, I never heard Steiner's name or a reference to his model mentioned once. If Developmental psychologists completely ignore someone's work, it cannot be considered a part of Developmental psychology, no matter how "serious" you and other non-specialists think it is. I don't have anything against Steiner's model, I really don't. Perhaps there are Developmental psychology textbooks or review articles in peer-reviewed Developmental psychology journals that I don't know about that refer to it as a major theory. The responsibility is yours to cite such Developmental psychology sources. If you find such sources that refer to it as a minor theory, perhaps you could find some place in this article for it that's more appropriate than among the major theories. -DoctorW 05:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

HGilbert, I understand how you can feel Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf schooling are important, practical, ideas that you would like raise people's awareness of. But DoctorW really is right to say that this article is about Developmental Psychology, not educational philosophy. Like DoctorW, I also have a Ph. D. in Developmental Psychology and I agree completely that Steiner's work is not part of the scientific field, Developmental Psychology. Maybe you feel DoctorW and I just so happen to share the same idiosyncratic bias? To make sure we don't, I just looked up Rudolf Steiner in the name index / references of every Developmental Psychology textbook I have in my office. Across 16 distinct textbooks I did not find even one mention of Rudolf Steiner. That is, not only did his work fail to get into the substance of one of these books, but it did not even get into a side box that many books have which show important links between Developmental Psychology and other fields. These books vary in approach, difficulty, year published, and focus; they include 10 introductory books (Baldwin, 1980; Bee, 2000; Berger & Thompson, 2000; DeHart, Stroufe, Cooper, 2000; Feldman 2003; Gardner, 1982; Heatherington, Park, Gauvain, & Locke, 2006; LeFrancois, 1995; Papalia, Gross, Feldman, 2003; Santrock, in press; Siegler, DeLoache, & Eisenberg, 2003; ) , 2 advanced textbooks (Slater & Bremner, 2003; Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003) and 4 Cognitive Development books (Bjorklund, 1989; Flavell, Miller, & Miller, 2002; Siegler & Alibali, 2005, Small 1983). There are many things we could quibble about in this article, but Steiner's place in it is not one of them. His work just is not Developmental Psychology. -- khg, 6 January, 2006

I certainly understand both your perspectives. Let me take another tack. Would you say that a description of child development that articulated three stages of psychological growth- an earliest stage of concrete, sensory-based representations; a second stage (beginning at 6 or 7 years of age) of pictorial thinking, and a third stage (beginning at 12-14 years of age) of abstract thinking - belongs to developmental psychology? If so, would you say that someone who articulated such a theory (articulating three sub-stages for each of the stages I have listed here), and did so before Piaget, has done work in developmental psychology? Most curious about your answer, Hgilbert 21:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the Steiner thing at all. RickM Oct. 27, 2006

[edit] History

I have made a modest attempt to provide some historical background to the existing article. Please feel free to modify (especially to add to) this!!! I hope all feel that Shakespeare, Rousseau and Steiner -despite not being professional or empirical psychologists - do belong to the tradition of describing psychology developmentally. Hgilbert 16:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I just want to commend Hgilbert on a job well done. Experts on the intellectual figures mentioned (and their relation to developmental psychology) can edit and expand this new historical background section - a welcome addition - and Steiner's being mentioned briefly in this historical context seems appropriate (certainly much more so than in the introductory paragraph). -DoctorW 03:13, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intelligence

Where is any information on intelligence and the use of IQ tests? This seems to be a POV agenda. Please add them, if you can't I will. Let me know.--Tstrobaugh 02:19, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quality

I'm very surprised this was rated as a B. Whoever did so must not have read the article, it is very low quality. I think this needs to be greatly expanded, reworded to be more neutral (not to mention free of typos) which I have started off by editing two sections. I think we need input of some real psychologists and psychiatrists here, or at least some textbooks respected in the field.

This reads like a grooming guide, is very generic, and unscientific. For example, in the adolescense section, it says the person 'has' to develope romantic relationships. This is simply not true. Rather than a guide on how to raise, it should remain psychology, which is ANALYSIS, not treatment or guidelines, which is how it is currently. Tyciol 16:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment from subpage

Obviously Developmental Psychology deals with becoming mature (psychologically). I often find people referring to this, His response was immature, or, Her behavior was mature.

I find this area needs careful examination and explanation - I suggests a topic of its own, although one may already exist. Often it involves Projection [[1]] and other defence mechanisms, but to cover this aspect properly I think it needs to be brought together under a healthy, rather than a patholigical, approach. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.11.233.243 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Template:Humandevelopment

Please see Template talk:Humandevelopment. -DoctorW 19:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)