Imprinting, first discovered by Konrad Lorenz, is the act of a baby staying close to and following their mother around as a way of staying protected and being near food. Although Lorenz first saw this in birds, humans also do this by their tendency to be drawn to certain faces.  For this type of imprinting to occur in humans, children need to build a relationship with their "mother figure" during a specific critical period.

Imprinting

Ethology is the study of behavior from an evolutionary context. In particular, studying behavior in terms of adaption and survival value. In these theories, researchers believe physical characteristics and patterns of behavior are shaped by evolutionary adaptions.

Haverford College in Pennsylvania

- Ethological Theories
- Evolutionary Theories
- The Bioecological Model

Types of Ecological Theories of Development

Siegler, R., Saffran, J. R., Eisenberg, N., Deloache, J., &amp; Gershoff, E. (2017). How Children Develop (5th ed.). Worth Publishers, Inc.

How Children Develop Textbook

There are 4 key systems influencing human development: 
- microsystem- individual, parents, teachers, peers
- mesosystem- relationships between multiple microsystems (e.g. parent-teacher differing expectations)
- exosystem- systems that affect but do not contain an individual (e.g. SES, parental employment and networks, public policy and education, the media)
- macrosystem- overarching sociocultural values and beliefs

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory of Child Development

Ethological Theories in Child Development

Main points that encompass evolutionary theories in child development:
- natural selection 
-  adaptation (genes, brain size, etc.)
- the concept of "play" being evolutionary

Learn Before

Related

Learn After