ABSTRACT
John Locke (1690) proposed that infants are born with a tabula rasa (a blank tablet) in which life experiences etch their messages. Similarly, William James (1890) suggested that an infant's initial experience is “one great blooming, buzzing confusion” (cited in Zimbardo, 1988, p. 66). These statements represent the empiricist's position, which assumes that infants are born into this world totally unprepared. They learn by experience how to translate a vast array of physical stimuli into psychological perception, cognition, and emotion.
