PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology in Health & Social Care

Psychology in Health & Social Care

Task 1

Prepare an information guide for new professionals which compare different psychological theories of lifespan development.

Development is always a major concern across the life span of every person. A lot of theories are discovered that explains the different aspects of the human mind through its lifespan, and seek to understand how different people understand and act within the world on different things. Also, it says the change of these processes as they age. These theories mainly focus on thinker, cognitive, neural, social, or ethical development of a human being. One can understand these theories completely by applying to different life stages. The three main theories that can be applied to the life of a common man, they are:

Erikson's psychosocial theory,

Piaget's cognitive theory, and

Kohlberg's moral theory

The theory of Erikson explains the 8 stages of a human life in which he describes the relation of a human begin with the world both socially and emotionally. Throughout these 8 stages a person faced a number of major psychological conflicts that can have both negative and positive outcomes, allows the person to acquire skills and attitudes that allow him or her to contribute beneficially to society (Santrock, 2008, n.d).

The main focus of Jean Piaget is on the cognitive aspects of development. According to him, children through an organization and adoption are able to construct their understanding of the world. Children with the passage of time to learn how to adjust to newer environments and its relevant demands. In order to explain his theory Piaget constructed 4 age-related stages. The last and final stage is when we are adult which is known as a formal operational stage.

Another psychologist whose work goes beyond the four stages of Piaget cognitive theory and who is a close follower of Piaget is Lawrence Kohlberg who studied moral development. According to him there are six stages that are universal and age related. Kohlberg also believed that there are some rules that are fixed and absolute that younger children see. They obey their elders in fear of punishment (Massoni, 2009, n.d). While on the other hand the view of older children is more relativistic as they know and understand that if everyone agrees to the rules they can be changed. Also, there are some moral developmental stages that adults also experience. With varying theories and viewpoints, the idea behind all the developmental psychologists is to find out the mechanisms behind the understanding and act of humans in their environment (Santrock, 2008, n.d).

1.2 Psychological theories and concepts

The psychological development theory as explain by Erik Erikson is the best known personality theory among all. This theory is different from other theories as it addresses the development process across the entire lifespan of a human being, from birth through death. The chart below summarizes the 8 stages of psychosocial development as describe by Erik Erikson.

STAGE

BASIC CONFLICT

IMPORTANT EVENTS

OUTCOME

Infancy (birth to 18 months)

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