Theories of Human Development Throughout the Lifespan

Social Development: Erik Erikson

Erikson saw identity development as a series of social challenges through which people develop competency. He proposed eight distinct stages, each with two possible outcomes. Successfully moving through each stage leads to healthy personality development and successful social interaction. Failing to do so can put someone at risk for failing future stages, leading to an unhealthy sense of self. However, these can be successfully resolved late to remedy this issue.

Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust

Children are born needing to learn to trust others. They do this based on the consistency of their caregiver(s) from birth to age 1.
Successful development of trust leads to an ability to feel confident and secure in the world even when threatened.
Unsuccessful completion of this stage can lead to feelings of mistrust in the world, resulting in anxiety and insecurity.

Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

Once children are able to trust others, they begin to develop independence from their caregiver(s). This tends to occur between ages 1 and 3.
Successful completion of this stage is facilitated by caregivers encouraging independence while supporting exploration.
Unsuccessful completion of this stage occurs when children are criticized, overly controlled, or not given the opportunity for exploration. This can lead to feelings of inadequacy, dependency, and low self-esteem.

Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt

Children who are more independent start to plan activities, make up games, and initiate activities. This tends to occur between ages 3 and 6.
Successful completion of this stage is facilitated by caregivers giving children the opportunity to lead others and make decisions.
Unsuccessful completion of this stage occurs when caregivers either criticize or control children, leading the children to develop a sense of guilt. These children tend to lack initiative and are followers.

Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority

Children begin to initiate projects, see them through to completion, and feel good about their accomplishments. This tends to occur between ages 6 and puberty.
Successful completion of this stage is facilitated by caregivers encouraging and reinforcing children’s initiative, leading children to feel industrious and confident in their abilities.
Unsuccessful completion of this stage occurs when caregivers restrict children’s initiative, causing them to feel inferior, doubt their abilities, and fail to reach their potential.

Stage 5: Identity vs. Role Confusion

Adolescents become more independent and begin to look at the future in terms of who they will be as an adult. This occurs during the transition from childhood to adulthood known as adolescence.
Successful completion of this stage involves exploring various possibilities and beginning to form their own identities based on these explorations.
Unsuccessful completion of this stage occurs when this exploration is hindered, resulting in a sense of confusion about themselves and their role in the world.

Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation

Young adults begin to develop more intimate relationships with others outside of their family, leading to longer term commitments.
Successful completion of this stage can lead to comfortable relationships and a sense of commitment, safety, and care within relationships.
Unsuccessful completion of this stage occurs when young adults avoid intimacy and fear commitment, leading to isolation, loneliness, and sometimes depression.

Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation

Adults have certain milestones that they are expected to achieve during their life, such as establishing their career, settling down in a relationship, and beginning a family.
Successful completion of this stage leads to developing a sense of a bigger picture and giving back to society through raising children, being productive at work, and becoming involved in community activities and organizations.
Unsuccessful completion of this stage by failing to reach these goals leads to individuals becoming stagnant and feeling unproductive.

Stage 8: Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Senior adults tend to slow down and enter retirement. At this time, they reflect on their life and their accomplishments.
Successful completion of this stage is a result of viewing their lives as a satisfactory progression of accomplishments and leads to a sense of integrity.
Unsuccessful completion of this stage is a result of viewing their lives as unproductive and failing to accomplish their goals. This leads to the senior being dissatisfied with their life and developing despair, depression, and often hopelessness.

The stages are typically viewed through a micro lens, where social development is learning how to behave and interact well with others. Social development on a micro level relies on learning how to manage feelings so they are productive. On a macro level, social development is about a commitment to these developmental processes and that they need to benefit people.

Social development implies a change in social institutions. Social cohesion is enhanced when peaceful and safe environments within neighborhoods and communities are created. Social accountability can only exist when individuals’ voices are expressed and heard. Reforms aimed at improving rights are part of the process by which institutional change is achieved.

Emotional Development

Much emotional development occurs during play. Children are learning that they are liked and fun to be around. These experiences give them the self-confidence they need to build loving and supportive relationships all their lives.

