Unit Two

Human Development
1.1 Definition of Basic Terms
 Growth: is defined as the physical, quantified, measurable part of
development.
 Maturation is the unfolding of traits potentially present in the individual
considering his hereditary endowment (Gesell 1977). It doesn’t only
refer to change in physical characteristics but also in function, in the
capacity to perform or to behave. It rather refers to changes that take
place in one’s body and behavior because one is getting older, or
because of age (Shaffer, 1996). It refers to quanlitative change. E.g.
someone changes from who doesn’t play football to someone who does.
 learning refers to a relatively permanent change that occurs in an
individual as a result of experience or practice (Slavin, 1997).
 In order to develop or change, we also need to learn how to do
things.
 learning is often used to refer to short-term specific gains in
knowledge, while development is used to refer to more long-term,
broader changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes and mental states
(Desforges,1995).
 Development: is a pattern of biological, cognitive and socio
emotional changes that begins at conception and continues
throughout life span. It is the qualitative and quantitative changes
 Principles of Human Development
1. Development is multidimetional: It entails changes in many
areas of development, including the physical, the cognitive, and the
socio emotional.
 Physical development refers to body maturation and growth,
including body size, proportion, appearances, health, and
perceptual abilities.
 Cognitive development refers to the maturation of thought
processes and the tools that we use to obtain knowledge, become
aware of the world around us, and solve problems.
 Social emotional development includes changes personality,
emotions, view of one self, social skills, and interpersonal
relationships with family and friends. Each of these areas of
development overlaps and interacts. With advances in cognitive
development, for example, a child may become batter able to take
her best friend’s point of view, which intern influences her
socioemotional development as she becomes more empathetic and
sensitive to her friend’s needs and develops a more mature
friendship.
2. Development is multidirectional : meaning that it consists of
both gains and losses, growth and decline, through out the life
span. For example, in older adulthood people’s social networks
narrow and thy have fewer friends; however their relationships
become more significant and meaningful.

3.Development is plastic:-development characterized by

plasticity: It is malleable or changeable. Frequently the brain and
body can compensate for illness and injury. Children who are
injured and experience brain damage may show resilience as
other parts of the brain take on new functions..
• The plastic nature of human development allows people to
modify their traits, capabilities, and behavior through out life
(Baltes etal., 1998; Baltes, 1997; Staudinger & Lindenberger,
2003). For example older adults who are experienced a decline in
balance and muscle strength can regain and improve these
capabilities through excersice (McAuley et al., 2013).
• Plasticity generally tends to decline as we age, but it does not
disappear entirely.
4.Development influenced by multiple contexts : context refers
to where and when a person develops.
Context includes aspects of physical and social environments such as
family, neighborhood, country, culture, and historical time period.
Context also includes intangible factors that are not visible to the
naked eye, such as values, customs, and ideas.
Culture is particularly important contexts that influence us. In order
to understand a given individual’s development, we must look to his
or her context.
 Another context that influences your development is the time
period in which we live. Some contextual influences are tied to a
particular historical area and explain why generations of people
born at the same time, called a cohort, are similar in always that
people born at other time are different. History graded influences
include wars, epidemics, and economic shifts such as periods of
depression or prosperity (Baltes, 1987). These influences shape our
development and our views of the world and set cohorts apart from
one another.
5. Development is multidisciplinary: The contributions of many
discipline's are needed to understand how people grow, think, and
interact with their world.

