Developmental Tasks: Towards a Cultural Analysis of Human Development

Developmental Tasks: Towards a Cultural Analysis of Human Development

Developtnental Tasks: Towards a Cultural Analysis of Human Development Edited by Jan J.F. ter Laak: Peter G. Heymans Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University and Andrei I. Podol'skij Department of Developmental Psychology, Moscow State University SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-90-481-4417-4 ISBN 978-94-015-8108-0 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8108-0 Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1994 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 1994 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, incjuding photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

Table of Contents Preface vii List of Contributors xi Part One: The Explanation of Development: The Concept Developmental Task 1 Developmental Tasks: A Cultural Analysis of Human Development 3 P. G. Heymans 2 Bridging the Gap Between Developmental and Learning Studies: The Concept of Developmental Tasks 35 A I. Podol'skij 3 The Theory of Vygotsky and his School and Developmental Tasks 41 L F. Obuchova 4 Assessment of Child Development: Vygotsky's Age-Related Approach 51 G. V. Burmenskaya 5 Personal Age Development as the Object of Psychological Investigation 61 K. N. Polivanova 6 Paradoxes in Learning and Development 71 1. Boom Part Two: Developmental Tasks and Social Interaction 7 Children's Acquisition of the Concept of Mind and the Assignment of a Moral Status to Others: Learning from Social Interaction in Real and Artificial Cognitive Systems 83 T. Olthof 8 The Role of Interaction in Mental Action Formation 91 O. B. Chesnokova 9 The Influence of Folk Psychology on a Baby's Personality 107 AAN. Cruts 10 The Child's Initiative in Building up Cooperation: The Key to Problems of Children's Independence 125 G. A. Zuckerman 11 Adult Egocentrism and Adult-Child Interaction 141 S.V. Zaytsev v

vi 12 Adolescent Sociometric Status in a Developmental Task Perspective 151 H. W. van Boxtel Part Three: Developmental Tasks: Specific Competences 13 Task Attitude of Preschoolers: Developmental Diagnosis 167 M. Timmermans 14 Preschoolers' Acquirement of Competences in Factor Combining and Factor Interaction 173 A. N. Poddiakov 15 Information Integration of 6 to 12 Year Olds in Distributive Justice 187 A. E.Aleva 16 Acquirement of lllness Concepts: Perception and Evaluation of Physical Sensations 197 E. Hosli 17 Development of Concepts of Truth and Lying: A Developmental Task 203 J.J.F. ter Laak 18 The Self-Image as a Determinant of Moral Behavior in Children 225 S. G. Jacobson 19 Moral Culture in Institutions and Individuals' Moral Performance: The Need for Moral Developmental Tasks 237 D. Brugman 20 Wisdom as High Level Epistemic Cognition & Aging: A Developmental Task Analysis 259 G. M. Brugman

vii Preface Developmental psychology is about ordered changes in behaviors, cognitions and feelings of individual persons during their life course. As a psychological discipline, it needs its own paradigm, as experimental psychology and the psychological study of individual differences already possess. In the long period of cooperation of Utrecht University and Moscow State University learning and development were the focus of common interest. This theme remains until now, but also new elements of common interest emerge. In the first meeting of the members of the department of Developmental Psychology from Utrecht University with developmental psychologists from Moscow State University and other Moscow institutes, the emphasis was on Developmental Tasks in a cultural context. The participants exchanged their theoretical convictions, their empirical research and their plans fot future, probably shared projects. The meeting took place in Utrecht during a week in march, 1993. The concept "Developmental Tasks" and the emphasis on the embeddedness of cognitions, behaviors and feelings in the cultural and social context were fruitful. The meeting resulted in 20 contributions of the participants. In Part One developmental theory is discussed. In chapter 1 Heymans challenges traditional efforts in developmental psychology to explain development as a function of differences between families. He introduces a new conceptualization of the concept developmental task and emphasizes the cultural and individual origin of these tasks. In his view narrative structures for lives are the systems that contain hidden assumptions about lives and ordering of tasks, serving the integration and interpretation of these tasks. Being confronted with several tasks at the same time, the individual and the environment have to manage these partially ordered tasks. Heymans offers a model for competent managing these tasks and gives concrete examples. In closing his chapter, he offers examples of completing a developmental task and develops his incantation theory, containing processes for explaining development. In chapter 2 Podol'skij confronts the developmental task approach to development with recent Russian theorizing and with his own interpretation of Gal'perin's theory on meaningful learning. Obuchova confronts in chapter 3 the traditional Western developmental theories with the works of Vygotsky. She explains this and shows shortcomings of Vygotsky's consciousness concept. She reviews modem Russian activity psychology. In chapter 4 Burmenskaya asks attention for an essential idea of Vygotsky's late work, the age-related approach. She elaborates this approach and applies it on crises in development and points to shortcomings in the assessment and diagnosis of psychological development. Development is, among others, about transitions. Transitions are accompanied by crises. These are not pathological, but a normal part of development. Polivanova

