7/25/2019 Development as Interaction

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Development as interactionSeeing development as interaction involves trying to reconcile the infuence o both nature

and nurture, by showing how maturational processes link into social processes o learning.

Psychologists who take this position acknowledge a debt to the erman philosopher

!mmanuel "ant #$%&'($)*'+. "ant reected the

rationalist notion o innate knowledge. -e also reected the empiricist notion

that knowledge is derived solely rom the environment. lthough "ant agreedwith /ocke that e0perience is crucial or learning, he argued that knowledge

could not arise rom what people took in through their senses alone. "ant

suggested a synthesis #a merging+ o the two opposed viewpoints o rationalism

and empiricism. 1asically, he proposed that we are born with certain mental

structures that help us to interpret input rom our senses in particular ways. -e

called these mental structures categories o understanding. 1y themselves, they

cannot give us knowledge and it is only through interaction with the environment

that these structures order and organi2e e0perience. 3urthermore, there is an active role or

individuals as organi2ers o e0perience4 no longer are they seen either as passively receiving

sensory stimuli #as in empiricism+, or passively ollowing some biological programme #as in

rationalism or nativism+. 5he maor mechanism or development is the continuous, two6way

interaction between the child and the environment. !n this view, both nature and nurtureplay an important role in development. 7ost contemporary theories o development

recogni2e the active roles o children in their own development. 8hildren a9ect how their

caregivers behave towards them: they make choices about their own lives, and, as they get

older, increasingly select their own environments. 5his is much more than a simple

interaction o nature and nurture, and developmental researchers are now attempting to

capture this two6way comple0ity o cause and e9ect in what are sometimes called

transactional models o development.