Developmental psychologists are chiefly interested in childhood and adolescence. There are four
main theories of child development that are used when researching the behavior of children. First, there are the maturational theorists who believe that the physiological development of the body, especially the nervous system, is the key to developmental changes in behavior. Arnold Gesell is the leading American proponent of this theory. Another theory, pioneered by Sigmund Freud, is called the psychoanalytic theory and it holds that children primarily develop through a complex interaction between their own needs and their external environment. The third theory is the learning theory, which relies heavily on the role of reinforcement and both classical and instrumental conditioning. Learning theorists feel that in relation to patterns of reward and punishment, heredity and maturation are relatively unimportant
tant Lastly, cognitive theorists emphasize the role of the child s natural motivation as the hey actor in development. They believe the child is an active, inquisitive solver of problems. Now let's look at each of these theories in detail.