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For the childhood and elder age group, there are several stage theories that describe what life is generally like at these time periods. Two famous psychologists that contributed to theories about aging stages were Lawrence Kolhberg and Erik Erikson. Kohlberg was responsible for the development “ladder” of moral thinking throughout the ages (Myers 168). Children were expected to have a preconventional morality, meaning that they have a morality based on self-interest. Elders were expected to have a postconventional morality, which would mean having consideration for ethics and using reasoning and logic. Kohlberg’s theory was often criticized for being culturally biased towards individualistic cultures because the third and highest level of morality pertained most to middle-class Americans (168). Erikson’s theory of stage development revolved around accomplishing certain psychological goals to develop onto the next stage of life. Whichever goal was completed, would determine if a person could move on happily or have problems along the way (Myers 170). The stages could end up with two possible …show more content…
Some of the development of the individual child is predetermined by what kind of genes they come into the world with. It will determine their temperament, some of their personality, their physical features, and much of their abilities to accomplish the stable or instable conditions presented by Erikson. Due to the environment the child is raised in, certain genes can be turned on and off, and this could make a child either more or less likely to live a good life according to the Erikson stages development theory. Genetics and biology could also account for the development of morality because the capability to be moral sometimes depends on the psychological state of the individual. Cognitive impairments can sometimes affect the development of
Kohlberg’s theory of moral development shows the different stages of morality as people change as they get older (McLeod). He had three levels which broke down his stages
moral development. In these stages, Kohlberg concentrates on the reasons why people act the way they do; not the way they think about their actions or what action they take, but the reasoning behind their actions.
Any developmental theory is based on the idea that a child has to reach a certain level of cognitive development before they can understand certain ideas or conceptions. What it means to be a girl or a boy and the full implications that follows. Kohlberg’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory of Gender proposed that all children experience three stage during the process of gender development and identity. These three stage occur at different ages such at the age of two which is the “Gender Identity” stage Kohlberg states that children can correctly label themselves as a boy or girl but may still think it is possible to change gender. The second stage occurs at the age of four and is known as the “Gender Stability” stage. In this stage children become
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development is three levels consisting of two stages in each. Kohlberg’s Theory explains how a human’s mind morally develops. Level one is typically common in younger children. The two stages in level one are pre-conventional stages. Stage one is obedience and punishment driven; one will judge an action by the consequences given. Stage two is out of self interest. Level two is mostly common in teenagers. The stages in this level
Erikson’s theory, developed in 1963, supports the idea that early life experiences impact an individual across their lifespan. This theory considers that the growth of an individual is a result of interaction with the environment, biological maturation and societal influences, therefore, allowing for experiences from early life, to influence an individual throughout their lifespan (White, Hayes, and Livesey, 2009). Erikson’s theory focuses on eight different developmental stages within a lifespan and in order to progress from one stage to another, an individual must overcome a potential crisis of two opposing forces at each stage. There are two types of resolution of each stage, successful and unsuccessful. If an individual is
Eric Erikson was one of the most famous theorists of the twentieth century; he created many theories. One of the most talked about theories is his theory of psychosocial development. This is a theory that describes stages in which an individual should pass as they are going through life. His theory includes nine stages all together. The original theory only included eight stages but Erikson‘s wife found a ninth stage and published it after his death. The nine stages include: trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. identity confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation, integrity vs. despair, and hope and faith vs. despair (Crandell and Crandell, p.35-36)).
Erik Erikson’s eight Stages of man; politically known as the eight stages of psychosocial development. He promotes social interactions as a motivation to personality development. Erickson studied stages from the beginning of the life cycle to the later stages of life. Erickson was trained under the famous Sigmund Freud. His belief was that it wasn’t only sex that motivated personality development. Social interaction and a growing sense of competence is the key to it all. Because his beliefs differed from the beliefs of Freud, Erikson quickly began to work on his own. Erickson has focused on many different eras of psychological development.
