Developmental_Therories

There are four main developmental theories; Biophysical, Psychosocial, Cognitive and Moral development. These theories help to explain and predict human behaviour, giving a model of how and why people become who they are. Biophysical development is the process of biological maturation. It compares the changes that occur as an infant grows into adulthood and attempts to describe why our bodies age, this process is based on recognised norms. Arnold Gesell initiated the study into physical growth and change. Through extensive observations Gesell developed norms that are still recognised in childhood development today. Fundamental to his theory was that, we grow according to our own genetic blueprint and pace, going as far as to say that our biological body determines our behavioural development. Growth is directed by gene activity; however environmental factors can modify the pattern in which we develop. Biophysical development also includes non-genetic cellular theories which look at the cell rather than DNA, the theory that our body just wears out. It also looks at the Physiological theories of aging, the theory that a single organism is broken-down and impairs the performance of the physiological control mechanisms. Psychosocial development emphasizes the idea that our personality, thinking and behaviours are intrinsically social. Many theorists have spent their life time trying to understanding how we become successful human beings. Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development proposed that we go through a series of crises from infancy to late adulthood that life is a serious of lessons and challenges which help us to grow and that success or failure in dealing with these conflicts can impact on our overall functioning. Erikson explains eight stages through which a healthily developing human should pass. In each stage the person confronts, and hopefully masters, new challenges. Each stage builds on the successful completion of earlier stages. The theories proposed by Sigmund Freud stressed the importance of childhood events and experiences, but almost solely focused on mental disorders rather that normal functioning. The theory of Cognitive development was created by Jean Piaget who suggested that children think differently than adults. He stressed that children actively construct their own cognitive worlds; information is not just poured into their minds from the environment. Piaget believed that children adapt their thinking to include new ideas. He also believed that we go through four stages in understanding the world. Each of the stages is age-related and consists of distinct ways of thinking, the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage. It is the different way of understanding the world that makes one stage more advanced than another; knowing more information does not make the child’s thinking more advanced. Moral development has been best described by Lawrence Kohlberg's and has three stages to it: Pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. In the Pre-conventional stage (infants and young children; occasionally in adults), is a basic level of moral reasoning. That is there is a punishment/reward system of what's right and wrong. In the conventional reasoning phase (children around age 7 and seen in many adults) is a good/bad system. This level of moral reasoning focuses a lot on what society says about a given action. Stealing is wrong and bad because society says it is. The latest stage, post-conventional (small percentage of adults) is a "what's truly right/wrong" system. They take time to think about what they individually believe is right and wrong and incorporate many of their own experiences and beliefs. These three stages of reasoning are significant because the way a person predominately reasons, particularly in important matters, is a sign of one's mental processes and capabilities. ____________________________________________________________ _________ The concept of developmental theory relies on the examination of an individual's life experiences, as well as the person's emotional and physical growth within their society. While there may be standard expectations of growth within certain age groups, there are also elements of growth that can only be determined within each individual. Each person has varying experiences within life and these experiences have a direct affect on the development of every individual. In this next section I will look at the difference and similarities between Erik Erikson’s psychosocial developmental theory and Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory. Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development is one of the best-known theories of personality. He believed that personality develops in a series of stages. Erikson’s theory describes the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan. We are constantly changing due to new experience and information we obtain in our daily interactions with others. Each stage in Erikson’s theory is concerned with becoming competent in an area of life. If the stage is handled well, the person will feel a sense of mastery. If the stage is managed poorly, the person will emerge with a sense of inadequacy. In each stage, Erikson believed people experience a conflict that serves as a turning point in development. These conflicts are centred on either developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. Erikson’s view was that throughout a person's entire life change occurs in 8 stages. Erikson contended that people progress through the stages chronologically, but that individuals who do not experience success in a particular stage may find themselves stuck, unable to move on to the next developmental stage. Of all theorists, Jean Piaget, may have had the greatest impact with his cognitive theory of development. As with Erikson’s theory Piaget stated that children evolved through several stages of cognitive development. The concept is that changes in ones understanding occurs in an orderly fashion. In other words, physical maturation + relevant experience = movement from one stage of development to another. Prior to Jean Piaget theory, the predominant view of cognitive development was based on the idea that children's mental processes are roughly the same as those of adults. Piaget was the first to propose that children aren't simply miniature adults, their cognitive development occurs in a series of fixed stages. Just as the human fetus goes through dramatic structural changes during gestation, the human mind goes through dramatic changes during childhood. According to Piaget, all cognitive development can be explained through assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is defined as perceiving and understanding new stimuli in the context of existing ways of thinking. Accommodation, by contrast, involves change, where a child must modify her or his ways of thinking to fit new stimuli or events that do not correlate with existing cognitive structures. An infant is born with certain limited mental concept. Throughout his or her development, the child interprets new phenomena using assimilation, and changes as a result of experience by the process of accommodation. Piaget revolutionized the concept of cognitive development with his theory of stages, and he supported it with extensive experimentation. However, his theory has come under much criticism in recent times, due to several inconsistencies. Piaget's precise definition of the cognitive stages as a result of the scientific method has come under intense criticism. Though cognitive development obviously occurs in some sort of sequence, it does not necessarily occur in the fixed stages that Piaget proposed. He set up distinct milestones that marked the end of each stage. If one uses the exact same tests that Piaget used, then his theory holds true. However, different tests that are more sensitive to an infant's responses or are specially geared and manipulated towards a certain age group prove that some of Piaget's theories are incorrect. Erikson’s and Piaget’s theories do have many similarities in their concepts. in that there are stages we build on in our learning and growing developmental processes throughout life. Erikson’s theory on 8 stages of psychosocial development that happens chronologically and Piaget’s theory of cognitive development that occurs in fixed stages from infancy to adulthood are both linked to building from one stage of life to the next by what we learn.