are required by individuals in relation to each facet of the aging process in order to enhance the probability of their continued well-being.
The origins of social learning theory lie in attempts to combine psychoanalytic and stimulus-response theory into a comprehensive explanation of human behavior (Grusec, 1992, pp. 776-786). Various theories of human development often tend to view people as either active or passive in interactions with their environments (Cohen, 1987, p. 22). A passive concept of human development is behaviorism (Sugarman, 1986, p. 20). Behaviorism emphasizes the critical significance of one's environment to the overall development of the individual (Turner and Helms, 1991, p. 8). Active concepts of human development, by contrast with passive concepts, hold that individuals are not passive beings, but, rather, are capable of actively governing their own development An active concept of human development is the cognitive development theory.
Non-equilibrium systems theory (NEST) also is used as a means of understanding aging (Porter, 1995, p. 24). Through NEST, aging is perceived as a process of formative change toward increasing disorder and order in form, pattern, and structure. A person moves toward greater complexity through self-organization. Over time, self-organization produces increasingly unique perceptions and behavior.
Life-span theory also is used to explain aging (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995, p. 284). There exist a number of protocols for dividing, or staging, the human life cycle. One approach, genetic maturation, to the break the life cycle into infancy, the Oedipal period, the juvenile period, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, and old age. Sigmund Freud considered human development within the context of psychosexual development (Hill & Humphrey, 1992, pp. 6-7). Freud's developmental stages were oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital (Lerner, 1991, pp. 294-297). Erik Eriks...