An Analysis of Psychological Theories on Lifespan Development

This essay provides an overview of psychological theories related to lifespan development, focusing on the perspectives of prominent figures such as Freud, Erikson, and Piaget. It explores how these theories explain changes in human behavior, cognition, and emotional development across different life stages. The essay examines the core concepts of each theory, including Freud's psychodynamic approach, Erikson's emphasis on psychosocial stages, and Piaget's cognitive development stages. It also analyzes the impact of environmental factors and internal processes on individual development. The essay highlights Piaget's stages of cognitive development, including the sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages, and how these stages reflect the intellectual growth of children and adolescents. By discussing these theories, the essay aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the psychological processes that shape human development throughout the lifespan. The essay uses different sources to explain the concepts of the theories.

Q1 PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF
LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT
1.1Changes is one thing that occur throughout the life of person.
Lifespan development in simple words can be described as
cognitive and physical changes that occurs in the life of person.
From the moment the change in conception begins it carries on till
the death of person (Baum, 2016). There are six stage of lifespan
development that is infancy, childhood adolescence early
adulthood middle age and older age. Psychology studies the sense
of perception, cognition, learning etc., of person with its interaction
with environment. According to this there are several types of
theory such as Freud, Erikson, Maslow etc.
Sigmund Freud has given the psychodynamic theory of
psychology, its one of the most famous and known theory. Its a
systematic study that study the behaviour, emotion and feeling of
the people and relate it to the early experience of person (Smith,
2015). According to this theory the behaviour and thoughts of a
person get motivated by the internal unconscious forces. In contrast
to above theory Erikson has given his own theory according to him
the external environment plays major role in the building of human
behaviour and its thought process. This study stated that both
culture and society are responsible for the shape of human mind
. Other than above two there are more theory which has
different view regarding the behaviour of person. Piaget theory
emphasis on the internal represent of the people and hoe they think
of the world. In the view of Darwin theory, It's the genetic
inheritance that determined the behaviour of an individual which
are adopted by human in order to survive (Feldman, 2016).
Abraham Maslow has also present his view and said that behaviour
is chosen by the free will of person and its motivated by natural
ability.
Q2 PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES AND ITS
CONCEPT RELATED TO LIFE STAGE
Piaget model is based on cognitive perspective, that focus on the
outer world. This theory is also known as development stage
theory. The theory will explain the qualitative difference between
the logical ability of child and adult and help in proper
understanding of the change in the behaviour of person with time.
This theory highlights the difference between the way a child and
adult think. Cleverness use in answering the question (Newman
and Newman, 2017). The level of knowledge as well as the
understanding all had been observed. With the help of this he tries
to make understand that with time human develop and improve
through biological maturation and environmental experience that
he goes through different stages of time. According to this he come
up with four stages
Sensor motor stage: This stage focusses on the age between the
birth and 2 years. In this stage a child learns from its surrounding
from the object and people that surrounded him. They learn from
the process of trial and error. In this stage the level of knowledge is
very limited and is based on the psychical interaction.
Pre-operational stage: This stage analyses the children between the
age of 2-7 years. In this stage children are more capable and can
use different symbols in order to present their views. They are able
to understand the small concept of similarity, classifying and
counting.
Concrete operational stage: This stage shows the development of
intellectual among children. The age limit in this stage is 7-11
years. In this understanding comes to children they try to
understand things from different point of views (Maslach and
Jackson, 2013). In this stage they depend upon the logical and
systematic manipulation.
Formal operational stage: In this stage, adolescents have proper
development and their own way of perception. They can think a
single variable in various way. According to Piaget change and

intellectual development is lifelong process that have major impact
on the behaviour of a person.