What do we know about how humans develop psychologically, from birth to old age? Quite a lot, most of it based on just six highly influential theories, formulated largely in the 20th century.
This course looks at these theories and their creators, including Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Albert Bandura, and Jean Piaget. It examines how they gave rise to our contemporary ideas on such issues as educating children, the effect of media violence on children, and how we form personal relationships.
You will learn the origins of such terms as "identity crisis" and "terrible twos," and see how our notions of child development are still influenced by two renowned philosophers of centuries ago: John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.