Running head: CHILD DEVELOPMENTChild DevelopmentName of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor’s Note
1CHILD DEVELOPMENTDevelopment of a human child is different from the development of other animals. Forhuman children, it is necessary for them to develop not only physically, but also mentally andculturally. The complete development incorporates physical, cognitive, and social development.Different scholars over time have provided different opinions about the influential factors thatdetermine the outcome of this development process. This paper will identify the culturalinfluence that facilitates the process of development and change the outcome accordingly. Inother words, children belonging from different cultures undergoes different cognitive and socialdevelopmental stage that determines their nature in the future. The paper also incorporates theglobalization as a strong determinant in childhood development as it addresses the social andcultural aspects. Literatures of different scholars have been incorporated in the study to have acritical understanding of the issue.Margaret Mead was the first to study child rearing and the process of childdevelopment and her theory is known as imitation theory. She proposed the concept that thebehavior of children is the reflection of their parents, which means that the children learn fromimitation. They simply imitate the behavior they observes in their parents. Hence, it varies overculture, or even at family level (Meltzoff 2013). Jean Piaget on the other hand proposed the theory of cognition that proposes differentstage of child development that are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational andformal operation. He later relate his theory of cognitive development with the society andculture. He further stated that the development of human cognition is significantly related withits culture and surrounding. According to his theory, different culture facilitates not onlydifferent level of cognitive development, but also specific cultural experience. However, hefurther highlighted that the uniform formal education somewhat ceases this cultural influence inindividual and restrict it into certain level (Wozniak 2014). Kohlberg on the other hand proposes something similar to Piaget that describes themoral development of children. His theory is popularly known as the theory of moral
2CHILD DEVELOPMENTdevelopment, which is divided into pre-conventional, conventional, and post conventionalstages. The first stage develops the self-interest, whereas, the second stage is attributed to thelearning of rules and regulations of the culture. Children learns to distinguish the right from thewrong in the last stage of moral development. As culture and societies are different from oneanother, the morality developed in the individuals considerably varies form on another. He usedboth inter and intra cultural examples to reflect the differences in moral understanding. Manycross-cultural psychologist criticized his theory due to its western biasness. He reflected thedifferences placing the western moral reasoning abilities at the top of the chart (Gibbs 2013). John Bowlby was a famous psychologist from the 20th century who proposed theattachment theory. The theory of attachment believes that a human child comes into the worldwith a serious biological programming that helps them in attaching to the other humans. It isdue to the need of their survival in this crude world as they as babies are vulnerable. It is aninborn mechanism for which, the babies show affection to the attached one and a sign of fearfor the strangers. However, this idea does not incorporate culture, as according to Bowlby, thisinborn natural instinct is similar to every regardless of cultural variation. There are some mainpoints that the theory follows. They are:1.There must be one particular figure the child will feel more attached than the rest. It isusually the mother in every culture. 2.A minimum of first two years is required with the single attachment for the child todevelop. 3.Separation during this period leads the children to distress. Bowlby distinguished threelevels of distress that are protest, despair, and detachment.4.Detachment for longer period will lead to mental deprivation that are delinquency,reduced intelligence, increased aggression, depression and affection psychology. Bowlby’s attachment theory was also criticized and later modified due to itsincompatibility. Bowlby focused on only one attachment for the babies and stated that the
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