Which Of The Following Statements Is True About Personality Changes Across A Life Span?

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, y'all will exist able to:

Discuss Freud's theory of psychosexual development
Describe the major tasks of child and adult psychosocial development according to Erikson
Discuss Piaget'south view of cognitive evolution and use the stages to understanding childhood cognition
Describe Kohlberg's theory of moral development

There are many theories regarding how babies and children grow and develop into happy, healthy adults. Nosotros explore several of these theories in this department.

PSYCHOSEXUAL THEORY OF Development

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) believed that personality develops during early babyhood. For Freud, childhood experiences shape our personalities and behavior as adults. Freud viewed development as discontinuous; he believed that each of united states must pass through a serious of stages during childhood, and that if we lack proper nurturance and parenting during a stage, nosotros may go stuck, or fixated, in that stage. Freud's stages are called the stages of psychosexual evolution. According to Freud, children'southward pleasure-seeking urges are focused on a different area of the body, called an erogenous zone, at each of the five stages of development: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

While about of Freud'due south ideas have not found support in modern inquiry, we cannot discount the contributions that Freud has made to the field of psychology. Psychologists today dispute Freud's psychosexual stages equally a legitimate explanation for how one's personality develops, merely what we can accept away from Freud's theory is that personality is shaped, in some part, by experiences we have in babyhood. These stages are discussed in detail in the chapter on personality.

PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT

Erik Erikson (1902–1994) ([link]), another phase theorist, took Freud'south theory and modified it as psychosocial theory. Erikson's psychosocial evolution theory emphasizes the social nature of our evolution rather than its sexual nature. While Freud believed that personality is shaped just in childhood, Erikson proposed that personality development takes identify all through the lifespan. Erikson suggested that how we interact with others is what affects our sense of self, or what he called the ego identity.

A photograph depicts Erik Erikson in his later years.

Erikson proposed that nosotros are motivated past a demand to attain competence in certain areas of our lives. According to psychosocial theory, we feel eight stages of evolution over our lifespan, from infancy through late machismo. At each stage there is a disharmonize, or task, that we need to resolve. Successful completion of each developmental job results in a sense of competence and a healthy personality. Failure to chief these tasks leads to feelings of inadequacy.

According to Erikson (1963), trust is the footing of our development during infancy (birth to 12 months). Therefore, the primary task of this phase is trust versus mistrust. Infants are dependent upon their caregivers, and so caregivers who are responsive and sensitive to their baby's needs help their baby to develop a sense of trust; their baby will meet the globe every bit a condom, anticipated place. Unresponsive caregivers who do non come across their baby'south needs tin can engender feelings of anxiety, fearfulness, and mistrust; their baby may see the world equally unpredictable.

Equally toddlers (ages one–3 years) begin to explore their world, they learn that they tin control their deportment and act on the environment to get results. They begin to show articulate preferences for certain elements of the surround, such every bit food, toys, and clothing. A toddler'southward primary task is to resolve the issue of autonomy versus shame and doubt, past working to establish independence. This is the "me do it" stage. For case, we might discover a budding sense of autonomy in a 2-year-onetime kid who wants to choose her clothes and dress herself. Although her outfits might not exist appropriate for the state of affairs, her input in such basic decisions has an effect on her sense of independence. If denied the opportunity to act on her environment, she may begin to doubt her abilities, which could atomic number 82 to low self-esteem and feelings of shame.

Once children achieve the preschool stage (ages 3–6 years), they are capable of initiating activities and asserting control over their world through social interactions and play. According to Erikson, preschool children must resolve the chore of initiative versus guilt. By learning to programme and reach goals while interacting with others, preschool children can master this task. Those who do will develop self-conviction and feel a sense of purpose. Those who are unsuccessful at this stage—with their initiative misfiring or stifled—may develop feelings of guilt. How might over-controlling parents stifle a child's initiative?

During the elementary schoolhouse stage (ages 6–12), children face the chore of industry versus inferiority. Children begin to compare themselves to their peers to see how they mensurate upward. They either develop a sense of pride and accomplishment in their schoolwork, sports, social activities, and family life, or they feel inferior and inadequate when they don't measure upward. What are some things parents and teachers can do to help children develop a sense of competence and a belief in themselves and their abilities?

