What is the basic nature of human beings?
There are three primary views. One is mechanistic in which the world operates in a machine like fashion. Development is primarily passive with the child being acted upon by the events in his or her environment. This view is related to Locke’s empiricist philosophy (remember the tabula rasa). These theories usually emphasize continuity in development. The second view is organismic in which the organism is viewed as active and self-regulating by nature. No process can be considered well in isolation as the whole of the organism is involved; for example, hearing cannot be explained only by the acoustic system, but related cognitive and affective processes need to be considered as well. The active organism engages in self initiated behavior to give influence its experiences rather than just receive them and be shaped by them passively. These theories are usually stage theories. The third view contextualism holds that experience and development have meaning only when the larger social, poli