6. Development is a life long processes: Development is a

process which continues through out life. It begins at birth and ends in
death of an individual.
.
 Aspects of Human Development
• Physical development: refers to biologically determined growth
patterns.
• Cognitive development: This area of development includes
creativity, discovery, symbolic thought, problem-solving skills,
reasoning, and other mental processes.
• Psychosocial development: It focuses on personal and
interpersonal aspects of development, such as motives, emotions,
personality traits, interpersonal skills, and relationships, and roles
played in the family and in the larger society.
• Emotional Development: emotional development can be difficult
to measure, it provides the foundation for mental health and well-
being. This includes feelings of happiness, feelings of power over
the environment, emotional awareness, emotional strength and
stability, temperament, humour, positive attitude, independence,
feeling about self esteem/confidence, and sensitivity to others etc.
• Moral development: change in reasoning and evaluating ethical
issues, i.e., what is right or wrong good or bad, acceptable or
unacceptable.
 Issues/ controversies/ in Development

The major questions in developmental psychology include the

following:
 Nature vs. Nurture ((Nativism versus Empiricism)
 Refers to whether dev’t is primarily influenced by nature or
nurture. Nature refers to biological inheritance and nurture
environmental experience. Nature proponents claim biological
inheritance is the most important influence on development. The
nurture proponents claim that environmental experiences
influence development.
 But developmental psychologists agree that development is the product of
the interaction between the two.
 Activity vs. passivity
 Are people active in their development or are they passively
shaped by forces outside themselves?
  Continuity vs. Discontinuity
 Are humans changing gradually or dramatically? Or Does
development occur slowly and smoothly, or do changes happen
in stages?
 Focuses on the extent to which development involves gradual,
cumulative change ( continuity) or distinct stages
(discontinuous).
 Theories of Human Development

 What is theory?
 Why theories are important?
 What kind of theories do you know so far?
 PschosocialDevelopment
Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
 Erik Erikson, who lived from 1902 to 1994
 Psychosocial theory emphasizes personality development, is the
result of our continual social interaction with other people and
environment; it is also the process of facing and successfully
resolving the various developmental crises that emerge at the eight
different periods.
• In Erikson's view, society and culture both challenge and shape us.
• Erikson's theory suggests that developmental changes occur
throughout our lives in eight distinct stages.
 The stages emerge in a fixed pattern and are similar for all people.
 Erikson argued that each stage presents a crisis or conflict that the
individual must resolve.
• If the conflict is not satisfactorily resolved, the person will
continue to struggle with it and healthy ego development will be
impeded.
• Unlike Freud, who regarded development as relatively complete
by adolescence, Erikson suggested that growth and change
continue throughout the life span.
 Stage Basic Conflict Important Outcome
Events
Infancy (birth to 18 months) Trust vs. Mistrus Feeding Children develop a sense of trust when caregivers provide reliability, care,
t .and affection. A lack of this will lead to mistrust

Early Childhood (2 to Autonomy

3 years) vs. Sham Toilet Training Children need to develop a sense of personal control over physical skills
e and Doubt and a sense of independence. Success leads to feelings of autonomy,
.failure results in feelings of shame and doubt

Preschool (3 to 5 years) Initiative vs. Guilt Exploration Children need to begin asserting control and power over the environment.
Success in this stage leads to a sense of purpose. Children who try to exert
.too much power experience disapproval, resulting in a sense of guilt

School Age (6 to 11 years) Industry vs. Inferiori School Children need to cope with new social and academic demands. Success
ty .leads to a sense of competence, while failure results in feelings of inferiority

Identity vs. Role Co

Adolescence (12 to 18 years) Social Teens need to develop a sense of self and personal identity. Success leads
nfusion Relationships to an ability to stay true to onerself, while failure leads to role confusion and
.a weak sense of self

Young Adulthood (19 to 40 years) Intimacy vs. Isolatio Relationships Young adults need to form intimate, loving relationships with other people.
n Success leads to strong relationships, while failure results in loneliness and
.isolation

Generativity vs. Sta

Middle Adulthood (40 to 65 years) Work and Adults need to create or nurture things that will outlast them, often by having
gnation Parenthood children or creating a positive change that benefits other people. Success
leads to feelings of usefulness and accomplishment, while failure results in
.shallow involvement in the world

