Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Psyche Questions

Lifespan development is a complex and intriguing process which encompasses many unknowns. However, lifespan psychologist Paul Baltes has devised five variables he argues are characteristic of the lifespan development process: lifelong process, multidirectional, selection, plasticity, and embedded in history. Lifelong process refers to the phases of lifespan development being no more or less significant than the others, “No one developmental period is dominant in the course of development” (Dacey and Travers, 2002, 7). The multidirectional characteristic refers to the way that continuous change occurs within the dynamic between biology and culture. We may grow during childhood but we often adjust to loss in old age.

Selection is a characteristic that pertains to the fact that both our genes and our environment play a role in influencing the choices we make throughout the lifespan. The lifespan process is also one that exhibits plasticity, in other words there is a capacity for mutability during any phase of development within the lifespan. The characteristic of lifespan development referred to as embedded in history illustrates how sociocultural factors play a role in shaping our individual development paths. For example, women today develop along a much different course than did their grandmothers or great grandmothers.

Freud, Erikson and Piaget all viewed human growth as a stage development process. Freud’s theories are psychoanalytic in nature, Erikson’s are psychosocial and Piaget’s focus on cognitive aspects of development. In Freud’s psychoanalytic framework, the individual must pass through stages of psychosexual development with the goal of becoming a sexually mature individual. In Erikson’s framework, there are different psychosocial stages at different ages in the lifespan. These stages come with tasks much as in Freud’s psychosexual stages, and if the tasks are successfully resolved the i...

Page 1 of 16 Next >

More on Psyche Questions...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Psyche Questions. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 04:58, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1686178.html