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Critically evaluate the claim: the concept of Lifespan Development is essential to understanding human development. (1601 words, excluding the bibliography) Does one particular course characterise human development or are there potentially many courses an individual can take' Do personal and environmental influences or a combination of both affect development' What role do historical and cultural influences play' Do life changing and traumatic events have a significant impact' The lifespan approach is only one such approach in developmental psychology that attempts to answer these important questions. This essay will critically evaluate the lifespan approach and highlight its essential need as a way to better understand the complexities of human development. Influential theorists in the field of development will be outlined and their strength and weaknesses in relation to the lifespan approach discussed. This essay will use the South African context as a reference point to emphasise the importance of the lifespan approach, given South Africa’s reputation for being a violent nation and the potential impact this can have on individual development. The purpose of developmental psychology is to provide insight into the differences and similarities regarding human development (Berk, 2007). Psychologists attempt to provide answers into the complexities surrounding development by evaluating why individuals develop differently on multiple levels, including physical, mental, emotional and social levels. The topic of development is diverse and complex and no single theory can fully provide the answers to all of these questions, however, as we will see from the evaluation to follow, through the integration and support of additional developmental theories, a rational reason for supporting the lifespan approach can be provided (Berk, 2007). The lifespan approach has increased in popularity over the past few decades due mainly to an increase in the average life expectancy and the need to gain a deeper understanding of similarities and differences in development. This approach is a contemporary developmental view that attempts to examine characteristics of change and constancy across the entire lifespan (Baltes, Theoretical propositions of Life-Span Development Psychology: On the Dynamics between Growth and Decline, 1987). There are four assumptions underpinning the lifespan approach (Berk, 2007). Paul Baltes (1987), a proponent of this approach, believed that these form the foundations of a clear understanding into human development. The first assumption is that development is a lifelong process. According to this view, development covers our entire lifespan, starting at birth and ending with death. No age-period is considered more important than the next, instead this approach recognises the significance that each age-period has on developmental change. Secondly, a multitude of forces can influence behaviour and development, making development multidimensional, forces such as, social, cultural, biological and physical to name only a few. Also, at varying times during life, individuals may choose to refine existing skills over the mastering of new ones and vice versa. Through this balancing act, gains and losses are experienced, making development multidirectional. The third assumption is that development is highly plastic. Plasticity refers to the ability of an individual to adapt and change accordingly, given that their circumstances require them to do so. Lastly, Baltes considered development to be multidisciplinary and influenced by various contextual settings. A model consisting of age-graded influences, history-graded influences and non-normative influences was used to further explain and account for differences and variations in individual development. The section below will explain these models further, using examples from a South African context to provide more clarity on certain key points (Keenan & Evans, 2009). The first of these contextual influences relates to age-graded influences (Keenan & Evans, 2009). These are strongly linked to age and are generally biological and or sociocultural in nature. These influences are based on events that are typically predictable and affect most individuals of a similar age. For example, all teenagers experience puberty in adolescence and woman in their late forties experience menopause, also, in late adulthood it is expected that you will eventually lose your parents to old age. History-graded influences would be those events that affect entire cohorts (a group of people of a particular generation). From a South African context, this would include the influences of political unrest and social liberation movements during the apartheid era, the current epidemic of HIV/AIDS and the impact of extreme poverty and social inequality are additional examples. Lastly, non-normative influences are those events that typically happen out of the ordinary and have an immense impact on the life of an individual or individuals who experience them. Being a victim of sexual abuse and rape which is so prevalent in South Africa would be one such example, another would be, a child losing a parent or a parent losing a child (Keenan & Evans, 2009). In order to fully understand the lifespan approach, it is necessary to present additional theoretical approaches to development. Two traditional approaches, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and Erikson’s psychosocial theory will be outlined below. These two approaches compliment the lifespan approach albeit that they have varying views regarding development. Both the psychoanalytic and psychosocial theories understand development as progressing through a series of stages, starting at a very basic level of functioning in infancy and advancing in an ordered manner to a higher more mature level of functioning in adolescence and adulthood. Stage theories link these levels very closely to age and believe that development at the various stages is universal and therefore relatively similar for everyone (Weiten, 2007). Freud’s theory