Overview
Development is systematic, continuous change from conception to death. It covers quantitative change such as growing taller, qualitative change such as new ways of thinking, and decline with ageing as well as growth. Theories of human development try to explain why and how these changes happen, and they underpin developmental psychology, education and the social-work subject "human behaviour and the social environment". Theories focused on childhood are covered in child development theories and adolescence in adolescent development theories.
Principles and domains
- Development follows an order and direction (head to toe, centre to periphery, general to specific).
- It is continuous, but its pace differs by period and domain, and there are critical or sensitive periods for certain abilities.
- There are individual differences, and heredity and environment interact (see the nature–nurture debate).
- Physical, cognitive and socio-emotional domains influence one another.
The life-span perspective
Baltes (1987) extended developmental psychology to the whole of life with a set of propositions: development is lifelong and no period is privileged; it is multidirectional; every change involves both gains (growth) and losses (decline); there is considerable plasticity; and because development is embedded in history and context, it must be studied by several disciplines together.
Major theories compared
| Approach | Key figure | Main idea |
|---|---|---|
| Psychoanalytic | Freud | Five psychosexual stages; emphasis on childhood experience |
| Psychosocial | Erikson (1950) | Eight psychosocial crises extending into old age |
| Cognitive | Piaget | Four stages from sensorimotor to formal operations |
| Moral | Kohlberg | Three levels and six stages: preconventional, conventional, postconventional |
| Learning | Skinner, Bandura | Continuous change through reinforcement and observational learning |
| Ecological | Bronfenbrenner (1979) | Development within micro-, meso-, exo-, macro- and chronosystems |
| Developmental tasks | Havighurst (1953) | Tasks society expects at each period from infancy to later maturity |
| Adult development | Levinson (1978) | Life structures of early, middle and late adulthood and the transitions between them, such as the mid-life transition |
Developmental tasks and adult development
In Human Development and Education (1953) Havighurst argued that each period brings developmental tasks arising from physical maturation, social expectations and personal values; success leads to happiness and to success with later tasks, while failure leads to unhappiness, social disapproval and difficulty later on. In The Seasons of a Man's Life (1978) Levinson proposed that adulthood also passes through alternating stable periods and transitions, highlighting the mid-life transition around age 40.
The life course perspective
Elder's (1998) life course perspective views individual development in terms of historical time and place, the timing of life events, linked lives (such as family members) and human agency. It stresses that the same event has different effects depending on when it happens, and social policy uses it to design interventions for risks at different life-cycle stages.
Key debates and uses
The main debates are nature versus nurture, continuity versus discontinuity (stages), and whether early experience has lasting effects (stability versus change). In social work practice, these theories help assess a client's life stage and developmental tasks and identify environmental barriers to completing them.
References
- Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and Society. New York: W. W. Norton.
- Havighurst, R. J. (1953). Human Development and Education. New York: Longmans, Green.
- Levinson, D. J. (1978). The Seasons of a Man's Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
- Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Baltes, P. B. (1987). Theoretical propositions of life-span developmental psychology: On the dynamics between growth and decline. Developmental Psychology, 23(5), 611–626.
- Elder, G. H., Jr. (1998). The life course as developmental theory. Child Development, 69(1), 1–12.