Defining Development

• Development, although varying, generally follows six main characteristics, those being:

  • Continual: It starts at birth, and we continue to develop until we die.

  • Orderly, sequential, and builds upon itself: Development is based on a predictable pattern that moves from earlier to later stages, where the later stages build on what has already been experienced and integrated into our lives.

  • A change process: Development means we are constantly moving on to different life phases and stages. Our core remains the same throughout this process.

  • Painful, yet growth-producing: Development implies giving up past ways of behaving or perceiving the world; thus, it is painful because we have to let go of something that is familiar. At the same time, it is growth producing, as we move on to newer ways of being in the world that will help us adapt more easily.

  • Hopeful: Developmental theories are optimistic—they see the potential in people and believe that the individual will blossom, much like a seed that turns into a flower, if he or she is nurtured and allowed to develop naturally.

  • Preventive and wellness-oriented: The nature of developmental theory lends itself to a prevention and a wellness model of mental health. When helpers recognize the expected transitions that individuals are facing, they can develop workshops and educational seminars that can assist individuals in understanding their natural progression from one developmental level to another.

• The developmentally astute helper knows the following:

  • (1) the characteristics that are commonly displayed by clients at different developmental stages.

  • (2) the types of social issues and personal problems often experienced by clients as they pass through specific developmental stages

  • (3) the reasons why such problems occur

  • (4) the techniques that might succeed with clients who share similar developmental concerns.

Physical Development of the Growing Child

• As a child develops, major physiological changes take place; however, the rate at which the child's physical development occurs stays fairly consistent.

• The scope of a specific child’s development is based on the child's genetic predisposition in interaction with the environment.

• A nurturing environment is important for a child to flourish.

The Development of Knowing: Cognitive and Moral Changes

Jean Piaget and Cognitive Development

• Jean Piaget is the person who has most helped us understand the cognitive development of children.

• According to Piaget, as the child grows, he or she takes new information into an already existing view of the world.

  • Known as assimilation, this process refers to incorporating new information within the framework that the child already has for understanding the world.

• conservation

  • The notion that liquids and solids can be transformed in shape without changing their volume or mass.

  • As children grow, they develop a clear understanding of differences in mass which they then accommodate to this way of knowing.

• Piaget stated that in the process of accommodating to the world, they (The children) form new cognitive structures (new ways of thinking) which allow the individual to adapt to his or her view of the world.

• The processes of assimilation, forming new schemata, and eventual accommodation occur throughout the lifespan.

• Piaget determined that children pass through four predictable periods/stages in their life, those being:

  • The Sensorimotor stage.

  • The Preoperational stage.

  • The Concrete-operational stage.

  • And the Formal-operational stage.

• The Sensorimotor stage

  • Starts at birth and lasts till the age of 2.

  • In this stage, the infant responds to physical and sensory experiences. Because the child has not yet acquired full language ability, he or she cannot maintain mental images and responds only to the here and now of experience.

• The Preoperational stage

  • Occurs between the ages of 2 and 7 years.

  • In this stage, the child responds to what seems immediately obvious rather than having the ability to think logically.

• The Concrete-operational stage.

  • Occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years.

  • In this stage, the child can begin to “figure things out” through a series of logical tasks, and children in this stage often are very adamant about their logical way of viewing the world.

  • Children in the concrete-operational stage will have difficulty with metaphors or proverbs because they have not developed the capacity to think abstractly.

• The Formal-operational stage.

  • Occurs between the ages of 11 and 16 years.

  • During this stage, children begin to think abstractly and apply more complex levels of knowledge to their understanding of the world. A child in this stage can also now understand how objects might have symbolic meaning.

  • Children in this stage can also now test hypotheses, understand proverbs, and consider more than one aspect of a problem at one time.

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

• Lawrence Kohlberg discovered that by having children respond to moral dilemmas, understanding and reasoning develop in a predictable pattern.

• Lawrence Kohlberg identified three levels of development, with each level containing two stages.

  • The pre-conventional level.

  • The conventional level.

  • And the post-conventional level.

• The pre-conventional level

  • occurs roughly between the ages of 2 and 9 years.

  • The pre-conventional level is based on the notion that children make moral decisions out of fear of being punished or out of a desire for a reward.

  • In Stage 1, children make moral decisions to avoid punishments from individuals in authority who hold power over them (e.g., parents).

  • In Stage 2, children make moral decisions with an egocentric/hedonistic desire to satisfy their needs and in hopes of gaining personal rewards.

• The conventional level

  • Occurs between the ages of 9 and 18 years.

  • At the conventional level, Children’s moral decisions are initially based on social conformity and a desire to gain approval from others.

  • In stage 3, the child responds to what he or she believes significant others would view as morally correct in hopes of avoiding their disapproval and gaining their acceptance. Most children will reach Stage 3 by age 13.

  • In stage 4, approval from parents takes a back seat in the child’s moral decision-making, and rigid adherence to societal rules of law and order takes hold.

• The post-conventional level

  • The post-conventional level is often never reached by people, and if it does happen to occur, it will occur only at the age of 13 and above.

