Human Development across the Life Span

This paper explores the theories of human development and their impact on personal growth and behavior. It focuses on Erik Erikson's theory of psychological development and Piaget's theory of cognitive development, analyzing their influence on the author's own experiences and development. The paper discusses the stages of development in each theory and how they relate to the author's internship experience and personal growth.

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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN 1
Human development is the process of expanding people’s opportunities and freedoms for
improving their well-being and provides them opportunity and freedom to live the lives people
wanted and value (Cronin & Mandich, 2015). The human development theories and concepts
gave me a better understanding to know how to act in different situations of life. This paper
considers one of the significant events of my life relating to two human development theories
that are Erik Erikson theory of psychological development and Piaget theory of cognitive
development, which helped me to analyze and acknowledge various changes in my behavior and
attitude (Feldman, Papalia, & Olds, 2007).
In my life, I have been through many experiences that brought significant changes, which were
helpful in improving my skills and abilities. Further, one of the major events that brought major
changes is when I was doing internship in ABC Company Pvt. Ltd. while pursuing MBA from
Australia graduate school of management. At the beginning of my internship, I used to get late
for the office, which further became my habit. My nature towards my colleagues and my seniors
became different and unbearable and this resulted in the negative impression of my existence in
the eye of my boss. After a few weeks of my internship, my boss gave me first warning for
improving my behavior. Then I decided to make some objectives and goals such as gaining
ability to understand and expand my knowledge on practices, wisdom as well as learning how
appropriately a workplace could direct.
While working over there, this brought many changes and development in my personality and
behavior, which had a positive effect of my performance on work. This relates to the human
development theories such as Erik Erikson’s theory of psychological development and Piaget
theory of cognitive development, which are been focused in this event (Salkind, 2004).
One of the best theories in human development based on personality is Erik Erikson’s (1902-
1994) theory of psychological development. He presented a model that underlines the tasks and
the challenges which works as a key to understand the human development. Erikson believed
that personality can be developed in the numerous sequences of stages which shows the impact
of social practices across the entire lifespan (Newman & Newman, 2010). Erikson suggested that
human passes through 8 phases of life and each stage presents exceptional developmental tasks
(Scheck, 2014).

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN 2
Stage one Trust vs. Mistrust (0-1 ½) which reflects that infant is the stage which develops
stability between trust and mistrust if cared for and responds constantly.
Stage two Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (1-3). This stage of life is identified as toddler stage,
which explains that autonomy refers to independence or self-reliance of confidence and thoughts
to act for oneself.
Stage three Initiative vs. Guilt (4-6). At this stage the individual faces the preschool stage which
explains that initiative refers to the self-assurance and ability to perform the activities with a
better understanding of the failure and risk.
Stage four Industry vs. Inferiority (7-12). This is the stage where an individual comes to the
school age, which highlights that industry means having the ability or competence to perform a
skill.
Stage five Identities vs. Role Confusion (12-18). This is the age of adolescent, which means
understanding own self and the ways to fit under the surrounding world whereas, the role
confusion results in inability to understand the personal identity.
Stage six Intimacies vs. Isolation (19-40). At the stage of young adults, in an individual
intimacy grows relations with families, friends and spouses whereas isolation refers to the feeling
of being omitted from the partnership and relationship.
Stage seven Generativity vs. Stagnation (41-65). This is the stage of adulthood, where taking
unconditional caring for someone results in generativity and stagnation refers to attentiveness
and self-preoccupation.
Stage eight Integrity vs. Despair (65+). The last and the final stage is adulthood when an
individual is 65 or above. The feeling of integrity is motivated when the individual starts
understanding the satisfaction of life while despair donates to raise the feeling of waste of
opportunity and time (Shakespeare, 2015)
However, a psychoanalytic model of human development given by Erik Erikson underlines the
role of oblivion ( Kohnstamm, 2014). I am at the sixth stage of Erik theory of human
development that raised the feeling to grow relations with my family. Working in the office

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN 3
made me realize the importance of my family. This theory helped me to raise the skills and
abilities to perform the activities and made me understand the risk the failures I was facing at a
time. This increased the confidence in me regarding the work I was doing and it let me know my
personal identity. It helped me to reduce the ego I have towards my colleagues.
Jean Piaget, a famous Swiss Psychologists and Lev Vygotsky, equally well famous psychologists
from Russia are the two major players in the realm of the cognitive theory. This theory explains
the ways and methods of gathering or organizing information and how to process the changes in
the development of the human (McLeod, 2018). Piaget believed that learning and knowledge is
based on the child mental structure and it helps to focus on the ways to process to adapt the
changes according to the surroundings or to generate a meaningful way out of their experiences.
According to Piaget, young children are more creative and think differently as compared to
adults. Cognitive theory of development is a advanced restructuring of mental ability, which
results in ecological understanding and natural growth (Wadsworth, 2004). There are 4 stages of
Piaget cognitive theory of development which replicates the growing complexity of children
assumptions:
Sensorimotor stage (Birth to age 2)
Pre-operational stage (age 2 to 7)
Concrete operational stage (age 7 to 11)
Formal operational stage (age 11+ to adulthood).
Piaget explains that a child goes through various stages in order to increase the mental ability to
think and perform well from adults and the development of child is raised by the interaction with
the environment and the biological maturation (Desforges & Brown, 2013). This theory helped
me in building knowledge and made me understand about the working environment, which made
me experience various discrepancies between the knowledge I have and the experience, which I
was gaining at my workplace. I’m at the formal operational stage of Piaget theory of cognitive
development that made me to gain the ability to think in an effective manner and resulted in
solving the problems that I was facing at my workplace.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN 4
In the end, it has been found that, the theories helped me in bringing development in my identity
and nature. These also helped me to understand my strengths and weakness and raise the ability
to perform well at my workplace. After this my boss appreciated for the work I was doing in the
company and my team leader was satisfied with my attitude and behavior and the work I was
doing.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN 5
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