Stanley Hall's recapitulation theory. Psychology of human development

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Psychology helps us understand not only ourselves, but also our children. To unravel exactly how a person develops, what drives him and what is the essence of the children's worldview, scientists have tried since ancient times. A very great contribution to the modern science of children, pedology, was made by the famous American psychologist Granville Stanley Hall. His writings were created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

History of Creation

From the beginning of his career, Stanley Hall trained in the psychological laboratory of W. Wund as an apprentice. His main area of study at that time was muscle sensitivity and its role in the perception of space. After that, he began to deal with child psychology, namely the practical problems of schoolchildren. At the end of the nineteenth century, he managed to organize the first experimental psychological laboratory in America. It was there that he began researching the mental development of children.

Special attention of the scientist was attracted by teenagers. On the basis of his works, he organized the publication of the first journals devoted to these problems in psychology. Hall made an equally important contribution to the creation of the first professional communities of psychologists in the United States. It was he who initiated the creation of the association of psychologists, where he invited Sigmund Freud. We can safely say that Stanley was the cause of the birth of American psychoanalysis.

Fame

But all of Hall's accomplishments pale in comparison to his research into child development. Of course, many were interested in child psychology, but before that no one had set it as a primary and main task in research. It was Granville who first spoke about how the human psyche develops in the process of adaptation to a particular environment. As a basis for analytical data, they primarily took general theoretical and methodological problems of the development of the child's psyche. And Hall, as the main element of the analysis, decided to take the process of becoming the psyche of a particular teenager.

Teenager Studies

For the accuracy of his observations, the psychologist developed special questionnaires that helped him study various psychological aspects of young men. Immediately he distributed questions to teachers so that they would pass them on to the children. They were supposed to show how the younger generation sees the world.

After some time, we decided to create separate questionnaires for parents andeducators to check whether ontogeny and phylogenesis are really almost the same. The uniqueness of these tests was that, in addition to testing knowledge, attitudes towards the world and other people, children should talk about experiences, moral feelings, and religious beliefs. They also touched upon the issues of early memories, the dangers and joys of the child.

Haeckel Muller's Law

After the responses were received, the statistical analysis began. He helped to compose a holistic perception of the psychological characteristics of children of different age categories. Also, Hall's research made it possible to obtain characteristics of children. They helped to look at the situation not only from the point of view of an adult, but also through the eyes of a child.

Through his research, Hall realized that the best way to explain mental development was the basic biogenetic law. It was formulated by a student of Darwin - Haeckel. But there is one important inaccuracy in it, Haeckel was convinced that the germ, while it exists in the form of an embryo, goes through all the stages that humanity has for all time. According to Hall, this law applies not only to a child in the womb, but also to the development of his psyche already in childhood. And that the construction of the psyche of a baby occurs according to the same principles as in an adult. This is how S. Hall's theory of recapitulation was born.

Basic theory

According to the psychologist, all stages of the development of the child's psyche and their content are genetically determined, and that is why a person cannot avoid or ignore somepart of its construction. Hall's work was continued by his student, Hutchinson. Taking the theory of recapitulation as a basis, he divided the process of a child's mental development into specific periods. As the main criterion, he took the way in which the child earns his living.

In other words, Hutchinson decided that the way food is obtained is important not only for biological, but also for the mental development of a person. It should be noted that the real facts of changes in the characteristics of nutrition in children completely coincided with Hall's theory. Thus, taking as a starting point the basic biogenetic law to explain mental development, he was able to distinguish five main phases.

Main phases of development

It should be noted that the phase boundaries are too blurry, and the end of one period does not coincide with the beginning of the next one:

• The first phase runs from birth to the age of five. Children are constantly digging and digging (for example, playing with buckets and shovels in the sandbox).
• Second phase - from five to eleven years. Hunting and capture prevail here. This is manifested in the fear of strangers, the manifestation of aggression, cruelty. Toddlers begin to withdraw from adults and play in secret from others.
• Third phase - from eight to twelve years. They called her a shepherd. It is expressed in the desire to have their own place. Moreover, it should be located outside the house where the child lives with his parents. There are also the first signs of care and patronage that children project onto pets. In addition, in thisperiod, especially in girls, there is a need for tenderness and affection.
• The fourth phase - from eleven to fifteen years - agricultural. At this moment, the child awakens interest in nature, weather, children begin to engage in gardening and floriculture. They also develop caution and observation.
• Fifth phase - from fourteen to twenty years of age. This is the development of trade and industry, or it has also been called the stage of the modern individual. Its basis is the awareness of the role of money, the exact sciences and the exchange of objects, barter.

Main conclusions of the phase separation

Thanks to the theory of recapitulation and Hutchinson's conclusions, it became clear that starting from the age of eight, the era of civilized development begins in a child. Accordingly, it is this age that is ideal for the beginning of systematic education, but at an earlier age it is not advisable due to the development of the child's psyche. Moreover, it was Hall's theory that allowed him to conclude that training should be built on a specific stage of mental development.

Teaching kids

The main idea of the theory of recapitulation is that a child must go through all stages of mental development for a normal perception of the world and a he althy perception of himself. If the baby becomes fixed at some stage, then this will cause deviations and anomalies in the human psyche in the future.

Realizing that the passage of these phases is mandatory, Hall decided to create a special mechanism that would simplifytransition between these stages. Since the child does not have the opportunity to be present in all the situations that humanity has gone through, he proposed to recreate them in the form of a game. It was this idea of his, based on the theory of recapitulation, that became the reason for the emergence of “war games”, “Cossack robbers” and other games of this type.

According to the psychologist, under no circumstances should adults hamper children in the manifestation of instincts, as this helps the children survive the situations laid down genetically, learn from them experience and overcome children's fears.

Pedology

This is a complex science of children developed by Hall, the fundamental idea of which is the interest in babies of specialists of various kinds. It made it possible to comprehensively study all the problems that arise when working with children, starting from the he alth of the baby and ending with the level of education of his parents. But over time, the need to study the child so globally disappeared and the psychological aspect came to the fore.

Theories and conclusions obtained through the practical study of pedology are still used in all educational institutions. Thus, the theory of recapitulation in psychology became the basis for studying and understanding the development of children. Many scientists of the twentieth century from different fields of science were interested in pedology and even dedicated their lives to it. Solving children's problems, it was possible to avoid many mental disorders of patients already in adulthood. In general, Hall was able to make a great contribution to the development of modern child psychology.

Conclusion

The theory of recapitulation was able to open the veil of the development of the child and his psyche. The proof that this is not only a psychological, but also a genetic process, made it possible to find out that the child is simply not able to avoid passing through all stages of development, and any fixation or suppression of their expression gives rise to mental problems for life. So it became easier for adults to understand when to start teaching a child and at what moments it is impossible to forbid him to do those things that seem strange or unnecessary to adults.

In other words, we can safely say that Hall managed to explain a lot in the behavior of children. Growing up, they must experience the experience of all mankind, and this, you see, is not so easy. And any interference in this process can leave irreparable consequences. In other words, Hall managed to save the psyche of many children from unconscious harm from adults.