  • The post-conventional level is based on accepting a social contract related to democratically recognized universal truths.

  • In Stage 5, the individual believes that laws can be examined, interpreted, discussed, and changed.

  • In Stage 6, the final stage of the post-conventional level, moral decisions are based on a sense of universal truths, personal conscience, individual decision-making, and respect for human rights and dignity.

Gilligan’s Theory of Women’s Moral Development

• In 1982 Carol Gilligan wrote the book “In a Different Voice,” which questioned some of Kohlberg’s assumptions.

  • Gilligan had worked with Kohlberg and noted that his research had been done on small groups of boys.

• Gilligan proposes that moral reasoning for females might be based on a different way of knowing or understanding the world.

  • Kohlberg’s theory stresses the notion that high-stage individuals make choices autonomously.

  • Gillian’s research seems to indicate that women value connectedness and interdependence and view the relationship as primary when making moral decisions.

• Women emphasize a standard of care as they move toward self-realization.

• Gilligan’s Level 1

  • Women’s moral reasoning is narcissistic and reasons from a survival-oriented, self-protective perspective.

• Gilligan’s Level 2

  • The conventional female shows a concern for others and feels responsible for them

• Gilligan’s Level 3

  • A post-conventional woman is a complex thinker who recognizes humans' interdependent nature and knows that every action a person takes affects others in deeply personal ways.

• Adolescent girls tend to be more concerned with the feelings of others, they will often lose their “voice” as they defer to others in decision-making.

  • A women’s voice—that is, their strong sense of self—will often return as they realize they can be concerned about others and also have a perspective on the world that they will stand up for.

Knowledge of Child Development: Applications for the Human Service Professional

• Although the human service professional is not necessarily an expert in child development, knowledge of such development can help him or her understand whether the child is developing within a normal range.

• If the human service professional can spot physical problems or delays in social, cognitive, or moral reasoning, then appropriate referrals can be made to medical, psychological, or educational resources that can assist the child in his or her development.

• Early identification of such problems can help to ameliorate the concerns.

Freud’s Psychosexual Model of Development

• Sigmund Freud viewed individual personality as forming within the first five or six years of life.

  • Freud believed that the person is born with sexual and aggressive instincts that are regulated as a function of parenting received in early childhood.

  • Freud stated that the child is born all id.

  • Freud stated that we are Ruled by the pleasure principle, the id embodies all of our instincts and attempts to satisfy our needs blindly.

• As the child develops, the type of parenting he or she receives greatly affects the formation of the ego.

  • The ego is where we see the beginning of consciousness.

• The ego is Ruled by the reality principle.

  • The ego attempts to deal with the reality of everyday life.

  • As the ego is developing, the formation of the superego begins.

• The superego represents the creation of the child’s sense of morality and values and is greatly affected by the values of parents and society.

• Freud collectively called the id, ego, and superego the structures of personality.

• Freud believed that the individual passes through 5 psychosexual stages of development, those being:

  • The oral stage.

  • The anal stage.

  • The phallic stage.

  • The latency stage.

  • And the genital stage.

• The oral stage

  • The infant receives pleasure through feeding.

  • The major developmental task of this stage, which occurs between birth and age 1, is the child’s attachment to the mother (or the major caretaker).

• The anal stage

  • The child receives pleasure from bowel movements.

  • During this stage, which occurs between ages 1 and 3 years, the child becomes physiologically ready to be toilet trained, and how parents assist with the child’s new found ability to control his or her bodily functions greatly affects the child’s ability to be independent, feel powerful, and express negative feelings.

• The phallic stage

  • The child becomes aware of his or her genitals as well as the genitals of the opposite sex, and the child now receives pleasure from self-stimulation.

  • During this stage, which occurs between ages 3, 5, or 6 years, how parents respond to a child in this stage can greatly affect the child’s attitudes and values.

• The latency stage

  • This stage is a period of relative relaxation for the child, in which he or she replaces earlier sexual feelings with a focus on socialization.

  • In this stage, which occurs between ages 5 or 6 and puberty, the child becomes more aware of peers and devotes increased attention to peer-related activities.

• The genital stage

  • Here, we see the emergence of unresolved issues that were raised in the first three stages of development, as well as focusing on sexual energy, social activities with peers, and love relationships.

  • The genital stage begins at puberty and continues through the rest of the individual’s lifespan.

• As a way to avoid the anxiety that unresolved issues might arouse, the individual develops defense mechanisms to cope.

Learning Theory

• In classic learning, theory focus is put on the importance of the environment in shaping a person’s behavior.

  • In addition to looking at how the environment shapes behavior, many modern-day learning theorists also incorporate the impact of cognitions and insight on behavior.

• Learning theorists believe that people adopt behaviors through operant conditioning, classical conditioning, or modeling.

• Skinner and others delineated many principles of operant conditioning, each of which is crucial to the shaping of behaviors and the development of personality, some of which are as follows:

  • Positive reinforcement: Any stimulus that, when presented following a response, increases the likelihood of that response.

  • Negative reinforcement: Any stimulus that, when removed following a response, increases the likelihood of that response.

