The Impact of Significant Life Events on Human Development

This essay reflects on the impact of significant life events on human development, specifically focusing on the experience of being bullied in school due to obesity. The essay explores the influence of this event on self-esteem and behavior through the lens of Erik Erikson's theory of human development. It also discusses the positive impact of transitioning to a new environment on cognitive and psychosocial capabilities, using Bronfrenbrenner's theory.

Running head: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Human development
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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The human development and growth is affected by different life factors. For this reason,
research into significant life event has increased because many incidents and adversities in life
have a significant impact on physical and mental health outcomes of people (Kail & Cavanaugh,
2018). Hence, human development for different individuals differs based on their life
experiences and theories of human development can help to explore complexities in life of an
individual and how these complexities affect their behaviour, performance and attitude in life.
This essay will reflect on a significant event that I have experienced in life and the impact of
these experiences on my development through the lens of two theories on human development.
One significant event that had a huge impact on my life and affected my self-esteem and
behaviour towards life included my experience of being bullied in school because of obesity.
When I was 15 years old, I was very fat. My weight and my overall appearance were not like
other children in my school as I was suffering from obesity. I was very fat and stout compared to
other children in my class. Although I personally never felt bad about my look, however the
attitude of my peers in school made me feel dejected and bad about my body image. This
happened after I started noticing that my relatives or other people in the community made fun of
me based on my look. They called me with weird names. I was subjected to weight based
victimization and discrimination as everyone bullied me in school. Repeated experience of
bullying generated negative thought in my mind. I began to question my appearance and felt bad
that why I am like this. This experience is not new for me. Obesity is common for all children
with obesity. Bullying in children and adolescent is widespread across the world and being
obese is one of the most common reasons for being bullied at school (Bacchini et al., 2015).
() gives the evidence weight based bullying lead to negative emotional response,
academic failure and peer rejection. I also faced these consequences when I was subjected to

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verbal abuse from my classmates. I developed negative feeling and feelings of poor self-esteem.
My response at that time can be understood from the review of Erik Erikson’s theory of human
development. Erikson’s theory is relevant with my life situation as the theory describes social
development of human being through different stages of life. The theory is based on the
assumption that human development occurs through the stage of infancy to late adulthood and in
each stage, individuals confronts new challenges and overcome it to move to the next stage of
life. In this way he defined eight stages and based on my age when I experienced bullying, my
situation matches with fifth stage (adolescent between 12-18 years) when there is conflict
between ego-identity versus role-confusion. Significant relation for an individual at this stage
includes their peers and their response significantly influences psychosocial virtues and mal-
adaptation in a person (Zhang, 2015). Hence, my relationship with peer influenced had an impact
on psychosocial outcome and led to maladaptive patterns of poor self-esteem and emotional
distress.
After being bullied at school, I began to question who I am and why I am like this. I feel
I responded to the event in this way because of the stage at which I was in my life at that time.
According to Erikson’s theory, adolescents between 12 to 18 years experience conflict between
ego identity and role confusion. Ego identity related to development of sense of self through new
experiences and daily interactions with others. It is common for children at this stage to develop
conflict related to identity versus confusion. The common question in their mind is who I am?.
This question emerges based on experience in society (Kroger, 2015). In my mind also, the same
question emerged because of my interaction with peers. As their verbal abuse made me confused
and insecure about my appearance, I also developed identity crisis. Hence, this defines that why I
developed identity crisis and which event in life lead to such response for me. DeSmet et al.

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(2014) supports that identity development during adolescence stage is highly linked with body
image and self-esteem and these two factors were experienced by me during the adolescent too.
I move out of the experience of bullying and left my school to find better career
perspective for me. After completing my year 12, I decided to go to Australia to figure out what
should I do in life. I was confident to do a fresh start and engage in new education to move ahead
and prosper in life. After coming to Australia, I got a new life, new education and friends. The
campus life was amazing and getting the opportunity to develop new friends made me very clear
about my future life goals. I was a confident and focused college student. Getting the opportunity
to move ahead in life and getting a new social environment was a positive change that
significantly influenced my cognitive and psychosocial capabilities. This transition from being a
confused and underconfident child to a smart, lively and focussed youth can be understood
through the lens of Bronfrenbrenner’s theory of human development. This theory defines how
the child’s development and growth is influenced by the child’s environment. Changes in my
environment also influenced my growth and confidence (Bronfenbrenner, 2018).
One of the significant environmental changed that occurred for me when I moved from
school life to Australia for higher education was that I enrolled in a new institute and I got new
group of friends for interaction. I moved over from my bullying experience during adolescence.
The Bronfrenbrenner’s theory revealed that children’s development is influenced by four
environments which include microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem
(Bronfenbrenner, 2018). Microsystem includes the immediate surroundings of patient such as
school environment, parents, siblings and friends. For me, the new environment was new college
and friends in Australia. The mesosystem is the element surrounding the microsystem involving
interaction between different characters of the microsystem. Some examples of this system

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include relationship with family and school teachers. The exosystem included elements which
can indirectly influence the child such as financial pressure and parental stress. The macrosystem
involved cultural and societal beliefs (Elder, Shanahan & Jennings, 2015). I got exposed to new
environment system by enrolling for higher education in Australia and changes in different
layers of my environment enhanced my learning experiences, my social and emotional
competencies and my ability to be self-directed in life (Taylor & Gebre, 2016).
To conclude, experience of bulling at school during childhood was a major life
experience for me which significantly influenced my overall development. From the analysis of
my personal reaction to bullying and going to Australia for education at different stage of life, it
can be concluded that certain behaviours are influenced by the stages of life. The discussion of
my personal behaviour with two human development theories justified my reaction to
circumstances at different stage of lifespan. The Erickson’s theory justified my behaviour of
questioning identity during adulthood and the Bronfrenbrenner’s theory helped to justify my
renewed confidence and focus in life after moving to Australia for completing my higher
education.

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References:
Bacchini, D., Licenziati, M. R., Garrasi, A., Corciulo, N., Driul, D., Tanas, R., ... & Maltoni, G.
(2015). Bullying and victimization in overweight and obese outpatient children and
adolescents: an Italian multicentric study. PLoS one, 10(11), e0142715.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (2018). Urie Bronfenbrenner: Learning Context. Learning Theories for Early
Years Practice, 66.
DeSmet, A., Deforche, B., Hublet, A., Tanghe, A., Stremersch, E., & De Bourdeaudhuij, I.
(2014). Traditional and cyberbullying victimization as correlates of psychosocial distress
and barriers to a healthy lifestyle among severely obese adolescents–a matched case–
control study on prevalence and results from a cross-sectional study. BMC public
health, 14(1), 224.
Elder Jr, G. H., Shanahan, M. J., & Jennings, J. A. (2015). Human development in time and
place. Handbook of child psychology and developmental science, 1-49.
Kail, R. V., & Cavanaugh, J. C. (2018). Human development: A life-span view. Cengage
Learning.
Kroger, J. (2015). Identity development through adulthood: The move toward “wholeness.”. The
Oxford handbook of identity development, 65-80.
Taylor, R. D., & Gebre, A. (2016). Teacher–student relationships and personalized learning:
Implications of person and contextual variables. Handbook on personalized learning for
states, districts, and schools, 205-220.

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Zhang, L. F. (2015). Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development. International Encyclopedia
of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.).