Cognitive Development

Cognitive development is the emergence of the ability to think and understand. This is typically where the “nature vs. nurture” debate comes in. However, the evidence shows that it is truly an interaction of both.

Six Levels of Cognition:

1. Knowledge: rote memorization, recognition, or recall of facts
2. Comprehension: understanding what the facts mean
3. Application: correct use of the facts, rules, or ideas
4. Analysis: breaking down information into component parts
5. Synthesis: combination of facts, ideas, or information to make a new whole
6. Evaluation: judging or forming an opinion about the information or situation

Three Domains of Development:

1. Cognitive: mental skills (knowledge)
2. Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (attitude or self)
3. Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (skills)

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget was a developmental psychologist who believed that children learned through interaction with the environment and others.

1. Sensorimotor stage (age 0–2 years): retains image of objects, develops primitive logic in manipulating objects, begins intentional actions, play is imitative, signals meaning — infant invests meaning in event (i.e., babysitter arriving means mother is leaving), symbol meaning (language) begins in last part of stage
2. Preoperational stage (age 2–7 years): progress from concrete to abstract thinking; can comprehend past, present, and future; night terrors; acquires words and symbols; magical thinking; thinking is not generalized; thinking is concrete, irreversible, egocentric; cannot see another point of view; thinking is centered on one detail or event
   **Imaginary friends often emerge during this stage and may last into elementary school. Although children do interact with them, most know that their friends are not real and only pretend they are real. Therefore, having an imaginary friend does not indicate the presence of a disorder. It is a normal part of development and social workers should normalize behavior with parents who are distressed about this activity during this developmental stage.**
3. Concrete Operations stage (age 7–11 years): beginnings of abstract thought, plays games with rules, cause and effect relationship understood, logical implications are understood, thinking is independent of experience, thinking is reversible, rules of logic are developed
4. Formal Operations stage (age 11+): higher level of abstraction, planning for future, thinks hypothetically, assumes adult roles and responsibilities

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Devleopment

Kohlberg held that the stages of moral reasoning build upon one another and allow people to handle increasingly complex dilemmas. A person must pass through each successive stage of moral development without skipping a stage.

1. Preconventional (1): child obeys an authority figure out of fear of punishment
2. Preconventional (2): Child acts acceptably as it is in her or his best interests. Conforms to rules to receive rewards
3. Conventional (1): Person acts to gain approval from others. Follow stereotypic norms of morality.
4. Conventional (2): Obeys laws and fulfills obligations and duties to maintain social systems. Rules are rules. Avoids censure and guilt.
5. Postconventional (1): Genuine interest in welfare of others. Concerned with individual rights and being morally right. Most adults do not reach this level.
6. Postconventional (2): Guided by individual principles based on broad, universal ethical principles. Concern for larger universal issues of morality.

Orientations of Learning Theories:

1. Behaviorist — learning is a change in behavior and the stimuli in the external environment are the locus of learning. Famous behaviorists include Pavlov and Skinner. Behaviorally-oriented social workers aim to change the external environment in order to bring about desired change.
2. Cognitive — learning is viewed through mental processes (including insight, information processing, memory, and perception) and the locus of learning is internal cognitive structures. Famous cognitive theorists include Piaget. Cognitively-oriented social workers aim to develop opportunities to foster capacity and skills to improve learning.
3. Humanistic — learning is viewed as a person’s activities aimed at reaching their full potential, and the locus of learning is in meeting cognitive and other needs. Famous humanists include Maslow. Humanistic social workers aim to develop the whole person.
4. Social/Situational — learning is obtained between people and their environment and their interactions and observations in social contexts. Famous social learning theorists include Bandura. Socially-oriented social workers establish opportunities for conversation and participation to occur.

Behavioral Development

Behavioral theorists reject theories that take into account internal thoughts and feelings. They believe that behaviors determine feelings, so changing behaviors will change or eliminate undesired feelings. The goal is to change behavior.

