Psychological Perspectives

Psychologists today do not believe there is one “right” way to study the way
people think or behave. There are, however, various schools of thought that
evolved throughout the development of psychology that continue to shape the
way psychologists investigate human behavior. For example, some psychologists
might attribute a certain behavior to biological factors such as genetics while
another psychologist might consider early childhood experiences to be a more
likely explanation for the behavior. Because psychologists might emphasize various
points within psychology in their research and analysis of behavior, there are
different viewpoints in psychology. These schools of thought are known as
approaches, or perspectives.

The Psychodynamic Perspective

Psychodynamic theory is an approach to psychology that studies the
psychological forces underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions, and how
they may relate to early childhood experience. This theory is especially interested
in the dynamic relations between conscious and unconscious motivation, and
asserts that behavior is the product of underlying conflicts over which people
often have little awareness.

The Role of the Unconscious

Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis holds two major assumptions: (1) that

much of mental life is unconscious (i.e., outside of awareness), and (2) that past
experiences, especially in early childhood, shape how a person feels and behaves
throughout life. The concept of the unconscious was central: Freud postulated a
cycle in which ideas are repressed but continue to operate unconsciously in the
mind, and then reappear in consciousness under certain circumstances. Much of
Freud’s theory was based on his investigations of patients suffering from
“hysteria” and neurosis. Hysteria was an ancient diagnosis that was primarily used
for women with a wide variety of symptoms, including physical symptoms and
emotional disturbances with no apparent physical cause. The history of the term
can be traced to ancient Greece, where the idea emerged that a woman’s uterus
could float around her body and cause a variety of disturbances. Freud theorized
instead that many of his patients’ problems arose from the unconscious mind. In
Freud’s view, the unconscious mind was a repository of feelings and urges of
which we have no awareness.

Psychosexual Theory of Development

Freud’s theories also placed a great deal of emphasis on sexual

development. Freud believed that each of us must pass through a series of stages
during childhood, and that if we lack proper nurturing during a particular stage,
we may become stuck or fixated in that stage. Freud’s psychosexual model of
development includes five stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.
According to Freud, children’s pleasure-seeking urges are focused on a different
area of the body, called an erogenous zone, at each of these five stages.
Psychologists today dispute that Freud’s psychosexual stages provide a legitimate
explanation for how personality develops, but what we can take away from
Freud’s theory is that personality is shaped, in some part, by experiences we have
in childhood.

Jungian Psychodynamics

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychotherapist who expanded upon Freud’s theories
at the turn of the 20th century. A central concept of Jung’s analytical psychology is
individuation: the psychological process of integrating opposites, including the
conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy.
Jung focused less on infantile development and conflict between the id and
superego and instead focused more on integration between different parts of the
person. Jung created some of the best-known psychological concepts, including
the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity.

Psychodynamics Today

At present, psychodynamics is an evolving multidisciplinary field that analyzes and

studies human thought processes, response patterns, and influences. Research in
this field focuses on areas such as:
• understanding and anticipating the range of conscious and unconscious responses to
specific sensory inputs, such as images, colors, textures, sounds, etc.;

• utilizing the communicative nature of movement and primal physiological gestures to

affect and study specific mind-body states; and

• Examining the capacity of the mind and senses to directly affect physiological response
and biological change.
Psychodynamic therapy, in which patients become increasingly aware of dynamic
conflicts and tensions that are manifesting as a symptom or challenge in their
lives, is an approach to therapy that is still commonly used today.

The Behavioral Perspective

Behaviorism is an approach to psychology that emerged in the early 20th
century as a reaction to the psychoanalytic theory of the time. Psychoanalytic
theory often had difficulty making predictions that could be tested using rigorous
experimental methods. The behaviorist school of thought maintains that
behaviors can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal
physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as thoughts and beliefs.
Rather than focusing on underlying conflicts, behaviorism focuses on observable,
overt behaviors that are learned from the environment.
Its application to the treatment of mental problems is known as behavior
modification. Learning is seen as behavior change molded by experience; it is
accomplished largely through either classical or operant conditioning (described
below).
The primary developments in behaviorism came from the work of Ivan Pavlov,
John B. Watson, Edward Lee Thorndike, and B. F. Skinner.

