Running head: DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Developmental psychology
Name
Institutional affiliation

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Developmental psychology
Developmental psychology is concerned with the scientific knowledge of changes related
changes not only in children but throughout the lifecycle. The main chore is to unravel, define
and explain how the development occurs from early backgrounds into infants, adults and old age.
To fully understand this development it fully requires one to not only make contact with human
nature but also take into deliberation the various effects of nature on the evolving child. Human
development is considered a process of acquiring philosophy as is a course of biological
progression. This book reviews the antiquity of evolving psychology with respect to both its
nature and effects of diffusion of culture.
The major theorists like Erick Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Freud describe development as
many phases. To them, a phase is a period of growth in which people show distinctive behavioral
patterns and establish certain dimensions. The theorists are introduced to bring an up-to-date
research on the modern amalgamation on nature and nurture. The book aims to be of interest to
psychologists and educationists with the concern of an up-to-date understanding of factors
involved in human advancement.
Sigmund Freud was an Australian psychiatrist who was the first scholar to designate
personality as a series of stages. He supposed that among all this stages, the infant stage or
childhood was the most crucial of all the phases. His belief was that the human personality was
created at around the age of five. Like Freud, his counterpart Erik held on to the importance of
childhood. However, he had a different view in how personality developed. He supposed that
personality developed over the whole course of a persons life. Conferring Erikson, in each phase
people face new tests and the outcome of each stage entirely depends on how well they handle
the task.

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Eriksons theory is considered useful in the book because it discourses both behavioral
stability and temperamental change. To some extent, personality is considered stable, but it also
changes with time and develops over the lifespan as people face new tasks. However, Eriksons
theory does not describe only a distinctive pattern and does not seek to recognize the many
differences among individuals. Jean
Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, did an investigation on how children think. According to
her, children change their thinking process as they grow and make formal relations with the
world around them. As children learn, they expand their graphic through assimilation.
Assimilation is the process of modifying their graphic as they incorporate new information.
Freuds and Eriksons theories are well-known theories, although there is speculation that
Freud's theories influenced Erikson. These theories could be used to elucidate the developmental
outcome of growth in humans. However, they also have similarities. They both identify the
prominence of the unconscious on development. They also separate persons into stages known as
phases and utilize same age divisions in their developmental classifications.
Erikson extends Freuds stages to include all human life cycles from infants to adults and
then old age. His stages of young adulthood and later years all the way to old age, offer many
insights into the challenges presented to us by old age. He also states the importance of social
interactions as contrasting to Freud, who emphasized most on development as a psychosexual
process.

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

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References

Peters, R. S. (2015). Psychology and Ethical Development : A Collection of Articles on

Psychological Theories, Ethical Development and Human Understanding. Abingdon,
Oxon: Routledge.