The life-span development approach addresses the basic nature versus nurture debate by allowing for both. Just as our physicals selves are determined by both genetics and lifestyle, so are our emotional selves. As a Licensed Professional Counselor, I plan to consider life-span development to specialize in counseling a specific type of person with hopes of becoming well-versed, and therefore more helpful, in the types of experiences that group faces.
“Personality can be better understood if it is examined developmentally” (Santrock, 2006, p. 45). Considering cognitive, biological, and socioemotional development throughout life will provide context, guideposts, and reasonable expectations for counselors. Life-span development theories also provide a useful place to start when offering emotional support as a counselor.
Understanding an individual’s previous stages of development and environment can give a counselor and individual a common place from which to start counseling. Most of the developmental theorists discussed in section one of Santrock—Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Konrad Lorenz, and to an extent B. F. Skinner—focused mostly on early or childhood development. Early development, when considered in a life-span context of development, can give an LPC insight in an individual’s personality. Regardless of specialization, a counselor can weigh early behaviors against his or her contemporary observations, giving them a fuller context.
“Actual development requires more [than genetic loading]: an environment” (Santrock, 2006, p. 98). Two cognitive developmental theories support Santrock’s assertion of environmental influence on early development. First, Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory defines how a person behaves as how a person adapts to his or her environment. An individual’s behavior is an adaptive process driven by a biological drive to obtain balance between schemes and the environment (Huitt and Hummel, 2003). This theory states that development is a byproduct linking and relating our experiences to each other, starting with general environmental knowledge, until a person’s cognitive ability is composed of more abstract reasoning.
The second cognitive theory emphasizes social and cultural environment. Vygotsky’s theory points to our relationships with others as the definitions of ourselves (Nicholl, 1998, par. 13).
Two other theo...
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...span development is a multi-faceted approach to counseling. Using these and other theories gives a licensed professional counselor a variety of tools for counseling. I expect these theories to help me determine a specialty in my future practice, relying on the overlap and complexity of working in terms of an entire human life.
References?Boeree, C. George. (1997). Erik Erikson: 1902 to 1994. Shippensburg, PA: Shippensburg University. Retrieved 21 June 2005 from http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/erikson.html.
Huitt, W. (1997). Socioemotional development. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved 22 June 2005, from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/affsys/erikson.html.
Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2003). Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved 21 June 2005 from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/piaget.html.
Nicholl, P .M. (Trish). 1998. Vygotsky. Palmerston North, NZ: Massey University. Retrieved 21 June 2005 from http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/trishvyg.htm.
Santrock, John H. (2006) Life-Span Development. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
The importance of an individual’s lifespan has to be taken into account in order to fully understand the human development. Throughout this module I have learned that an individual’s lifespan consists of several beliefs that form a group of perspectives, that gives a consistent outlook on the nature of development. The concept of lifespan development is the study that observes patterns of growth and change and stability in one’s behavior that occurs throughout one’s lifespan. An interesting thing I picked up is that lifespan development derives from other features, such as sociology, that suggest that this field of lifespan development did not completely originate from developmental psychology. There are different areas in a lifespan such as
It is inevitable, children and adults constantly evolve and the evolution of this population requires an ongoing scientific investigation (Eberbach & Crowley, 2009). The scientific investigation of the evolution of children and adults is described as developmental psychology. Developmental psychologists establish theories of developmental trajectories, interpersonal, intrapersonal, emotional, and cognitive processing. Moreover, developmental psychologists endeavor to provide descriptive and expository research to enhance client and professional development (Machery, 2011).
- - -. “Social-learning Theory:Observing and Imitating Models.” Human Development. 5th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 1992. 213-14. Print.
Bhattacharya, K. & Han, S. (2001). Piaget and cognitive development. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology. Retrieved from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?title=Piaget%27s_Constructivism
Berger, K. (2011). The developing person through the life span. (8th ed., pp. 39-42). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Berk, L. (2010). Development Through the Lifespan (5th ed.). (J. Mosher, Ed.) Boston, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.
Lev Vygotsky stages of development were not defined by age or biology. Social and cultural experiences were the basis for his theory. Consciousness was an end product of social interactions (Kearsley, 1994-2010). The history of the child’s society and his own personal history determine how the child thinks. Language is crucial for development as it is with words that a child conceptualizes and makes sense of the world (Schütz, 2004). A precept of Vygotsky’s theory wa...
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory was his main focus and it helped him make sense of a person’s cognitive development through the way they interaced with others and emphasised on one’s social interaction (blabla). Vygotsky focused on how learning consisted of gathering knowledge and skills from the social community and the different attractions a person observes (v2); a process known as internationalization. His theory was based on two key concepts, first that knowledge can be developed through the experiences a child lives (v1), and an example would be a child seeing his parents arguing over their beliefs; he’d learn how he should have his own belief...
When studying human development, it is helpful to understand the main developmental domains (i.e physical, cognitive, emotional and moral) and the ways in which people develop within each domain at certain age stages. Use of psychological theories is also helpful to understand the reasons for this development and the ways in which it manifests at different age stages. The objective of this essay is to analyse the influences on development from conception to late adolescence. It will describe theories of lifespan development with information regarding my own development used to support these theories. It will be concluded that theories of lifespan development can be used to explain life experiences in the different developmental domains at different
Broderick, P.C., & Blewitt, P., (2009). The Life Span: Human Development for Helping Professionals 3rd Edition.
Psychosocial development throughout the Life Cycle theory (sometimes known as individual development theory) proposes that each individual has the ability to master their environment at all stages of life (Coady & Lehman, 2008; Hutchison, 2008). The theory had its beginnings in Freud’s psychosexual stages of child development; however Erikson is responsible for laying the groundwork for the theory as it is known today, by proposing an epigenetic model of human development (Hutchison, 2008).
Psychosocial development is development on a social realm. Psychosocial development is how one develops their mind, maturity level, and emotions over the course of one’s life. The rate of development depends on different factors such as biological processes as well as environmental factors. A man named Erik Erikson who was a psychoanalyst who believed that early childhood successes and failures were responsible for influencing later developmental stages developed this theory. Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development is based around the theory that social experience has an impact over an entire lifespan. There are eight stages developmental stages of development in the psychosocial theory and I will briefly examine all eight stages in this
For my reflection paper I chose to write about chapter 9 that talks about lifespan development. This chapter grabbed my attention and I found it most interesting. In the textbookit discusses how there are certain factors that uncontrollably make us who we are. Those factorsare "unique combination of genes you inherited from your biological mother and father. Another is the historical era during which you grew up. Your individual development has also been shaped by the cultural, social, and family contexts within which you were raised." (Pg.352) The patterns of our lives are because of developmental psychology. "Developmental psychology is a scientific approach which aims to explain growth, change and consistency though the lifespan. Developmental
The processes which explain how development transpires can be described as mechanisms of development. Although Piaget and Vygotsky both focused their theories on cognitive development, the mechanisms needed to develop cognition differ for each theorist. Piaget focused on the mechanisms of cognitive organization, adaptation, and equilibration. Vygotsky, on the other hand, focused on a dialectical process, cultural tools, Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), scaffolding, internalization, and private/inner speech. For Piaget, cognitive organization entails the tendency for thought to have structures in which information and experiences are then labeled into schemas (Miller, 2011). Schemas allow humans to organize categories of information they
The two theories that will be discussed throughout this paper are Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development and Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development. The major themes and concepts of the two theories share both differences and similarities. Specific emphasis will be placed on the earliest years of life and will also be related to separation, individuation, and attachment theory.