Erikson believed that people develop in psychosocial stages. He emphasized developmental change throughout the human life span. In Erikson's theory, eight stages of development result as we go through the life span. Each stage consists of a crisis that must be faced. According to Erikson, this crisis is not a catastrophe but a turning point. The more an individual resolves the crises successfully, the healthier development will be.
...omplished candidate. While morality plays an important part in day-to-day life, it is a small footnote in the large spectrum of developmental psychology. Erikson did a greater service to the field because he developed a more in-depth, thought out, relevant theory. His theory also has more uses than Kohlberg’s. Erikson’s theory can be applied to parenting, counseling, education and more.
He implemented eight psychosocial stages which includes trust versus mistrust. One example of the specified inclusions are infants. In order to come to a resolution for these feelings of insecurity, infants look towards their care givers for care and stability to fulfill their desired needs. With autonomy versus shame stage, children begin to assert their independence, utilizing their skills otherwise they will end up doubting their abilities. Initiative versus guilt is another stage where pre-scholars develop initiative by devising and carrying out bold plans. These people plan activities, developing a sense of initiative with others therefore feeling secure in their ability to lead and make decisions. The identity versus role confusion stage is noted as Erikson’s most popular. He characterized adolescence as a crucial and critical time of identity development. To achieve a sense of identity some adolescents attempt to define and explore who they are regarding their career choice, religion, political views, sexual orientation etc., figuring out a way to fit into society. According to Erikson, “the adolescent mind is essentially a mind or moratorium, a psychosocial stage between the morality learned by the child, and the ethics to be developed by the adult” (Erikson, 1963, p.245. As they go through the different sexual and
Kohlberg’s theory of the stages of moral development has gained some popularity despite being controversial. The claim that the levels form a “ladder,” the bottom being the immature child with a pre-conventional level and the top being a post conventional ethical individual. The sequence is unvarying and the subject must begin at the bottom with aspirations to reach the top, possibly doing so. (7) Research confirms that individuals from different cultures actually progress according to Kohlbergs theory, at least to the conventional level. Kohlberg’s stages of moral development continue to provide a foundation for psychology studies of moral reasoning. (6)
These can also be changed by environmental factors as well but both our genetic makeup and the environment we experience would influence our overall development, including our moral development (Srivastava et al., 2013). Moral development is not completely accredited to one’s genetic makeup though, theorist such as Lawrence Kohlberg believe that moral development is underlined by the cognitive development of an individual. He believed that moral thinking changes in predictable ways as cognitive abilities develop, regardless of culture (Arnett, 2012). As listed earlier morality can be affected by many factors including the environment and the parenting of a child. Parenting has a larger effect on the morals of a child than many scholars have described but this is because the parents of a child in the early times of life are the only exposure to culture and the teaching of norms and how to obey them. Parenting has no real right of wrong way of being done but for over 5 decades of research has been done attempting to find out how parents parent. Throughout nearly all studies it has become clear that parenting seems to have two main aspects that build it: demandingness and responsiveness. With these two characteristics there are 4 main “parenting styles” that can be
Erikson’s theory has some limitations. It seems to focus mainly on childhood, even though it does span the entire life. Another limitation in the theory is how it is applied to other cultures. Each culture is in its own category and has a different way of doing things. Erikson’s stages are rather concrete, whereas numerous cultures vary in ages of toilet training, breastfeeding, and even marriage. Since Erikson’s theory has rather concrete stages, how would these types of cultures fit into his model? Yet another limitation to Erikson’s theory is how can one resolve an issue within a certain stage? These are unlimited examples of both strength and weaknesses.
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development: the nature and validity of moral stages. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Part One:The criticisms of Kohlberg's moral development stages seem to center around three major points, his research methods, the "regression" of stage four, and finally his goals.The first criticism that I would like to address is that of his research methods. Kohlberg is often criticized for not only his subject selection, but also the methods by which he tries to extricate data from those subjects. His initial study consisted of school boys from a private institution in Chicago. The problem with this is fairly obvious, that this does not represent a significant portion of the population to allow for generalized conclusions. In other words, how can we test some boys from Chicago and ascertain that this is how all people develop worldwide?I believe that the answer to this criticism comes from the theory that it relates to.