In boyhood (ages 12–18), children face up the task of identity versus function confusion. According to Erikson, an adolescent'south main chore is developing a sense of self. Adolescents struggle with questions such equally "Who am I?" and "What exercise I desire to do with my life?" Along the manner, near adolescents effort on many different selves to see which ones fit. Adolescents who are successful at this stage have a strong sense of identity and are able to remain true to their beliefs and values in the face up of problems and other people'due south perspectives. What happens to apathetic adolescents, who do not make a conscious search for identity, or those who are pressured to suit to their parents' ideas for the hereafter? These teens volition have a weak sense of self and experience function defoliation. They are unsure of their identity and dislocated near the future.

People in early adulthood (i.e., 20s through early 40s) are concerned with intimacy versus isolation. After we have developed a sense of self in boyhood, we are fix to share our life with others. Erikson said that we must accept a potent sense of self before developing intimate relationships with others. Adults who do not develop a positive self-concept in adolescence may experience feelings of loneliness and emotional isolation.

When people accomplish their 40s, they enter the time known every bit middle adulthood, which extends to the mid-60s. The social chore of centre adulthood is generativity versus stagnation. Generativity involves finding your life's work and contributing to the development of others, through activities such every bit volunteering, mentoring, and raising children. Those who exercise not master this task may experience stagnation, having footling connection with others and little involvement in productivity and self-improvement.

From the mid-60s to the end of life, nosotros are in the catamenia of development known equally tardily adulthood. Erikson's task at this phase is chosen integrity versus despair. He said that people in late machismo reverberate on their lives and feel either a sense of satisfaction or a sense of failure. People who experience proud of their accomplishments experience a sense of integrity, and they tin can await back on their lives with few regrets. However, people who are not successful at this stage may feel every bit if their life has been wasted. They focus on what "would have," "should have," and "could take" been. They face the end of their lives with feelings of bitterness, depression, and despair. [link] summarizes the stages of Erikson's theory.

Erikson'due south Psychosocial Stages of Development
Stage	Age (years)	Developmental Job	Description
1	0–1	Trust vs. mistrust	Trust (or mistrust) that basic needs, such equally nourishment and affection, will be met
2	ane–3	Autonomy vs. shame/incertitude	Develop a sense of independence in many tasks
3	three–6	Initiative vs. guilt	Take initiative on some activities—may develop guilt when unsuccessful or boundaries overstepped
4	7–11	Industry vs. inferiority	Develop cocky-confidence in abilities when competent or sense of inferiority when non
5	12–18	Identity vs. confusion	Experiment with and develop identity and roles
6	xix–29	Intimacy vs. isolation	Establish intimacy and relationships with others
7	30–64	Generativity vs. stagnation	Contribute to society and be function of a family
8	65–	Integrity vs. despair	Assess and make sense of life and meaning of contributions

Cognitive THEORY OF Evolution

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) is some other phase theorist who studied childhood development ([link]). Instead of approaching evolution from a psychoanalytical or psychosocial perspective, Piaget focused on children'due south cognitive growth. He believed that thinking is a central attribute of development and that children are naturally inquisitive. However, he said that children do not retrieve and reason like adults (Piaget, 1930, 1932). His theory of cognitive development holds that our cognitive abilities develop through specific stages, which exemplifies the discontinuity approach to development. As we progress to a new stage, there is a singled-out shift in how we recollect and reason.

A photograph depicts Jean Piaget in his later years.

Piaget said that children develop schemata to help them understand the world. Schemata are concepts (mental models) that are used to assistance us categorize and interpret data. By the time children accept reached machismo, they have created schemata for almost everything. When children learn new information, they adapt their schemata through two processes: assimilation and accommodation. Commencement, they assimilate new data or experiences in terms of their current schemata: assimilation is when they take in information that is comparable to what they already know. Accommodation describes when they change their schemata based on new information. This process continues equally children interact with their surround.

For example, ii-twelvemonth-old Blake learned the schema for dogs because his family has a Labrador retriever. When Blake sees other dogs in his pic books, he says, "Expect mommy, dog!" Thus, he has alloyed them into his schema for dogs. Ane mean solar day, Blake sees a sheep for the first time and says, "Look mommy, canis familiaris!" Having a bones schema that a dog is an animal with four legs and fur, Blake thinks all furry, 4-legged creatures are dogs. When Blake'southward mom tells him that the animal he sees is a sheep, non a canis familiaris, Blake must accommodate his schema for dogs to include more information based on his new experiences. Blake'south schema for domestic dog was too broad, since not all furry, four-legged creatures are dogs. He now modifies his schema for dogs and forms a new one for sheep.