The Cognitive Perspective

Cognitive psychology is the school of psychology that examines internal
mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. “Cognition”
refers to thinking and memory processes, and “cognitive development” refers to
long-term changes in these processes. Much of the work derived from cognitive
psychology has been integrated into various other modern disciplines of
psychological study, including social psychology, personality psychology, abnormal
psychology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, and behavioral
economics.
Cognitive psychology is radically different from previous psychological approaches
in that it is characterized by both of the following:
• It accepts the use of the scientific method and generally rejects introspection
as a valid method of investigation, unlike phenomenological methods such as
Freudian psychoanalysis.
• It explicitly acknowledges the existence of internal mental states (such as
belief, desire, and motivation), unlike behaviorist psychology.
Cognitive theory contends that solutions to problems take the form of algorithms,
heuristics, or insights. Major areas of research in cognitive psychology include
perception, memory, categorization, knowledge representation, numerical
cognition, language, and thinking.

History of Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology is one of the more recent additions to psychological

research. Though there are examples of cognitive approaches from earlier
researchers, cognitive psychology really developed as a subfield within psychology
in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The development of the field was heavily
influenced by contemporary advancements in technology and computer science.

The Humanistic Perspective

Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that rose to
prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the philosophies of
existentialism and phenomenology, as well as Eastern philosophy. It adopts a
holistic approach to human existence through investigations of concepts such as
meaning, values, freedom, tragedy, personal responsibility, human potential,
spirituality, and self-actualization.
Basic Principles of the Humanistic Perspective

The humanistic perspective is a holistic psychological perspective that attributes

human characteristics and actions to free will and an innate drive for self-
actualization. This approach focuses on maximum human potential and
achievement rather than psychoses and symptoms of disorder. It emphasizes that
people are inherently good and pays special attention to personal experiences and
creativity. This perspective has led to advances in positive, educational, and
industrial psychology, and has been applauded for its successful application to
psychotherapy and social issues. Despite its great influence, humanistic
psychology has also been criticized for its subjectivity and lack of evidence.

The Socio-Cultural Perspective

Sociocultural factors are the larger-scale forces within cultures and societies
that affect the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals. These include
forces such as attitudes, child-rearing practices, discrimination and prejudice,
ethnic and racial identity, gender roles and norms, family and kinship structures,
power dynamics, regional differences, religious beliefs and practices, rituals, and
taboos. Several subfields within psychology seek to examine these sociocultural
factors that influence human mental states and behavior; among these are social
psychology, cultural psychology, and cultural-historical psychology.

Cultural Psychology
Cultural psychology is the study of how psychological and behavioral
tendencies are rooted and embedded within culture. The main tenet of cultural
psychology is that mind and culture are inseparable and mutually constitutive,
meaning that people are shaped by their culture and their culture is also shaped
by them.
A major goal of cultural psychology is to expand the number and variation
of cultures that contribute to basic psychological theories, so that these theories
become more relevant to the predictions, descriptions, and explanations
of all human behaviors—not just Western ones. Populations that are Western,
educated, and industrialized tend to be overrepresented in psychological research,
yet findings from this research tend to be labeled “universal” and inaccurately
applied to other cultures. The evidence that social values, logical reasoning, and
basic cognitive and motivational processes vary across populations has become
increasingly difficult to ignore. By studying only a narrow range of culture within
human populations, psychologists fail to account for a substantial amount of
diversity.

Social Psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of
others. This subfield of psychology is concerned with the way such feelings,
thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and goals are constructed, and how these
psychological factors, in turn, influence our interactions with others.

