The Active/Passive Theme.

This is a theoretical debate from developmental theorists about whether or not children are passive and just receive environmental influences which help to shape them or are children active in learning and create their own pathway to knowledge. The active/passive debate also considered children’s sub-conscious choices which can have an influence on the environment they live in. An example would be a child who is being difficult can test the patience of their parents which in an effect has possible changes on their development because of how the parent’s long-term behaviour changes in receiving bad behaviour from the child. This can happen but the child is not actively trying to change his or her development. (Shaffer & Kipp 2010).

            Are children born with a blank slate in which experience gives them their personality? Or do we actively seek our own experiences? When looking at major theories in psychology it shows that many theories are passive or active but never both together. For example Freud`s theory of Psychosexual Development is passive but it includes both nature and nurture in the theory. Also Bandura`s Social Cognitive theory is active with just nurture and Erikson`s theory of Psychosocial Development is active with both nature and nurture included.

            I think that the active vs. passive debate is related in the fundamentals of the nature vs. nurture debate which is between genetics and environmental influences with which has the most affect on human development. This is because they both argue that children are either given something naturally or go out and seek it. Based upon the different ideas of active and passive, I believe that children are more active in their learning in society, as they decide what type of play they want and go out and get it. I do however think that children are also partly passive as they take what they are given by society, in particular from their parents. Also their sub-conscious will make decisions based upon how society affects them.

References:

Shaffer & Kipp (2010) Theories of Human Development. Development Psychology: Childhood & Adolescence. (p. 69). USA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.