Like Freud and Erikson, Piaget idea development unfolds in a series of stages approximately associated with age ranges. He proposed a theory of cognitive development that unfolds in four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, physical operational, and formal operational ([link]).

Piaget'southward Stages of Cognitive Development
Age (years)	Phase	Clarification	Developmental issues
0–two	Sensorimotor	World experienced through senses and actions	Object permanence Stranger anxiety
ii–6	Preoperational	Employ words and images to stand for things, but lack logical reasoning	Pretend play Egocentrism Language development
vii–xi	Physical operational	Understand concrete events and analogies logically; perform arithmetical operations	Conservation Mathematical transformations
12–	Formal operational	Formal operations Utilize abstract reasoning	Abstruse logic Moral reasoning

The offset stage is the sensorimotor phase, which lasts from nativity to near ii years old. During this stage, children larn about the world through their senses and motor beliefs. Immature children put objects in their mouths to come across if the items are edible, and once they tin can grasp objects, they may shake or bang them to come across if they brand sounds. Between 5 and 8 months onetime, the child develops object permanence, which is the understanding that even if something is out of sight, it still exists (Bogartz, Shinskey, & Schilling, 2000). According to Piaget, young infants exercise non remember an object after it has been removed from sight. Piaget studied infants' reactions when a toy was first shown to an infant and so subconscious nether a blanket. Infants who had already adult object permanence would achieve for the hidden toy, indicating that they knew it still existed, whereas infants who had non developed object permanence would appear confused.

Link to Learning

Please have a few minutes to view this brief video demonstrating different children's ability to understand object permanence.

In Piaget's view, around the aforementioned fourth dimension children develop object permanence, they besides brainstorm to showroom stranger feet, which is a fearfulness of unfamiliar people. Babies may demonstrate this by crying and turning away from a stranger, by clinging to a caregiver, or by attempting to attain their arms toward familiar faces such as parents. Stranger anxiety results when a child is unable to assimilate the stranger into an existing schema; therefore, she tin can't predict what her experience with that stranger volition be similar, which results in a fright response.

Piaget's second stage is the preoperational stage, which is from approximately ii to seven years old. In this stage, children tin can use symbols to represent words, images, and ideas, which is why children in this stage appoint in pretend play. A child's arms might become airplane wings every bit he zooms effectually the room, or a kid with a stick might get a dauntless knight with a sword. Children too begin to employ language in the preoperational phase, but they cannot understand adult logic or mentally dispense information (the term operational refers to logical manipulation of information, so children at this phase are considered to be pre-operational). Children'due south logic is based on their own personal cognition of the world so far, rather than on conventional noesis. For instance, dad gave a slice of pizza to 10-year-sometime Keiko and some other slice to her 3-year-erstwhile brother, Kenny. Kenny's pizza slice was cut into v pieces, so Kenny told his sister that he got more pizza than she did. Children in this stage cannot perform mental operations considering they have not developed an agreement of conservation, which is the idea that even if you modify the appearance of something, it is still equal in size as long every bit zero has been removed or added.

Link to Learning

This video shows a four.v-year-one-time male child in the preoperational stage every bit he responds to Piaget'south conservation tasks.

During this stage, we too expect children to display egocentrism, which means that the child is not able to accept the perspective of others. A child at this stage thinks that everyone sees, thinks, and feels simply equally they do. Let'southward expect at Kenny and Keiko again. Keiko's birthday is coming up, so their mom takes Kenny to the toy store to cull a nowadays for his sis. He selects an Iron Homo activeness figure for her, thinking that if he likes the toy, his sister will besides. An egocentric child is not able to infer the perspective of other people and instead attributes his own perspective.

Link to Learning

Piaget adult the Three-Mountain Job to determine the level of egocentrism displayed by children. Children view a 3-dimensional mount scene from one viewpoint, and are asked what another person at a different viewpoint would see in the same scene. Watch the Three-Mountain Task in action in this short video from the University of Minnesota and the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Piaget's 3rd stage is the physical operational stage, which occurs from most 7 to eleven years erstwhile. In this stage, children can think logically most real (concrete) events; they have a business firm grasp on the use of numbers and start to utilise memory strategies. They can perform mathematical operations and understand transformations, such as add-on is the reverse of subtraction, and multiplication is the opposite of sectionalisation. In this stage, children likewise master the concept of conservation: Even if something changes shape, its mass, volume, and number stay the same. For example, if you pour water from a tall, sparse drinking glass to a short, fatty glass, you still take the aforementioned amount of water. Recollect Keiko and Kenny and the pizza? How did Keiko know that Kenny was incorrect when he said that he had more pizza?