viii describes in chapter 5 the structure of two of such transitions from 6 to 7 and from 11 to 13 years as a triad of interactions between child-adult-(developmental) task. Boom discusses in chapter 6 developmental tasks and developmental stages. He compares the approaches on a central theme in developmental theory, the problem of acquiring new knowledge. His conclusion is that the approaches are promising, but that the developmental task approach does not as yet account for novelty. Part Two points to a common theme of the researchers from the two countries: the social construction of developmental tasks and of learning. In chapter 7 Olthof discusses the development of a theory of mind in children and its relation to the moral status of persons and even animals and objects. He proposes a model to describe development as decontextualization. Paradoxically, to decontextualize, requires interaction in many and diverse social contexts. Chesnokova shows empirically what factors influence features of intramental activity. In chapter 8 she reports experiments that demonstrate that interactions between pairs of children even without conflicting viewpoints can contribute to the acquisition of the intramentallevel of activity. Cruts tries to show that self-fulflliing prophecies exist in describing personality characteristics of children as judged and predicted by parents. He introduces in chapter 9 a method to study these relations in one case. If this kind of prophecies exist than will today's expectations be tomorrow's perceptions. In chapter 10 Zuckerman shows in a series of experiments the complex relation of a child to a school task and the development to educational independence. The experiments offer some clear hints for ways of fruitful interaction between task, child and adult. Zaytsev analyses the child-adult interaction and states, that adults can be characterized as egocentric in the Piagetian sense of the word, i.e. they cannot decentrate. In a study on spatial development in chapter 11, he demonstrates, that under special conditions young children can decentrate. His questionnaire for adults demonstrated, that adults (especially fathers) regard children as little adults, as creatures that lack adult behavior and knowledge. In chapter 12 Van Boxtel considers the acquisition of social status of adolescents as a developmental task. He reports data on a group of rejected adolescents. The study shows some significant, but hardly substantial correlations of rejected status and self-concept and academic achievement. He offers an explanation for the low correlations. Part Three considers the development of specific concepts and attitudes across the lifespan. Timmermans gives an example of a developmental diagnosis of the task attitudes of preschoolers. Her study in chapter 13 offers evidence that entering school requires from the children a transition in their attitude to specific tasks and to adults. Poddiakov developed an ingenious device to demonstrate that young children can combine factors. Moreover, his research shows the influence of cooperation of the children with adults and with peers. In chapter 14 the research is described.

ix A same kind of study as reported by Poddiakov was done by Aleva. She was interested in the factors children gave weight to in their allocation behavior. Aleva reviewed several of her studies with Ter Laak on distributive justice in chapter 15. Young children are able to notice one or two factors and are capable to integrate two factors in their allocation behavior. Hosli is interested in the acquisition of the illness concept in children. As yet, little is known on the development of the knowledge children have on the physical sensations and the causes of these sensations. In chapter 16 she describes her plan to investigate the illness concept in an intensive manner by a longitudinal study in a few subjects. In chapter 17 Ter Laak describes the kinds of truth con cepts that play a role in research in psychology. As a developmental psychologist, one can investigate how the concept of truth and lying develop in children and during life course. He closes the chapter with an empirical study on criteria children themselves use in deciding whether one speaks the truth in reporting an event they witnessed. Jacobson relates in chapter 18 moral behavior to the self-image of children. Children are asked to imagine moral relevant actions, good as well as bad ones. Moreover, they evaluate themselves and other children who in reality or in their imagination transgressed rules. The studies clearly show the regulative functions of the self-image in moral behavior and judgment. In chapter 19 Daan Brugman highlights the concept moral atmosphere. This mediating variable plays in his view a role in moral behavior. He supports this statement with two empirical examples from different settings: the moral atmosphere in secondary schools in the Netherlands and the level of morality in professional accountants. The last chapter is by Gerard Brugman. Interested in development on later age, he frrst asks if the concept of developmental task is appropriate to describe the older age. Possibly getting wise is such a task. He reviews research on wisdom and unfolds his plans for investigating the development of wisdom, regarded as epistemic cognition. Utrecht, 19-11 - 1993. Jan J.F. ter Laak

Acknowledgments This book is based on the first meeting of developmental psychologists from Utrecht University and Moscow State University and Moscow Pedagogical Institutes. The meeting is part of a project on Developmental Tasks and is supported by a grant from the Dutch Foundation for Scientific Research to Prof. Dr. P.G. Heymans. x

xi List of Contributors A. E. Aleva, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University J. Boom, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University H. W. van Boxtel, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University D. Brugman, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University G. M. Brugman, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University G. V. Bunnenskaya, State University, Moscow O. B. Chesnokova, Lomonosov State University, Moscow A. A. N. Cruts, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University P. G. Heymans, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University E. J. Hosli, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University S. G. Jacobson, Ministry of Education, Moscow J. J. F. ter Laak:, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University L. F. Obuchova, State University, Moscow T. Olthof, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University A. N. Poddiakov, State University, Moscow A. I. Podol'skij, State Univ~ity Moscow K. N. Polivanova, Psychological Institute, Moscow M. Timmermans, Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University S. V. Zaytsev, Center for Pedagogical Innovations, Moscow G. A. Zuckerman, Institute for General and Pedagogical Psychology, Moscow