Ego Integrity vs. De

Maturity(65 to death) Reflection on Older adults need to look back on life and feel a sense of fulfillment.
spair Life Success at this stage leads to feelings of wisdom, while failure results in
.regret, bitterness, and despair
 2.3 Cognitive theories
 Cognitive theorists focus on the ways children construct their own
understandings of their environment.
• Development occurs through the interplay between a child’s
emerging mental capabilities and his or her environmental
experiences.
 This perspective focuses on the processes that allow people to
know, understand, and think about the world. It therefore,
emphasizes on how people internally represent and think about the
world.
 2.Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory
 Jean Piaget (1896–1980) is probably the best-known
developmental psychologist in education.
•Piaget proposed that children pass through an invariant sequence of
stages, each characterized by qualitatively different ways of
organizing information and learning about the world.
•According to Piaget, development is a qualitative change in the
mind or knowledge or intelligence of people from age to age.
 He defined knowledge as the underlying cognitive structure that
guides the thinking and behavior of children.
 Basic Assumptions
a) Development is a qualitative change in mind or knowledge of a
person from age to age.
b) Knowledge, according to Piaget, is our own construction and is
not just poured from the environment. To Piaget, cognitive
development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes
as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience.
Key Concepts in Piaget’s Theory
a) Cognitive Structure – is a psychological unit of the mind that
enables us to think and know. Our cognitive structures develop
because of two psychological mechanisms- adaptation and
organization.
 Adaptation – consists of two processes called assimilation and
accommodation
Assimilation – refers to how human beings take things into their
minds. It is the process of taking objects, concepts, and events and
changing them to fit to the already existing mental structures.
 It refers to a kind of matching between the already existing
cognitive structures and the environmental needs as they arise. For
example, if a six month infant is given with a toy, it will take it to
its mouth because the sucking schema already exists and thus it is
trying to assimilate the new experience with the already existing
one.
Accommodation – refers to a change in cognitive structure that
produces corresponding behavioral changes. This means that
stimuli incorporated or assimilated into our minds also produce
mental changes. These mental changes are referred as
accommodation. In the process of accommodation one has to
learn new ways of thinking and behaving by making changes or
modifications in one’s existing cognitive structures.
The process of assimilation and accommodation occur at the
same time because at the same time we take something in to our
mind and change it fit to our existing cognitive structure
(assimilation), we are also changed by what we take in
(accommodation).
 According to Piaget, the process of assimilation or
accommodation will help the individual to adjust to the
environment. This adjustment mechanism was called equilibration
by Piaget. It refers to a balance between assimilation and

accommodation. Organization – refers to the connections among

cognitive structures. Organization and adaptation are inseparable.