Children in the physical operational stage also understand the principle of reversibility, which means that objects can be changed and then returned back to their original class or condition. Accept, for instance, water that yous poured into the short, fatty glass: You lot tin can pour water from the fatty glass back to the sparse glass and still have the same amount (minus a couple of drops).

The quaternary, and last, stage in Piaget'south theory is the formal operational stage, which is from about age 11 to adulthood. Whereas children in the concrete operational stage are able to recollect logically but almost concrete events, children in the formal operational stage can likewise deal with abstruse ideas and hypothetical situations. Children in this stage can use abstract thinking to problem solve, look at alternative solutions, and test these solutions. In adolescence, a renewed egocentrism occurs. For instance, a 15-year-erstwhile with a very small pimple on her face might recollect it is huge and incredibly visible, under the mistaken impression that others must share her perceptions.

Beyond Formal Operational Idea

As with other major contributors of theories of development, several of Piaget's ideas take come under criticism based on the results of farther enquiry. For case, several contemporary studies back up a model of development that is more than continuous than Piaget's discrete stages (Courage & Howe, 2002; Siegler, 2005, 2006). Many others propose that children achieve cerebral milestones earlier than Piaget describes (Baillargeon, 2004; de Hevia & Spelke, 2010).

According to Piaget, the highest level of cognitive development is formal operational thought, which develops betwixt 11 and 20 years old. However, many developmental psychologists disagree with Piaget, suggesting a fifth stage of cognitive development, known as the postformal phase (Basseches, 1984; Commons & Bresette, 2006; Sinnott, 1998). In postformal thinking, decisions are made based on situations and circumstances, and logic is integrated with emotion as adults develop principles that depend on contexts. One way that we can see the difference between an adult in postformal idea and an adolescent in formal operations is in terms of how they handle emotionally charged issues.

It seems that once nosotros reach machismo our trouble solving abilities change: As we effort to solve problems, we tend to retrieve more deeply about many areas of our lives, such equally relationships, piece of work, and politics (Labouvie-Vief & Diehl, 1999). Because of this, postformal thinkers are able to draw on past experiences to help them solve new problems. Problem-solving strategies using postformal thought vary, depending on the situation. What does this mean? Adults can recognize, for case, that what seems to be an ideal solution to a trouble at work involving a disagreement with a colleague may not be the all-time solution to a disagreement with a meaning other.

THEORY OF MORAL Evolution

A major task beginning in childhood and continuing into adolescence is discerning right from wrong. Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1927–1987) extended upon the foundation that Piaget built regarding cognitive development. Kohlberg believed that moral evolution, like cognitive development, follows a series of stages. To develop this theory, Kohlberg posed moral dilemmas to people of all ages, then he analyzed their answers to find evidence of their particular stage of moral development. Before reading about the stages, take a minute to consider how y'all would respond one of Kohlberg's best-known moral dilemmas, usually known as the Heinz dilemma:

In Europe, a adult female was nearly expiry from a special kind of cancer. In that location was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a grade of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, merely the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $ii,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's married man, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ane,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or permit him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'chiliad going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that? (Kohlberg, 1969, p. 379)

How would you lot reply this dilemma? Kohlberg was not interested in whether you answer aye or no to the dilemma: Instead, he was interested in the reasoning behind your answer.

Later on presenting people with this and diverse other moral dilemmas, Kohlberg reviewed people's responses and placed them in different stages of moral reasoning ([link]). According to Kohlberg, an individual progresses from the chapters for pre-conventional morality (before age 9) to the capacity for conventional morality (early on adolescence), and toward attaining post-conventional morality (in one case formal operational idea is attained), which just a few fully achieve. Kohlberg placed in the highest stage responses that reflected the reasoning that Heinz should steal the drug because his wife's life is more important than the chemist making money. The value of a human life overrides the pharmacist'southward greed.

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It is important to realize that even those people who have the near sophisticated, postal service-conventional reasons for some choices may make other choices for the simplest of pre-conventional reasons. Many psychologists agree with Kohlberg's theory of moral development but point out that moral reasoning is very unlike from moral beliefs. Sometimes what we say we would do in a situation is non what we really do in that situation. In other words, we might "talk the talk," but non "walk the walk."

