Development occurs through a person's own contributions to their learning

Development occurs as a result of a person's environment

Development occurs in stages

Development occurs as a process

A person's personality is shaped by the way they navigate conflict between the impulsive and hedonistic part of their brain, the rational problem solving part of their brain and their overly-idealistic moral compass

The mind is viewed like a computer, which takes in information through a sensory register before selectively choosing what to pay attention to in the working memory and what to commit to long term memory

Development is shaped by a person's experiences as they relate to their chronological age, shared social experiences and unique/individual social experiences

Humans learn through a process of modelling and imitation, where people are more likely to copy a behaviour if they think its important and if they see powerful or competent people performing it

Lev Vygotsky

Jean Piaget

Erik Erikson

Albert Bandura

Positive reinforcement

Negative reinforcement

Classical conditioning

Whether their parents participate in their school community

The social norms around gender roles in their community

Whether they get on well with their friends at school

A young child learns how to pronounce the word 'Easter' while their dad helps them to read a new book

A baby is born with a larger head and smaller body due to a cephalocaudal growth pattern

A baby cries when its parents leave the room, and isn't fed on a regular feeding schedule

A baby's parents maintain a regular feeding schedule, which strengthens their baby's trust in their environment

The development of gender norms

Her parents' support only

Only having ideal experiences with her sport

Interactions between her genetics and her social environment

Her muscle fibre genotype only

Developmental theories perfectly explain human behaviour and apply to all people

While there are many developmental theories, they all frame human development in more or less the same way

Developmental theories don't need to have evidence supporting their applicability

Developmental theories are flexible frameworks that explain some aspect of human behaviour, and can change as new evidence emerges

Psychosocial

Environmental

Physical

Cognitive