 The mind does not consist of random sets of ideas rather a set of
organized ideas. These organized patterns of thought and action
are referred to as schemas. For example the grasping schemes, the
sucking scheme, the kicking scheme, and the throwing scheme.
 According to Jean Piaget, cognitive structures change with age.
•He asserted that the changes in our cognitive structures are brought
about by our interaction with the physical and social environment,
which is carried out by through the mechanisms of equilibration ,
resulting in constant organization of our cognitive structure by the
interplay of assimilation and accommodation.
 However, he further asserted that this constant organization of
mental structures in all individuals takes place in a particular order
involving definite stages of intellectual or cognitive development.
Thus, according to him, although individuals of the same age may
differ in terms of possession of mental abilities
i) Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years)
 During this stage Cognitive development comes mainly through
the use of sense organs and bodily movements as infants explore
their environment.
 They use their mouths, hands, eyes, etc to explore and understand
objects around them.
 Babies in this stage are initially egocentric – entirely centered on
the self and unaware of the existence of other viewpoints. Before
the age of six months, babies believe that “out of sight is out of
mind”. But afterwards, they develop object permanence – a belief
that objects out of sight still exist – and thus they continue to
search for them.
 Babies during this stage begin to distinguish their own actions as
causes – a phenomenon called causality. By moving from object
to object, babies learn about space and time that takes to move
from one object to the others.
 Reflexes (such as sucking and grasping) to a basic understanding
of the world around them.
ii) The Preoperational Stage (2-7years)
According to Piaget operation refers to the actions individuals perform
mentally to gain knowledge. Comparing and noting similarities and
differences, ordering, measuring, joining together and taking apart,
reversing, etc are mental operations.
•In this stage children begin to use symbol (such as language) but are
not yet capable of manipulating them mentally.
Features of preoperational thought include:
Realism – a child at this stage slowly distinguishes and accepts a real
world.
Animism – is a child’s tendency to consider a large number of objects
 Piaget identified four stages of animism:
 Almost everything is alive and conscious
 Only those things that move are alive
 Only those things that manifest spontaneous movements are
alive
 Consciousness is limited to the animal world
Artificialism – children at this stage assume that everything is
the product of human creation.
Transductive Reasoning – children at this stage use neither
deductive nor inductive but transductive reasoning – or reasoning
from particular to particular.
Cognitive limitations of the preoperational stage include:
Centering – refers to only part of an object or an activity. Children
of this stage ignore the relationships among the various parts.
 Egocentrism – refers to children’s tendency to see things as they
want them to be. E.g. a three year old child may cover her eyes and
say “you can’t see me”.
Irreversibility – refers to inability to reverse thinking.
iii) The concrete operational stage (7-11 years)
Children at this stage overcome the limitations of preoperational
thinking. The mental operations are, however, focused on concrete
objects.
 Concrete operational children are capable of logical thinking but
with only the concrete or tangible rather than with abstract
subjects.
 Features of concrete operational thinking include:
 Conservation – refers to the realization that the essence of
something remains constant although surface features may change.
 Seriation– is the ability to arrange objects by increasing or decreasing size.
Children of this stage can arrange things in ascending or descending order.

 Classification – is the ability to group objects with some

similarities within a large category.
 Number concept – refers to the children’s understanding of the
meaning of numbers or “the oneness of one”.
iv) The Formal Operational Stage (11 + years)
•During this stage logical, abstract thi
nking begins. The features of
formal operational thinking include:
 Understanding of possibility – adolescents are able to
separate the
real from the possible
• Propositional Thinking – Adolescent’s thinking is propos
itional.
• Hypothetic deductive reasoning – adolescents are able
to combine
as many propositions as possible.
 Adolescent egocentric thinking – adolescents assume
that everyone
else thinks as they do and shares their concerns. Two
types of
egocentrism during adolescence: i) Imaginary audience
– is
adolescent’s belief that others are as preoccupied with her
/him as
s/he is. (ii) Personal fable – is an adolescent’s sense of
personal
uniqueness and indestructibly.
Educational implications of Piaget’s cognitive theory

Authentic learning happens through spontaneous inventions and

discovery. Accordingly, teachers should not try to feed and impose on
to the child but they should find materials that will interest and
challenge the child and then permit the child to solve problems of
their own.

Instruction should be geared to child’s particular level.

 Learning should be a process of active discovery and should

consider the child’s developmental ages.
 3. Lawrence Kohlberg's Moral Development Theory
 Morality relates to the goodness or badness and correctness or
wrongness of a certain behavior. It is personal, subjective and is
therefore, lacks an absolute or universal truth. Morality has in general
three dimensions.

 Knowledge: represents the person’s views, understanding or decision

about the badness or goodness of an idea or an act. For instance,
knowing respecting your parent is good, insulting someone is bad etc
 Reasoning: Is explaining why a certain behavior is good or bad.
 Behavior: It represents whether or not a person acts, performs or
behaves in a morally appropriate way.
 The theory holds that three level each with two identifiable
developmental stages, each more adequate at responding to moral
dilemmas.

 Kohlberg determined that the process of moral development was

principally concerned with justice, and that it continued
throughout the individual's lifetime.

 For his studies, Kohlberg relied on stories which put children in

dilemma, and was interested in how individuals would justify their
actions if placed in similar moral dilemmas.
Biruktawit cheated on her husband

In Ethiopia, Bruktawit’s husband was near death from heart failure.

