Life Span Perspective Paper Life p is the time of conception till the day a person takes their last breathe. So many situations take place in a person’s life like reaching other developmental periods within life. A child grows from an infant and becomes of age to go to school for the first time or simply graduating from high school and entering the next phase of life whenresponsibilitybecomes everything. Each phase of life means that a person is developing whether they are transitioning from a young adult to being a middle aged adult there are developmental stages that take place until the final transition which is death.
In order to better understand human development the process of studying takes place which in turn means moving from one stage to the next within a lifep. Through the yearsobservation, predictions and evolving technologies have opened up doors to the way individuals develop and reach stages by pinpointing differences and predictions that prove to be inaccurate or simply that have not risen to the occasion over the years of change. There are considered to be five characteristics of development; multidirectional, multicontextual, multicultural, multidisciplinary and plasticity.
Multidirectional is the study of change within human development. Multicontextual is dealing with contexts such as an individual’s surroundings orenvironmentthat can affect development. Multicultural is when individuals do not notice cultural differences because they have become so used to their own surroundings. Multidisciplinary which pertains to multipleacademicfields which all deliver the same insight as to how data and insight are contributed. Plasticity is when change occurs sometime during the lifep of an individual. A person could be fine and then experience the lost of a parent and become altered forever.
These five characteristics all intertwine with one another in order to explain in detail how people transition and develop through multi stages within life. There are also three domains of human development; biosocial development, cognitive development and psychosocial development. (Boyd and Bee, 2006). Two theories of lifep development are grand theories and emergent theories. Grand theories are a combination of behaviorism, cognitive theory and psychoanalytic theory which refer tochild developmentthrough comprehensive theories ofpsychologyin a detailed manner.
Emergent theories are not as detailed but it does incorporate the interpretations of development but touches on preconceived comprehensive and systematic instances. Behaviorism studies observable behavior and is sometimes referred to as the learning theory because behavior is learned in a number of ways. Cognitive theory focuses on how the thought process develops and is ultimately configured. Psychoanalytic theory is when a child has inner drives and motives such as obtaining the cookie from the cookie jar after their parent has told them not until after dinner. Boyd and Bee, 2006). Heredity is when your skin tone or height is passed down through the generations within afamily. Your genes and DNA that make you who you are as far as features and sometimespersonalityand reactions to a situation. Environment is where a person lives, is raised or chooses to reside. A person can come from a family that has never been to college but allows a positive environment to flourish newer ways of learning to achieve a major goal within their life.
No one can change their DNA or even their genes but allowing positive versus negative environments to influence their future thought process can really provide a lot of good. On the other hand a person can have the makeup of having an addictive personality that can ultimately be very negative outcome as a person that has two alcoholic parents and paternal and maternal grandparents that have issues with drugs and alcohol. If the individual takes a drink of alcohol and the addictive traits get waken up then the individual could really cause harm to themselves by subduing to alcohol and drugs.
An environment can truly have an effect on the development of an individual. A person can be raised in a tense environment and exude a negative temperament as a result of being in non nurturing situation. In conclusion everyone in the world has reached some stage within the lifep developmental stage and in order for these stages to have been identified research, observation and scientific experiments have taken place. There is such a wide array of characteristics of development that pinpoint the differences that are faced within the entire life of an individual.
Grand theories are three incorporated theories that are detailed and well observed in order to showcase development of the years as everyone is very different. Emergent theories are theories that are not detailed and can change at any given moment because they are predicted theories that might not be proven to be true. Heredity and environment play such pivotal roles in development because people mimic behaviors and influences that are around them whether negative or positive. ? Reference Boyd, D. , & Bee, H. (2006). Lifep Development (4th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