Focus of Social Psychology

Social psychology typically explains human behavior as a result of the

interaction of mental states and immediate social situations. Social psychologists,
therefore, examine the factors that lead us to behave in a given way in the
presence of others, as well as the conditions under which certain behaviors,
actions, and feelings occur. They focus on how people construe or interpret
situations and how these interpretations influence their thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors (Ross & Nisbett, 1991). Thus, social psychology studies individuals in a
social context and how situational variables interact to influence behavior.
Social psychologists assert that an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors are very much influenced by social situations. Essentially, people will
change their behavior to align with the social situation at hand. If we are in a new
situation or are unsure how to behave, we will take our cues from other
individuals.
The field of social psychology studies topics at both the intrapersonal level
(pertaining to the individual), such as emotions and attitudes, and the
interpersonal level (pertaining to groups), such as aggression and attraction. The
field is also concerned with common cognitive biases—such as the fundamental
attribution error, the actor-observer bias, the self-serving bias, and the just-world
hypothesis—that influence our behavior and our perceptions of events.

History of Social Psychology

The discipline of social psychology began in the United States in the early
20th century. The first published study in this area was an experiment in 1898 by
Norman Triplett on the phenomenon of social facilitation. During the 1930s,
Gestalt psychologists such as Kurt Lewin were instrumental in developing the field
as something separate from the behavioral and psychoanalytic schools that were
dominant during that time.
During World War II, social psychologists studied the concepts of persuasion
and propaganda for the U.S. military. After the war, researchers became interested
in a variety of social problems including gender issues, racial prejudice, cognitive
dissonance, bystander intervention, aggression, and obedience to authority.
During the years immediately following World War II there was frequent
collaboration between psychologists and sociologists; however, the two disciplines
have become increasingly specialized and isolated from each other in recent
years, with sociologists focusing more on macro-level variables (such as social
structure).

The Biological Perspective

Biopsychology—also known as biological psychology or psychobiology—is
the application of the principles of biology to the study of mental processes and
behavior. The fields of behavioral neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and
neuropsychology are all subfields of biological psychology.

Overview of Biopsychology

Bio psychologists are interested in measuring biological, physiological,

and/or genetic variables and attempting to relate them to psychological or
behavioral variables. Because all behavior is controlled by the central nervous
system, bio psychologists seek to understand how the brain functions in order to
understand behavior. Key areas of focus include sensation and perception,
motivated behavior (such as hunger, thirst, and sex), control of movement,
learning and memory, sleep and biological rhythms, and emotion. As technical
sophistication leads to advancements in research methods, more advanced topics,
such as language, reasoning, decision-making, and consciousness, are now being
studied.

Behavioral neuroscience has a strong history of contributing to the

understanding of medical disorders, including those that fall into the realm of
clinical psychology. Neuropsychologists are often employed as scientists to
advance scientific or medical knowledge, and neuropsychology is particularly
concerned with understanding brain injuries in an attempt to learn about normal
psychological functioning. Neuroimaging tools, such as functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, are often used to observe which areas of the
brain are active during particular tasks in order to help psychologists understand
the link between brain and behavior.

Introduction to Psychological Research:

Have you ever wondered whether the violence you see on television affects
your behavior? Are you more likely to behave aggressively in real life after
watching people behave violently in dramatic situations on the screen? Or, could
seeing fictional violence actually get aggression out of your system, causing you to
be more peaceful? How are children influenced by the media they are exposed
to? A psychologist interested in the relationship between behavior and exposure
to violent images might ask these very questions.
The topic of violence in the media today is contentious. Since ancient times,
humans have been concerned about the effects of new technologies on our
behaviors and thinking processes. The Greek philosopher Socrates, for example,
worried that writing—a new technology at that time—would diminish people’s
ability to remember because they could rely on written records rather than
committing information to memory. In our world of quickly changing technologies,
questions about the effects of media continue to emerge. Many of us find
ourselves with a strong opinion on these issues, only to find the person next to us
bristling with the opposite view.
How can we go about finding answers that are supported not by mere
opinion, but by evidence that we can all agree on? The findings of psychological
research can help us navigate issues like this.

Why Is Research Important?