The doctors told Bruktawit unless her husband is treated in America,
he will die soon. To do so it will cost her more than 250,000 Birr
which she cannot afford to pay. She did all her best to find the money
which will save her husband’s life. But she failed to get it. At the end,
she recalled an old friend who is rich and who will give her the
money she needed. She went to him and told him the case. He agreed
he will give her the money only if she slept with him. She agreed to
sleep with him to save her husband’s life. Should Bruktawit have
done that? How do children judge Bruktawit’s act from moral point
of views.
1. Level 1. Pre-conventional Morality( 4-10 years)
• In this stage, morality is based on the anticipated rewards or
punishment. A good act is one that is rewarded and a bad act is
punished.
Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation
•In this stage, children focus on the physical consequences of their
actions. The child assumes that powerful authorities hand down a
fixed set of rules which he or she must unquestioningly obey. To the
Bruktawit’s dilemma, the child typically will say that she was wrong
to sleep with the man because her husband will hurt her if he finds
out that she cheated on him. Or can justify saying she was right
because she slept with the man she saved her husband’s life.
Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange
•At this stage, also called instrumental relativist, children reason that
good acts serve one’s own purpose.
•They recognize that there is not just one right view that is handed down
by the authorities. Different individuals have different viewpoints.
Regarding Bruktawit children might point out, she should sleep with the
man because she needs to save her husband’s life.
Level II. Conventional Morality
At this level moral judgment is controlled by the likes and dislikes of
others – the conventions, rules and regulations and the law and order
systems maintained within the society. Stealing or mercy-killing would
thus be judged wrong because it is considered to be wrong by the
society at large and by the legal system.
Stage 3: Good Interpersonal Relationships
Good Boy (Nice Girl) Orientation
 In this stage teens--see morality as more than simple deals. They
believe that people should live up to the expectations of the family
and community and behave in "good" ways.
 Good behavior means having good motives and interpersonal
feelings such as love, empathy, trust, and concern for others. To
these stage, Bruktatwit was right to sleep with the man because
"She was a good person for wanting to save her husband," and
"Her intentions were good, that of saving the life of someone she
loves. But the richest man was bad. He was "selfish," "greedy,"
and "only interested in himself, not another life.
Stage 4: Maintaining the Social Order
 At this stage, children become more broadly concerned with
society as a whole. They emphasis is on obeying laws, respecting
authority, and performing one's duties so that the social order is
maintained.
 In response to the Bruktatawit story, children would say they
understand that her motives were good, but they cannot condone
the cheating. What would happen if we all started breaking the
marital laws whenever we felt we had a good reason?
Level III. Post conventional Morality
•This is a level whereby children begin to think about moral issues
beyond conventions, rules, cultural values and other group based
standards or expectations. This is a stage of thinking in terms of
universal human rights, justice and fairness.

Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights

 They recognize that different social groups within a society will
have different values, but they believe that all rational people
would agree on two points. First they would all want certain basic
rights, such as liberty and life, to be protected. Second, they would
want some democratic procedures for changing unfair law and for
•In response to the Bruktawit’s dilemma, stage 5 respondents make it
clear that they do not generally favor breaking laws-marital or
religious; laws are social contracts that we agree to uphold until we
can change them by democratic means. Nevertheless, the husband’s
right to live is a moral right that must be protected.
•Thus, stage 5 respondent sometimes defend Bruktayt’s sleeping with
the man in strong language: It is the wife’s duty to save her husband.
The fact that his life is in danger transcends every other standard you
might use to judge her action.
Stage 6: Universal Principles
 According people at this moral stage, the principles of justice
require treating the claims of all parties in an impartial manner,
respecting the basic dignity, of all people as individuals. The
principles of justice are therefore universal; they apply to all.
Thus, for example, we would not vote for a law that aids some
people but hurts others.