  • Punishment: Applying an aversive stimulus to decrease a specific behavior. Punishment is often an ineffective method of changing behavior, as it may lead to undesirable side effects (e.g., counteraggression).

  • Schedules of reinforcement: The numerous ways in which a stimulus can be arranged to reinforce behavior; these schedules are based on elapsed time and frequency of responses.

  • Discrimination: The ability of a person to respond selectively to one stimulus but not respond to a similar stimulus.

  • Generalization: The tendency for stimuli that are similar to a conditioned stimulus to take on the power of the conditioned stimulus.

  • Extinction: The ceasing of a behavior because it is not reinforced.

  • Spontaneous recovery: The tendency for responses to recur after a brief period of time after they have been extinguished.

• Albert Ellis, Donald Meichenbaum, and Aaron “Tim” Beck believe that not only do behaviors of individuals become reinforced but so do the ways in which people think.

• Cognitive–behaviorists have challenged the beliefs of the original behavioral purists and changed the manner in which most learning theorists now conceptualize the development of the individual.

  • Cognitive–behaviorists see development as resulting from reinforcement contingencies; learning theorists believe that change can occur at any point in the life cycle.

• Of the major factors that can lead to healthy or abnormal development, modern-day learning theorists hold the following beliefs:

  • (1) The individual is born capable of developing a multitude of personality characteristics.

  • (2) Behaviors and cognitions are continually reinforced by significant others and by cultural influences in the environment.

  • (3) Reinforcement of behaviors and cognitions is generally very complex and can occur in very subtle ways.

  • (4) Abnormal development is largely the result of the kinds of behaviors and cognitions that have been reinforced (other factors such as genetics may also affect development).

  • (5) By carefully analyzing how behaviors and cognitions are reinforced, one can understand why an individual exhibits his or her current behavioral and cognitive repertoire.

  • (6) Through the application of principles of learning, old dysfunctional behaviors and cognitions can be extinguished, and new healthy behaviors and cognitions can be learned.

Humanistic Theory

• Carl Rogers and Rollo May both have had the most influence on how we understand personality development, and their thoughts on personality development starkly contrasted with the views of Freud and Skinner.

  • Rogers believed that individuals are born good and have a natural tendency to actualize and obtain fulfillment if placed in a nurturing environment that includes empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard.

• Rogers believed that we all have a need to be regarded or loved by others.

  • Rogers stated that people often place conditions of worth on those closest to them in order to try and get them to act in a specific manner.

• The helper who works with an individual who is incongruent attempts to set up an environment in which the client feels safe enough to get in touch with his or her true self.

Postmodernism and Social Constructionism

• Michael White and David Epston believe that abnormal behavior is simply a social construction—a construct that has been developed by certain individuals within the helping professions who have tended to be in power (e.g., psychiatrists) and have subtly but forcefully pushed their viewpoint onto the rest of the mental health field.

• Michael White and David Epston also believe that through dialogue and by introducing new knowledge, people can reconstruct their self or sense of identity and theses individuals tend to belive the following four premises:

  • (1) Realities are socially constructed.

  • (2) Realities are constituted through language.

  • (3) Realities are organized and maintained through narrative.

  • (4) There are no essential truths.

Knowledge of Personality Development: Applications for the Human Service Professional

• Understanding the individual's personality development can give us insight into the client’s world.

• Such insights into the developing world of the person, as offered to us by psychoanalysts, learning theorists, humanists, and postmodernists, can enhance our ability to empathize with our clients, help us in planning treatment for our clients, and give us the knowledge base to make appropriate referrals.

Comparison of Developmental Models

• Jane Loevinger proposed a theory of ego development that examines how individuals develop interpersonally, cognitively, and morally over their lifespan.

• Arthur Chickering developed a theory to help us understand the major changes students go through while in college.

• Mary Field Belenky suggested a developmental model that described “women’s ways of knowing.”

• Carl Stoltenberg proposed the supervision model, which gave us a perspective on the changes that helpers go through as they are supervised.

• Donald Super helped us understand that career counseling is a lifelong process, beginning the moment we are born and lasting to the day we die.

• Michael D’Andrea identified stages of racism, thereby helping us realize that racism is learned and that attitudes can change over time.

• James Fowler proposed the theory of faith development, which suggests that faith is much more than just being religious and can mature over time.

Ethical, Professional, and Legal Issues: Understanding Our Clients’ Developmental Journey

• The fundamental values of the human services profession include respecting the dignity and welfare of all people; promoting self-determination; honoring cultural diversity; advocating for social justice; and acting with integrity, honesty, genuineness, and objectivity - NOHS.

• As human service professionals, we must always have respect for our client's dignity and honor each person’s unique developmental journey.

The Effective Human Service Professional: Constantly Changing, Constantly Examining

• Ignorance of our own developmental histories can negatively affect our work with our clients through countertransference.

• As a Human service professional, it is your responsibility to put yourself in situations that help expand your awareness of self.

• Some examples of bettering one’s self include the following:

  • Counseling

  • Self-help groups

  • Meditation

  • Reading literature on personal development