Scientific research is a critical tool for successfully navigating our complex
world. Without it, we would be forced to rely solely on intuition, other people’s
authority, and blind luck. While many of us feel confident in our abilities to
decipher and interact with the world around us, history is filled with examples of
how very wrong we can be when we fail to recognize the need for evidence in
supporting claims. At various times in history, we would have been certain that
the sun revolved around a flat earth, that the earth’s continents did not move, and
that mental illness was caused by possession. It is through systematic scientific
research that we divest ourselves of our preconceived notions and superstitions
and gain an objective understanding of ourselves and our world.
The goal of all scientists is to better understand the world around them.
Psychologists focus their attention on understanding behavior, as well as the
cognitive (mental) and physiological (body) processes that underlie behavior. In
contrast to other methods that people use to understand the behavior of others,
such as intuition and personal experience, the hallmark of scientific research is
that there is evidence to support a claim. Scientific knowledge is empirical: It is
grounded in objective, tangible evidence that can be observed time and time
again, regardless of who is observing.
While behavior is observable, the mind is not. If someone is crying, we can
see behavior. However, the reason for the behavior is more difficult to determine.
Is the person crying due to being sad, in pain, or happy? Sometimes we can learn
the reason for someone’s behavior by simply asking a question, like “Why are you
crying?” However, there are situations in which an individual is either
uncomfortable or unwilling to answer the question honestly, or is incapable of
answering. For example, infants would not be able to explain why they are crying.
In such circumstances, the psychologist must be creative in finding ways to better
understand behavior. This chapter explores how scientific knowledge is generated,
and how important that knowledge is in forming decisions in our personal lives
and in the public domain.

USE OF RESEARCH INFORMATION

Trying to determine which theories are and are not accepted by the
scientific community can be difficult, especially in an area of research as broad as
psychology. More than ever before, we have an incredible amount of information
at our fingertips, and a simple internet search on any given research topic might
result in a number of contradictory studies. In these cases, we are witnessing the
scientific community going through the process of reaching a consensus, and it
could be quite some time before a consensus emerges. For example, the
hypothesized link between exposure to media violence and subsequent
aggression has been debated in the scientific community for roughly 60 years.
Even today, we will find detractors, but a consensus is building. Several
professional organizations view media violence exposure as a risk factor for actual
violence, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric
Association, and the American Psychological Association (American Academy of
Pediatrics, American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, American
Psychological Association, American Medical Association, American Academy of
Family Physicians, American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
In the meantime, we should strive to think critically about the information
we encounter by exercising a degree of healthy skepticism. When someone makes
a claim, we should examine the claim from a number of different perspectives:
what is the expertise of the person making the claim, what might they gain if the
claim is valid, does the claim seem justified given the evidence, and what do other
researchers think of the claim? This is especially important when we consider how
much information in advertising campaigns and on the internet claims to be based
on “scientific evidence” when in actuality it is a belief or perspective of just a few
individuals trying to sell a product or draw attention to their perspectives.
In the end, research is what makes the difference between facts and
opinions. Facts are observable realities, and opinions are personal judgments,
conclusions, or attitudes that may or may not be accurate. In the scientific
community, facts can be established only using evidence collected through
empirical research.

THE PROCESS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH:

Scientific knowledge is advanced through a process known as the scientific
method. Basically, ideas (in the form of theories and hypotheses) are tested
against the real world (in the form of empirical observations), and those empirical
observations lead to more ideas that are tested against the real world, and so on.
In this sense, the scientific process is circular. The types of reasoning within the
circle are called deductive and inductive. In deductive reasoning, ideas are tested
against the empirical world; in inductive reasoning, empirical observations lead to
new ideas ([link]). These processes are inseparable, like inhaling and exhaling, but
different research approaches place different emphasis on the deductive and
inductive aspects.

Deductive reasoning starts with a generalization that is tested against real-world