placed specific emphasis on the first five years of a child’s life and believed that these early years were critical for the formation of the adult personality (Weiten, 2007). The child, during this period, is primarily focused on the fulfilment of pleasures and sexual desires and therefore progresses through five stages of psychosexual development. According to Freud, parental figures played a key role in childhood development with regards to the the way in which they allowed their children to fulfil these desires. Freud believed that this was critical to development and understood the outcomes of this fulfilment process to have long lasting effects on adult personality (Weiten, 2007). Like Freud, Erikson, believed that development took place in stages, however, Erikson was one of the few traditional theorists to realise that development was a lifelong process and that social and cultural influences played an important role in development. Erikson presented eight stages of psychosocial development. At each stage, the individual is presented with a crisis which he or she would need to address and resolve. If this crisis was not sufficiently dealt with, the individual would have difficulty coping with the demands placed on them by subsequent stages (Weiten, 2007). When comparing the lifespan approach to the psychoanalytic and psychosocial approaches, it is clear that there are a few supporting views from both. Firstly, Freud’s theories regarding the importance of the child parent relationship supports the lifespan approach in that strong parental bonds are critical to early childhood development. Additionally Erikson’s view that development continued through the entire life and the importance of social and cultural influences also supports the lifespan view that development is lifelong and multidimensional. Despite the above, both Freud and Erikson’s theories do have some drawbacks. For one, there is no research to substantiate Freud’s theory that early childhood development influences adult personality. Also, both approaches fail to span cultural or social boundaries and are therefore limited in terms of scope and accuracy. Both theories focused their research more on men than on women and Freud’s theories were largely criticised for being too sexist in nature (Feldman, 2011). As mentioned above, biological, social, cultural and contextual influences play an important role in development. It is well known that South Africa has a history of violence. Violence has become entrenched in our everyday lives with issues such as gender based violence and child abuse of all types reaching alarming highs. Additional, poverty and levels of inequality are still incredibly high given the legacy that apartheid has left behind. In turn, these social inequalities are the breeding grounds for feelings of inadequacies and low self-worth. Studies have shown that children who grow up in violent households, tend to internalise this violence as an acceptable manner in which to relate to others. As a result, these children are particularly susceptible to engaging in violence and other forms of socially unacceptable behaviour, including drug and alcohol abuse. The risk of these children becoming parents who in turn neglect and abuse their own children is also extremely high (The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 2007) The prevalence of these types of problems is definitely linked to the degree to which young people in a society grow up with anti-social or violent tendencies, often linked to certain types of mental or emotional dispositions or pathologies that are often a product of, or reinforced by, the parenting and family environments from which they emerged (The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 2007, p. 165) Given these societal disparities, it is crucial that approaches such as the lifespan approach is used as a framework for measuring and testing changes and consistencies in human behaviour. These influences can have terrifying after effects, not only on the current generation, but on generations to follow should these influences be ignored or not recognised as critical in the development life-cycle. In concluding and as we can see from the above discussion, the lifespan approach is essential to making sense of human development and behaviour. Human beings are complex and therefore development and change is diverse. The lifespan approach acknowledges this and accepts that development cannot always be universal. As we can surely tell from our own biographies, development cannot always be laid out in stages or restricted to individual domains of psychology as some traditional theories have suggested. Baltes, P. B. (1987). Theoretical propositions of Life-Span Development Psychology: On the Dynamics between Growth and Decline. Developmental Psychology, 23(5), 611-626. Baltes, P. B., Reese, H., & Lipsett, L. (1980). Lifespan developmental psychology. 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Annual Review of Psychiatry, 51, 445-479. Panday, S., Makiwane, M., Ranchod, C., & Letsoalo, T. (2009, August). Teenage pregnancy in South Africa - with a specific focus on school-going learners. Child, Youth, Family and Social Development, Human Sciences Research Council. Shmukler , D. (1990). Growing up in violent situations - The South African situation. Southern African Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 2(1), 7-12. The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. (2007, June). The role of childhood trauma and adversity in youth offending in South Africa. Retrieved March 1, 2013, from http://foxscribe.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/youth-offendingsa_web.pdf The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. (2007, June 25). The violent nature of crime in South Africa – a concept paper for the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster. Retrieved March 5, 2013, from South Africa Government Online: http://www.info.gov.za/issues/crime/violent_crime.pdf Weiten, W. (2007). Psychology Themes and Variations (7th ed.). Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth.