Theories of Development: Cognitive, Moral, Personality and More

This article discusses the different theories of development including cognitive, moral, personality and more. It explores the pros and cons of each theory and how they relate to different stages of life. The article also highlights the criticisms of each theory and how recent research has challenged some of the assumptions made by the theorists.

Running head: THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
Theories of Development
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1THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
Development refers to the series of age related changes which takes place over the
course of a life span (Settersten, 2018). As according to the very famous psychologists like
Lawrence Kohlberg, Jean Piaget, and Sigmund Freud, development is a range of stages and a
stage refers to a period in the process of development in which an individual display a typical
behavioural pattern as well as establishes particular capacities. There are several theories of
development. These theories comprise of the cognitive theory, humanist theory, behaviourist
theory, social learning theory and operant conditioning. This paper is going to elaborate on
discussing some of the different theories of development along with their pros and cons in
relation to the different stages of life.
Firstly, according to the theory of personality by Sigmund Frued, personality
development means a range of different stages and among these stages, Sigmund Frued stated
that the stage of early childhood is the most vital one (Cervone & Pervin, 2015). He also
believed that an individual develop his personality by about his age of five years. Secondly,
as according to the theory of psychological development developed by Erikson, like Freud,
he too believed the fact that early childhood development is important. However, it is also to
note that as according to him, personality development takes place throughout a man’s life. In
the early 1960s, he had proposed a theory which relates 8 different stages of development
(McAdams & Zapata-Gietl, 2015). As stated by him, in every stage, an individual face new
challenges and the outcomes of each of the stages depends on how he handles those
challenges. He named the stages as- Trust vs. Mistrust>Autonomy vs. shame and
doubt>initiative vs. guilt> industry vs. inferiority> identity vs. role confusion> intimacy vs.
isolation> generative vs. self-absorption> integrity vs. despair (Knight, 2017). His theory is
very useful as because of the fact that it addresses both personality change as well as
personality stability. To some extent, the personality of an individual is stable because
childhood experiences indeed affects the people even when they reach their adulthood. It is

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also to mention that personality keeps on developing and changing with the period of life as
individual face more new challenges in each stage. However, the main issue with this theory
is that with many stage theories of development, he have described only a typical pattern. It
does not acknowledge the several differences in between the individuals.
Thirdly, the theory of cognitive development, presented by Jean Piaget, focuses on the
conscious thoughts, problem solving, decision-making and remembering (Demetriou, Shayer
& Efklides, 2016). It refers to how a person understands the world through interacting.
According to Piaget, the thought processes of children changes when they mature and
develop physically as well as interact with the external world around them. He believed that
children develop schema or say, the mental models for representing the world. As they learn,
they modify and expand their schema through accommodation and assimilation (Carey,
Zaitchik & Bascandziev, 2015). The term accommodation refers to improvement of the
schema as new information are assimilated and term assimilation refers to the expanding of
the prevailing schema to include more new information. He proposed that the children go
through a total of four stages of cognitive development and they are the sensorimotor period,
the preoperational period, the concrete operational period and the formal operational period.
In this context, it is also to note that Piaget has argued that children are incapable of
conservation at the stage of preoperational due to the three weaknesses that emerge in the
manner they think and all these demerits are of centration, egocentrism and irreversibility.
Centration refers to the proneness of focusing on an aspect of specific problem and ignoring
the rest vital aspects. Secondly, irreversibility refers to the incapability to mentally reversing
any operation, while the egocentrism refers to the impotency of taking the view-point of
someone else’s.
While Piaget has made a very vital contribution to the research on the subject of
cognitive development, there are several reasons for which his theory has come under attack.

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As according to the recent research, Piaget has highly underestimated the capabilities of the
children (McAlister & Bargh, 2016). Like for example, the researchers have signified that the
little babies attain the object permanence at much earlier stage than Piaget has described they
do. Also, the children often concurrently build the skills which are the characteristics of more
than any one stage that develops the idea of the stages that seem less practicable. With the
same, it is also to note that Piaget has completely ignored the cultural influences and
researchers have showed that a child belonging from different cultural background tends to
go through the stages introduced by Piaget in the same order but the length of the stages and
the timing differs from one culture to another. Also, it is also a proven fact that there are
some people who could never develop the capacity of formal reasoning, even when they grew
up as adults.
Fourthly, the theory of Moral Development by Lawrence Kohlberg focuses on the
primary reason behind why people think in the manner they actually do about the wrong and
the right (Walker, 2014). His theory was affected by Piaget who have believed that the
attribute of moral reasoning base on the level of the cognitive development. According to
him, people pass from a total of three different levels of moral development and they are- pre
conventional, conventional and the post conventional level. At the pre conventional level, the
stage, the things that determines the right and the wrong are the reward and the punishments
by the adults. In the conventional level, it is the rules set by their close people and the society.
On the other hand, in the post conventional level, it is the rules set by the society, judged by
what is personally important and the rules based on the abstract ethical principles (Marley,
Rizzo & Swisher, 2016). There are many research that supports the key parts of the theory of
Kohlberg. Individuals do tend to improve in order through the stages of Kohlberg and both
moral and cognitive development do influence one another.

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However, it is also to note that the critics of the theory of Kohlberg have two major
concerns and they are that people frequently show the characteristics of reasoning of various
levels concurrently. For example, in one situation, an individual might be reasoned as he is in
the conventional stage or in the other circumstances, he might also make usage of the
reasoning typically of the post conventional stage. Furthermore, the theory of Kohlberg on
the moral development supports all those cultures that value the concept of individualism. In
the other cultures, the highly moral people might support their reasoning based on the
communal values instead of the abstract ethical principles.
Hence, from the above discussion it can be concluded that people pass through
different stages in a particular order and with each stage they build on the capacities that are
developed in the previous stage. With the same, it is also to mention that the stages or levels
are interrelated with the age and development t is a non-continuous process along with
qualitatively diverse capacities taking place in every stages. There are many theorists who
have provided different types of factors and experiments in relation to the development of an
individual’s behaviour, his reactions and his ways of learning.

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References:
Carey, S., Zaitchik, D., & Bascandziev, I. (2015). Theories of development: In dialog with
Jean Piaget. Developmental Review, 38, 36-54.
Cervone, D., & Pervin, L. A. (2015). Personality, binder ready version: theory and research.
John Wiley & Sons.
Demetriou, A., Shayer, M., & Efklides, A. (Eds.). (2016). Neo-Piagetian theories of
cognitive development: Implications and applications for education.
Knight, Z. G. (2017). A proposed model of psychodynamic psychotherapy linked to Erik
Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development. Clinical psychology &
psychotherapy, 24(5), 1047-1058.
Marley, M. A., Rizzo, A. M., & Swisher, L. L. (2016). Update on Moral Reasoning Research
and Theory in Public Administration: A Neo-Kohlbergian Perspective. In Ethics in
Public Management (pp. 78-102).
McAdams, D. P., & Zapata-Gietl, C. (2015). Three strands of identity development across the
human life course: Reading Erik Erikson in full. The Oxford handbook of identity
development, 81-94.
McAlister, A. R., & Bargh, D. (2016). Dissuasion: the Elaboration Likelihood Model and
young children. Young Consumers, 17(3), 210-225.
Settersten, R. A. (2018). Propositions and controversies in life-course scholarship. In Lives in
Time and Place and Invitation to the Life Course (pp. 15-45).

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Walker, L. J. (2014). Sex differences in moral reasoning. Handbook of moral behavior and
development, 2, 333-364.