A Comparative Analysis of Organizational Development, Human Development and Spiritual Development

A Comparative Analysis of Organizational Development, Human Development and Spiritual Development

Human Development

In developmental psychology several different types of theories (or approaches) have been advanced about the conceptualization of psychological development. As we know, three of these are stage theory, the differential approach, and the ipsative approach. A fourth major theoretical approach to development, one involving theoretical and empirical behaviorism. Here we shall consider the similarities and differences among the stage, differential, and ipsative points of view. In developmental psychology, considerably more conceptual analysis and discussion has been associated with the developmental stage-theory approach than with either the differential or the ipsative approaches. Societal changes in the last couple of years, including increased public acceptance of gay and lesbian populations [1, 2], have at the very least created a different societal context for sexual minority development. It is unknown how this changed context may affect the identity development process for these special populations.

The Developmental Stage-Theory Approach to Development

The stage approach to developmental theory may also be termed simply the developmental approach or the classical approach, perhaps because it was systematized first historically. Accordingly, we will use the terms stage theory, classical theory, and classical developmental theory interchangeably. Various theorists who have used this approach have considered different aspects of development (e.g., the development of cognition, morality, and personality), all classical developmental theories have specific, common characteristics. All of these theories hold that all people pass through a series of qualitatively different levels (stages) of organization and that the ordering of these stages is invariant.

To a developmental stage theorist there are universal stages of development. If people develop, they will pass through all these stages, and they will do so in a fixed order. Moreover, the ordering of the stages is held to be invariant; this means that people cannot skip stages or reorder them. Let us use the stages in Freud's (1949) theory as an example. Freud postulates that there are five stages in development, the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages. [3] Freud holds that if a person develops, he or she will pass through all these stages that all of the stages apply to a given person's development and, in fact, to all people's development; moreover, Freud contends that the order of these stages is the same for all people. Thus it would be theoretically impossible for someone to skip a stage; one could not go right from the oral stage to the phallic stage; instead one would have to develop through the intermediary stage, the anal stage. Similarly, one cannot reorder the sequence; thus one could not go from the oral to the phallic and then to the anal stage. In essence, all people who develop must pass through each stage in the specified, invariant sequence.

Some theorists, for instance, have described specific sequences of development and argued against the existence of pervasive underlying structures and homogeneities in functioning across different domains of ...