The developmental
tasks of six life stages, as indicated
by Erikson (1950),
Havighurst (1952), Kagon and Moss
(1962), and Witmer and
Kotinsky (1952) are described
below:
Personality Development
and Adjustment:
Developmental Task of
Different Life Stages
Infancy and Early
Childhood Learning to walk and
talk. Learning to take
(0-6 years) solid food and to
control the
elimination of body wastes. Achieving
physiological
stability. Developing a sense of trust in
oneself and in others.
Learning to relate oneself
emotionally to
parents, siblings, and other people.
Forming an
identification with one’s own sex.
Developing simple
concepts of social and physical
reality. Mastering
simple safety rules. Learning to
distinguish right from
wrong and to respect rules and
authority.
Middle Childhood (6-12
years) Gaining wider
knowledge and
understanding of the physical and
social world. Building
wholesome attitudes toward
oneself. Learning an
appropriate masculine or feminine
social role.
Developing conscience, morality, and a
scale of values.
Learning to read, write, and calculate,
and learning other
fundamental intellectual skills.
Learning physical
skills. Developing attitudes toward
social groups and
other institutions. Learning to win
and maintain a place
among one’s age-mates. Learning
to give and take and
to share responsibility. Achieving
increasing personal
independence.
Adolescence (12-18
years) Developing self-confidence
and a clear sense of
identity. Accepting one’s physique
and adjusting to body
changes. Achieving a masculine
or feminine social
role. Developing new and mature
relations with
age-mates. Achieving emotional
independence from
parents and other adults.
Developing concern
beyond oneself; achieving mature
values, and social
responsibility. Selecting and
Preparing for marriage
and family life.
Learning to make choices and taking
responsibility.
Building a conscious value system in
harmony with an
adequate world picture.
Early adulthood (18-35
years)Completing formal
education. Getting
started in an occupation. Selecting
and learning to live
with a mate. Starting a family
and providing for the
material and psychological need
of one’s children.
Finding a congenial social group.
Taking on civic
responsibility. Developing a satisfying
philosophy of life.
Middle Age (35-60
years) Accepting greater civic
and social
responsibility. Achieving personal growth
with one’s mate and
relating to one’s mate as a
person. Establishing a
standard of living and developing
adequate financial
security for remaining years.
Developing adult
leisure-time activities and extending
interests. Helping
teen-age children become
responsible and happy
adults. Adjusting to aging
parents. Accepting and
adjusting to the physiological
changes of middle age.
Later Life Adjusting to decreasing physical strength.
Adjusting to
retirement and reduced income, and
establishing
satisfactory living arrangements. Adjusting
to the death of spouse
or friends. Meeting social and
civic obligations
within one’s ability. Establishing
affiliation with one’s
own age group. Maintaining active
interests and concern
beyond oneself.
Task common to all
Periods Developing and using
one’s physical,
social, and emotional competencies.
Accepting oneself and
developing basic self-confidence.
Accepting reality and
building valid attitudes and
values. Participating
creatively and responsibly in
family and other
groups. Building rich linkages with
one’s world.
The most important
pathways towards maturity are:
1) Dependence to Self-Direction: One of the pathways
towards maturity is
from dependency of fetus,
infant and child to
the independence of adulthood.
Growth toward
independence and self
direction is the
development of an integrated frame
of reference of adult
responsibilities.
2) Pleasure to Reality: Freud indicated that the
pleasure principle is
fundamental in governing
early behaviour. This
thought was subordinated to
the reality principle,
the realization that we must
learn to perceive and
face reality if we are to
meet our needs.
3) Ignorance to Knowledge: The human baby is born
in a stage of total
ignorance and soon starts
acquiring information
about herself and the
surroundings. In due
course of time, this
information is
organized into coherent pattern
assumptions concerning
reality, value and
possibility, which
provides him with a stable frame
of reference for
guiding her behaviour.
4) Incompetence to Competence: The entire period
from infancy through
adolescence is directed
toward the mastery of
intellectual, emotional,
social and other
competencies essential for
adulthood.
5) Diffuse Sexuality to Heterosexuality: The sexual
development is an
important development in a
person’s growth
towards maturity. At an early
age, diffuse and
generalized expressions of
sexuality are found.
During later childhood
interests and
emotional feelings are directed
towards other members
of the same sex. With the
advent of puberty,
heterosexual differentiation
progresses rapidly.
However, maturity in sexual
behaviour involves
more than directing one’s
desires towards a
member of the opposite sex.
6) Amoral to Moral: The newborn baby has no
concept of good or
bad; right or wrong; gradually
she learns a pattern
of value assumptions which
operate as inner
guides or control behaviour, we
refer to as her
conscience or super ego.
7) Self-centered to Other Centered: One of the most
important pathways to
maturity involves
individual’s gradual
transition from exclusive
preoccupation with
himself and his needs to an
understanding and
acceptance of social
responsibilities and
an involvement in the human
enterprise. This
includes the ability to give love
in one’s family
setting and to be concerned about
and contribute to the
welfare of one’s group and
of society in general.
Variation in
Development
All human beings go
through the same stages of
growth but we observe
variations in the traits that
they develop. The term
trait is used to refer to any
distinguishable and
relatively enduring characteristic
of the individual. The
variation in the traits may be
illustrated as most
people fall in the intermediate or
average range of
intelligence, while a few at one
extreme are geniuses
and a few at the other extreme
are mentally retarded.
However, variation may
occur from one individual to
another in (a) the
nature of a given physical trait,
such as blood type and
skin color, (b) the differentiation
or extent to which a
given trait is developed, (c) the
of traits
or harmony among them, and (d)
the over all pattern
of traits, which we call personality.
Variation within a
definite range is considered normal;
it is abnormal only
when it becomes extreme enough
to impair one’s
adaptive capacities seriously.
A number of factors
are significant which affect a
particular trait. The
traits play a very important role
in the development of
an individual, if his position is
very much above or
below the average. The significance
of a given trait
depends on the pattern of all the
traits.
No comments:
Post a Comment