Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

3-1981

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Leonard Handler

Abstract

Sigma theory is a structural theory of human psychological development. It is a speculative theory which attempts to integrate psychodynamic developmental object relations theory with Jean Piaget's empirically-based model of children's intellectual development. Sigma theory also identifies certain interpersonal, social, epigenetic, biological, and phylogenic factors as they presumably influence development and thereby affect the outcome of personality formation and psychological functioning.

According to Sigma theory, the human mind's development occurs in four qualitatively different phases called "epochs." During each epoch, a specific class of mental capacities form, or "structuralize," as a result of a hypothetical cyclical course of learning. These distinct epochs of development take place serially. The adequate completion of one epoch precipitates the next epoch as the dominant developmental process.

The first developmental epoch is the "organic epoch," which begins with conception and remains the dominant developmental process until the biological structuralization of the fetus results in birth. Successful organic development is seen as critical to psychological development; fundamentally human consciousness is considered a biological consciousness. The detailed influences of this epoch in mental development are currently beyond the scope of this model and are only briefly described. Following birth, the organic epoch is eclipsed as the dominant developmental process by the "affect-drive epoch." During this second developmental phase, the child's emotional and instinctual responses become organized and tied to objects in the surrounding physical environment, especially the mother. The third epoch begins at approximately two years of age, when mental images start to occur in the child. These images precipitate the "psychological epoch" of development. During this epoch, the class of psychological abilities, such as fantasy, language, and logic becomes the child's dominant developmental task. This third phase remains ascendant until age eleven to thirteen. The fourth epoch begins at approximately thirteen years of age, when the adolescent's thought processes undergo a transformation which allow him to develop conscious images of himself. This triggers the "self-conscious" epoch as the dominant developmental process. During this epoch, the adult's objective self-awareness in the context of his surrounding ecological environment develops. This last epoch of mental structuralization extends throughout adult life and is never completed.

The fundamental hypothesis of this developmental model is that the processes forming mental structure remains paradigmatically the same for every epoch. In this respect, Sigma theory proposes that there are three substages to development which cyclically recur within each epoch. The cycle begins with an "autistic stage," which is based upon simple conditioned learning and initiates development within each epoch. This stage is followed by the second, or "symbiotic stage" of learning, where the child's development appears maximally influenced by environmental factors through a learning process roughly equivalent to imitation. Sigma theory hypothesizes that the symbiotic stage ends with the child's minimal but sufficient autonomous mastery of that epoch's class of mental abilities. This autonomy begins the third stage, called the "separation stage." In this open-ended stage, there is continuing maturation of the child's independent functioning in respect to the newly mastered epoch of development. The onset of separation stages are always accompanied by a new autistic stage, which triggers the next epoch as the dominant developmental process.

These three stages are repeated within each epoch. Thus they are seen as reflecting a repetitive cycle of learning processes and developmental structuralization, despite qualitative changes in the classes of mental abilities formed within the four different epochs. Since structural organization and behavior are considered to be intimately linked, certain behavioral patterns are also hypothesized to repeat themselves cyclically. This theory provides a speculative model of these behavioral patterns and of an inferred organization of developmental processes and structures underlying mental development.

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