How does this theory apply to males and females? Kohlberg (1969) felt that more than males than females motion past phase four in their moral development. He went on to note that women seem to exist deficient in their moral reasoning abilities. These ideas were non well received past Ballad Gilligan, a research assistant of Kohlberg, who consequently developed her ain ideas of moral development. In her groundbreaking book, In a Different Phonation: Psychological Theory and Women's Development, Gilligan (1982) criticized her former mentor's theory because information technology was based simply on upper form White men and boys. She argued that women are non scarce in their moral reasoning—she proposed that males and females reason differently. Girls and women focus more on staying connected and the importance of interpersonal relationships. Therefore, in the Heinz dilemma, many girls and women respond that Heinz should non steal the medicine. Their reasoning is that if he steals the medicine, is arrested, and is put in jail, then he and his wife will be separated, and she could dice while he is still in prison house.

Summary

There are many theories regarding how babies and children grow and develop into happy, healthy adults. Sigmund Freud suggested that we pass through a series of psychosexual stages in which our energy is focused on certain erogenous zones on the body. Eric Erikson modified Freud's ideas and suggested a theory of psychosocial development. Erikson said that our social interactions and successful completion of social tasks shape our sense of self. Jean Piaget proposed a theory of cognitive development that explains how children retrieve and reason as they motility through various stages. Finally, Lawrence Kohlberg turned his attention to moral development. He said that we laissez passer through iii levels of moral thinking that build on our cognitive development.

Self Cheque Questions

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What is the difference between assimilation and accommodation? Provide examples of each.

2. Why was Carol Gilligan critical of Kohlberg's theory of moral development?

3. What is egocentrism? Provide an original instance.

Personal Application Questions

4. Explicate how you would use your understanding of one of the major developmental theories to deal with each of the difficulties listed below:

Your baby daughter puts everything in her mouth, including the canis familiaris's food.
Your eight-year-quondam son is failing math; all he cares nigh is baseball.
Your 2-year-old daughter refuses to wear the apparel you pick for her every morn, which makes getting dressed a twenty-minute battle.
Your sixty-eight-year-erstwhile neighbour is chronically depressed and feels she has wasted her life.
Your 18-year-old daughter has decided not to go to college. Instead she's moving to Colorado to become a ski teacher.
Your eleven-yr-onetime son is the class peachy.

Answers

1. Assimilation is when we take in information that is comparable to what we already know. Adaptation is when we change our schemata based on new information. An example of assimilation is a kid's schema of "dog" based on the family unit's golden retriever existence expanded to include two newly adopted golden retrievers. An instance of accommodation is that same child'south schema of "canis familiaris" existence adapted to exclude other four-legged hirsuite animals such equally sheep and foxes.

ii. Gilligan criticized Kohlberg because his theory was based on the responses of upper form White men and boys, arguing that it was biased against women. While Kohlberg concluded that women must be deficient in their moral reasoning abilities, Gilligan disagreed, suggesting that female person moral reasoning is not scarce, simply different.

3. Egocentrism is the inability to take the perspective of another person. This type of thinking is mutual in immature children in the preoperational phase of cognitive development. An case might exist that upon seeing his female parent crying, a young kid gives her his favorite stuffed brute to make her feel better.

Glossary

assimilation adjustment of a schema by adding information similar to what is already known

accommodation aligning of a schema by irresolute a scheme to adjust new information dissimilar from what was already known

physical operational stage third stage in Piaget's theory of cerebral development; from about vii to 11 years old, children can call up logically about real (concrete) events

conservation thought that even if you change the appearance of something, it is still equal in size, book, or number as long every bit goose egg is added or removed

egocentrism preoperational child's difficulty in taking the perspective of others

formal operational phase final stage in Piaget'south theory of cognitive evolution; from historic period 11 and up, children are able to deal with abstruse ideas and hypothetical situations

object permanence idea that fifty-fifty if something is out of sight, it still exists

preoperational stage

second stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive evolution; from ages two to 7, children acquire to use symbols and language simply practice not understand mental operations and often retrieve illogically

psychosexual development process proposed by Freud in which pleasure-seeking urges focus on unlike erogenous zones of the body as humans movement through five stages of life

psychosocial development process proposed by Erikson in which social tasks are mastered equally humans motion through viii stages of life from infancy to adulthood

reversibility principle that objects can be changed, simply then returned dorsum to their original grade or condition

schema (plural = schemata) concept (mental model) that is used to help us categorize and interpret information

sensorimotor stage first stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development; from birth through age 2, a kid learns about the earth through senses and motor behavior

phase of moral reasoning process proposed past Kohlberg; humans move through three stages of moral development