Hello psychology lovers today we will talk about one of the psychological branches that studies the changes produced in the mind throughout life. It is evident that we are not equal at the time of birth, at five years, at fifteen forty or seventy. And is that since 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 abilities and abilities according to our body go maturing both biologically and from experience and learning.
It is always a process of development that does not end until the moment of death, and that has been studied by different disciplines. One of them is the evolutionary psychology, of which I will speak in this article.
Evolutionary psychology: basic definition
We consider evolutionary psychology to the branch of psychology that has as object of study the development of the human being throughout its life cycle. It is a discipline born of the interest of understanding the multiple changes that manifest the mind and behavior of a developing being continuing from birth to death.
At present the studies of the evolutionary psychology are mainly focused on the child development, it is very important to emphasize the fact that this discipline covers the entire life cycle: adolescence, maturity and senescence, are also the object of researched study and very relevant despite having received a lower level of attention.
This discipline generates a process of study based on the changes by which the subject is passing throughout his 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. We must bear in mind that in this development we will find both biological and environmental factors. The sociocultural environment is valued, the degree of biological maturation and the interaction of the organism with the world.
Developments, physical, socio-affective, communicative and cognitive are some of the main elements that from this branch of psychology is analyzed and which values the evolution, taking into account the different theories, we can focus on the most concrete aspects. Evolutionary psychology allows us to assess the point of view and knowledge of each subject based on how the world perceives someone with a determined level of development. The usefulness of this branch of psychology is that by studying all the factors of human behavior it is possible to achieve an educational level, the most important aspects of the human being, always taking into account the needs of each individual in society.
The beginnings of this branch of psychology
Although one of the most representative is Jean Piaget, this discipline has multiple precursors to take into account. The first records as such date from the seventeenth century, where sensory, motor and cognitive behaviors were observed in addition to the language of each baby (tiedemann). Also Darwin made observations regarding the evolving behavior of children.
Likewise, as time passed, different currents of thought were given, until psychoanalysis would emerge that would begin to give importance to experiences and child development as an explanation of adult behavior. Freud himself would develop a series of phases of psychosexual development that contemplate different changes incidental to his theory, as well as emphasize in the field of child development Anna Freud and Melanie Klein as main exponents of this current.
Some of the theories and models proposed from this current
The eolutive psychology has generated throughout its history, a large number of theories and models. Winnicott, Spitz, Wallon, Anna Freud, Mahler, Watson, Bandura, Case, Fischer, Newgaster ... they are all names of relevant authors in evolutionary psychology. Some of the most well known and classic are the ones I will name next.
Cognitive-evolutionary theory of Piaget
This theory is undoubtedly the best known and accepted model of evolutionary psychology, Piaget is currently considered the father of psychology, the theory of Jean tries to explain how the behavior of human beings evolves and is adapted to what throughout its development.
The developing subject is generating different structures and mental schemes that allow him to explain the world from his own performance on the (being the action and interaction of the subject with the necessary means for there to be development). The minor acts on the basis of two main functions: the organization (understood as the tendency to develop mental structures progressively more complex) and adaptation (which in turn can arise as assimilation of the new information as something added to what is already known or restructuring the pre-existing schemes, in this sense if it is necessary to change the information.
This theory assumes that over the course of development, more and more complex thinking capacities and schemes are emerging, being passed on to the subject through different stages or periods of development. For this author (Jean Piaget), the biological / organic reigns over the social, depending on and following the development learning.
Piajet identifies the sensorimotor period (in which the merely reflex schemes of the interaction, lasts approximately until two years of age), the preoperative period (in which one begins to learn to use symbols and abstractions between two and six years), the of specific operations (between seven and eleven years, in which the ability to do different mental operations and solve logical problems) and formal operations (which already occurs from approximately twelve to five years ago) years a hypothetical-educational thought and a capacity for complete abstraction, typical of adducts).
Sociocultural model of Vygotsky
Other of the great authors of the evolutionary psychology, Vygotsky considers in his toria that the learning was the one that made us develop. Cognitive growth is learned from the interaction, and not the other way around. The most important concept of this author is that of the zone of proximal development, which marks the difference between what the subject is capable of doing for himself and what he can achieve with the existence of external help, in such a way that through of the ortorgacion of helps we can contribute to develop and optimize the skills of the subject.
Culture and society mark to a great extent the development of the child, through processes of internalization of external information obtained through action. The child first learns interpersonally to subsequently perform an intrapersonal learning.
Bibliography :
- Sanz, L.J. (2012). Evolutionary and educational psychology . CEDE Manual of Preparation PIR, 10 .CEDE: Madrid.
- Barkow, Jerome H ; Cosmides , Leda y Tooby , John (eds) (1992) the adapted Mind , Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of culture . Oxford University Press .
- Rose , Hillary ; Rose , Steen , ed (2010) . Alas Poor Darwin : Arguments Against Evolutionary Psycology .
- Boyer , Pascal (2001) . The Evolution Origins of Religious Thought . Basic Books 375 pag.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology
- http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2009/05/sci-brief.aspx
-https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/evolutionary_psychology.htm