The focus is on observable behavior — a target symptom, a problem behavior, or an environmental condition, rather than on the personality of a client.

Classes of Behavior:

1. Respondent: involuntary behavior (anxiety, sexual response) that is automatically elicited by certain behavior. A stimulus elicits a response.
2. Operant: voluntary behavior (walking, talking) that is controlled by its consequences in the environment.

Behavior Modification

Best known applications of behavior modification are sexual dysfunction, phobic disorders, compulsive behaviors (i.e., overeating, smoking), and training of people with intellectual disabilities and/or Autism Spectrum Disorder. Social workers must train clients to monitor their own behavior if clients are not in residential or inpatient settings.

Behavioral Paradigms

Respondent or Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)

Learning occurs as a result of pairing previously neutral (conditioned) stimulus with an unconditioned (involuntary) stimulus so that the conditioned stimulus eventually elicits the response normally elicited by the unconditioned stimulus.

Steps of Classical Conditioning:

1. Unconditioned Stimulus -> Unconditioned Response
2. Unconditioned Stimulus + Conditioned Stimulus -> Unconditioned Response
3. Conditioned Stimulus -> Conditioned Response

Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner)

Antecedent events or stimuli precede behaviors, which, in turn, are followed by consequences. Consequences that increase the occurrence of the behavior are referred to as reinforcing consequences. Consequences that decrease the occurrence of the behavior are referred to as punishing consequences. Reinforcement aims to increase behavior frequency, whereas punishment aims to decrease it.

Antecedent -> Response/Behavior -> Consequence

Operant Techniques:

1. Positive reinforcement: increases probability that behavior will occur — praising, giving tokens, or otherwise rewarding positive behavior.
2. Negative reinforcement: behavior increases because a negative (aversive) stimulus is removed (i.e., remove shock)
3. Positive punishment: presentation of undesirable stimulus following a behavior for the purpose of decreasing or eliminating that behavior (i.e., hitting, shocking)
4. Negative punishment: removal of a desirable stimulus following a behavior for the purpose of decreasing or eliminating that behavior (i.e., removing something positive, such as a token or dessert)

Specific Behavioral Terms

1. Aversion therapy: any treatment aimed at reducing the attractiveness of a stimulus or a behavior by repeated pairing of it with an aversive stimulus
2. Biofeedback: behavior training program that teaches a person how to control certain functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and muscular tension. Biofeedback is often used for ADHD and anxiety disorders.
3. Extinction: withholding a reinforcer that normally follows a behavior. Behavior that fails to produce reinforcement will eventually cease.
4. Flooding: a treatment procedure in which a client’s anxiety is extinguished by prolonged real or imagined exposure to high-intensity feared stimuli
5. In vivo desensitization: pairing and movement through a hierarchy of anxiety, from least to most anxiety provoking situations. Takes place in “real” setting.
6. Modeling: method of instruction that involves an individual (the model) demonstrating the behavior to be acquired by a client.
7. Rational Emotive Therapy (RET): a cognitively oriented therapy in which a social worker seeks to change a client’s irrational beliefs by argument, persuasion, and rational reevaluation and by teaching a client to counter self-defeating thinking with new, nondistressing self-statements.
8. Shaping: method used to train a new behavior by prompting and reinforcing successive approximations of the desired behavior.
9. Systematic desensitization: An anxiety-inhibiting response cannot occur at the same time as the anxiety response. Anxiety-producing stimulus is paired with relaxation-producing response so that eventually an anxiety-producing stimulus produces a relaxation response. At each step a client’s reaction of fear or dread is overcome by pleasant feelings engendered as the new behavior is reinforced by receiving a reward. The reward could be a compliment, a gift, or relaxation.
10. Time out: Removal of something desirable — negative punishment technique.
11. Token economy: A client receives tokens as reinforcement for performing specified behaviors. The tokens function as currency within the environment and can be exchanged for desired goods, services, or privileges.

Source: Social Work ASWB Masters Exam Guide: A Comprehensive Guide For Success by Dawn Apgar