observations; however, inductive reasoning moves in the opposite direction.
Inductive reasoning uses empirical observations to construct broad
generalizations. Unlike deductive reasoning, conclusions drawn from inductive
reasoning may or may not be correct, regardless of the observations on which
they are based. For instance, you may notice that your favorite fruits—apples,
bananas, and oranges—all grow on trees; therefore, you assume that all fruit must
grow on trees. This would be an example of inductive reasoning, and, clearly, the
existence of strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi demonstrate that this
generalization is not correct despite it being based on a number of direct
observations. Scientists use inductive reasoning to formulate theories, which in
turn generate hypotheses that are tested with deductive reasoning. In the end,
science involves both deductive and inductive processes.
For example, case studies, which you will read about in the next section, are
heavily weighted on the side of empirical observations. Thus, case studies are
closely associated with inductive processes as researchers gather massive
amounts of observations and seek interesting patterns (new ideas) in the data.
Experimental research, on the other hand, puts great emphasis on deductive
reasoning.
We’ve stated that theories and hypotheses are ideas, but what sort of ideas are
they, exactly? A theory is a well-developed set of ideas that propose an
explanation for observed phenomena. Theories are repeatedly checked against
the world, but they tend to be too complex to be tested all at once; instead,
researchers create hypotheses to test specific aspects of a theory.
A hypothesis is a testable prediction about how the world will behave if our idea is
correct, and it is often worded as an if-then statement (e.g., if I study all night, I
will get a passing grade on the test). The hypothesis is extremely important
because it bridges the gap between the realm of ideas and the real world. As
specific hypotheses are tested, theories are modified and refined to reflect and
incorporate the result of these tests.
To see how this process works, let’s consider a specific theory and a hypothesis
that might be generated from that theory. As you’ll learn in a later chapter, the
James-Lange theory of emotion asserts that emotional experience relies on the
physiological arousal associated with the emotional state. If you walked out of
your home and discovered a very aggressive snake waiting on your doorstep, your
heart would begin to race and your stomach churn. According to the James-Lange
theory, these physiological changes would result in your feeling of fear. A
hypothesis that could be derived from this theory might be that a person who is
unaware of the physiological arousal that the sight of the snake elicits will not feel
fear.
A scientific hypothesis is also falsifiable, or capable of being shown to be incorrect.
Recall from the introductory chapter that Sigmund Freud had lots of interesting
ideas to explain various human behaviors. However, a major criticism of Freud’s
theories is that many of his ideas are not falsifiable; for example, it is impossible
to imagine empirical observations that would disprove the existence of the id, the
ego, and the superego—the three elements of personality described in Freud’s
theories. Despite this, Freud’s theories are widely taught in introductory
psychology texts because of their historical significance for personality psychology
and psychotherapy, and these remain the root of all modern forms of therapy.
Many of the specifics of (a) Freud’s theories, such as (b) his division of the mind into id, ego, and superego, have
fallen out of favor in recent decades because they are not falsifiable. In broader strokes, his views set the stage for
much of psychological thinking today, such as the unconscious nature of the majority of psychological processes.

In contrast, the James-Lange theory does generate falsifiable hypotheses, such as

the one described above. Some individuals who suffer significant injuries to their
spinal columns are unable to feel the bodily changes that often accompany
emotional experiences. Therefore, we could test the hypothesis by determining
how emotional experiences differ between individuals who have the ability to
detect these changes in their physiological arousal and those who do not. In fact,
this research has been conducted and while the emotional experiences of people
deprived of an awareness of their physiological arousal may be less intense, they
still experience emotion (Chwalisz, Diener, & Gallagher, 1988).
Scientific research’s dependence on falsifiability allows for great confidence in the
information that it produces. Typically, by the time information is accepted by the
scientific community, it has been tested repeatedly.

Approaches to Research:
There are many research methods available to psychologists in their efforts
to understand, describe, and explain behavior and the cognitive and biological
processes that underlie it. Some methods rely on observational techniques. Other
approaches involve interactions between the researcher and the individuals who
are being studied—ranging from a series of simple questions to extensive, in-
depth interviews—to well-controlled experiments.
Each of these research methods has unique strengths and weaknesses, and
each method may only be appropriate for certain types of research questions. For
example, studies that rely primarily on observation produce incredible amounts of
information, but the ability to apply this information to the larger population is
somewhat limited because of small sample sizes. Survey research, on the other
hand, allows researchers to easily collect data from relatively large samples. While
this allows for results to be generalized to the larger population more easily, the
information that can be collected on any given survey is somewhat limited and
subject to problems associated with any type of self-reported data. Some
researchers conduct archival research by using existing records. While this can be
a fairly inexpensive way to collect data that can provide insight into a number of
research questions, researchers using this approach have no control on how or
what kind of data was collected. All of the methods described thus far are
correlational in nature. This means that researchers can speak to important
relationships that might exist between two or more variables of interest. However,
correlational data cannot be used to make claims about cause-and-effect
relationships.
Correlational research can find a relationship between two variables, but
the only way a researcher can claim that the relationship between the variables is
cause and effect is to perform an experiment. In experimental research, which will
be discussed later in this chapter, there is a tremendous amount of control over
variables of interest. While this is a powerful approach, experiments are often
conducted in very artificial settings. This calls into question the validity of
experimental findings with regard to how they would apply in real-world settings.
In addition, many of the questions that psychologists would like to answer cannot
be pursued through experimental research because of ethical concerns.

NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION
If you want to understand how behavior occurs, one of the best ways to
gain information is to simply observe the behavior in its natural context. However,
people might change their behavior in unexpected ways if they know they are
being observed. How do researchers obtain accurate information when people
tend to hide their natural behavior? As an example, imagine that your professor
asks everyone in your class to raise their hand if they always wash their hands
after using the restroom. Chances are that almost everyone in the classroom will
raise their hand, but do you think hand washing after every trip to the restroom is
really that universal?
This is very similar to the phenomenon mentioned earlier in this chapter:
many individuals do not feel comfortable answering a question honestly. But if we
are committed to finding out the facts about hand washing, we have other
options available to us.
It is critical that the observer be as unobtrusive and as inconspicuous as
possible: when people know they are being watched, they are less likely to behave
naturally. If you have any doubt about this, ask yourself how your driving behavior
might differ in two situations: In the first situation, you are driving down a
deserted highway during the middle of the day; in the second situation, you are
being followed by a police car down the same deserted highway.

ARCHIVAL RESEARCH
Some researchers gain access to large amounts of data without interacting
with a single research participant. Instead, they use existing records to answer
various research questions. This type of research approach is known as archival
research. Archival research relies on looking at past records or data sets to look for
interesting patterns or relationships.

LONGITUDINAL AND CROSS-SECTIONAL RESEARCH

Sometimes we want to see how people change over time, as in studies of
human development and lifespan. When we test the same group of individuals
repeatedly over an extended period of time, we are conducting longitudinal
research. Longitudinal research is a research design in which data-gathering is
administered repeatedly over an extended period of time. For example, we may
survey a group of individuals about their dietary habits at age 20, retest them a
decade later at age 30, and then again at age 40.
What is Theory ?
The term theory is used with surprising frequency in everyday language. It is often
used to mean a guess, hunch, or supposition. You may even hear people dismiss
certain information because it is "only a theory." It is important to note as you
study psychology and other scientific topics that a theory in science is not the
same as the colloquial use of the term.
Purpose of a Psychology Theory:
In psychology, theories are used to provide a model for understanding human
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
A psychological theory has two key components:
• It must describe a behavior.
• It must make predictions about future behaviors.
Types of Psychological Theories:
There are many psychology theories, but most can be categorized as one of four
key types.
Developmental Theories:
Theories of development provide a framework for thinking about human growth,
development, and learning.Developmental theories provide a set of guiding
principles and concepts that describe and explain human development. Some
developmental theories focus on the formation of a particular quality, such as
Kohlberg's theory of moral development.
Grand Theories:
Grand theories are those comprehensive ideas often proposed by major thinkers
such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson.Grand theories of development include
psychoanalytic theory, learning theory, and cognitive theory. These theories seek
to explain much of human behavior but are often considered outdated and
incomplete in the face of modern research.
Mini-Theories:
Mini-theories describe a small, very particular aspect of development. A mini-
theory might explain relatively narrow behaviors, such as how self-esteem is
formed or early childhood socialization.These theories are often rooted in the
ideas established by grand theories, but they do not seek to describe and explain
the whole of human behavior and growth.
Emergent Theories:
Emergent theories are those that have been created relatively recently and are
often formed by systematically combining various mini-theories. These theories
often draw on research and ideas from different disciplines but are not yet as
broad or far-reaching as grand theories.
The sociocultural theory proposed by theorist Lev Vygotsky is a good example of
an emergent theory of development.