Human Growth &

Development
Comps Study Guide #1
Describe Erikson's
8 stages of development
Erik Erikson described human development as eight stages of psychosocial
development According to him each stage involves a psychosocial crisis,
which must be resolved before the person can successfully move on to the
next stage. The stages are:
1. Infancy or Trust vs. Mistrust (Hope) - the period from birth to 1or 11/2 years.
2. Toddler or Autonomy vs. Shame (Will) - from 1 to 2 years of age.
3. Preschooler or Initiative vs. Guilt (Purpose) - from 2 to 6 years of age.
4. School Age or Industry vs. Inferiority (Competence) - from 6 to 12 years of
age.
5. Adolescence or Identity vs. Diffusion (Fidelity) - from12 (or puberty) to
18years of age.
6. Young Adulthood or Intimacy vs. solation (Love) - from 19 to 40 years of
age.
7. Middle Adulthood or Generativity vs. Self-absorption (Care) - from 40 to 65.
8. Late Adulthood or Integrity vs. Despair [Wisdom) - from age 65 till death.
Describe the basic precepts of the
psychoanalytic and psychosexual
development theory.
Based on the work of Sigmund Freud, the psychoanalytic theory postulates that all humans
have instincts to satisfy their needs for food, shelter, and warmth. Satisfaction of these instincts
produces pleasure and leads to the development of sexual drives, The two basic drives are sex
and aggression or life and death.

Freud divided human development into five stages: birth to 18 months, he designated as oral; 2
to 3 years, anal; 3 to 5 years, phallic; 6 years to puberty, latency; and puberty to adulthood he
called genital. Incomplete development at any stage he called fixation. The stages are based on
his belief that the child focuses on different areas of the body in each stage. These areas are
known as erogenous zones and include the mouth, anus, and genitals.

Psychological defenses that help a person control or prevent undesirable or inappropriate

emotions or behaviors include denial, repression, suppression, projection, displacement,
rationalization, reaction formation, regression, and sublimation. Castration anxiety and penis
envy are psychological factors that can impact the personality. Other theories include the
pleasure principle and the reality principle.
List the key concepts in
Jean Piaget's theory of
development
Piaget described the cognitive development of children using the key concepts of schemas,
assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration.
To him schemas include both the categories of knowledge and the process by which the
knowledge is obtained. Schemas change as new experiences add to knowledge. Assimilation is
the adding of new information to existing schemas. Accommodation is changing existing s:hemas
to fit new information and experiences. Piaget called the balance between assimilation and
accommodation equilibration.

Piaget's stages of cognitive development are: sensorimotor (birth to 2 years) during which the
child learns about himself and his environment 1rough sensory perceptions and motor activities;
preoperational (2 to 7 ears) in which language develops and the child is egocentric; concrete
operational (7 to 11yeas) during which the child begins to think logically but still has trouble with
abstract concepts; and formal operational (11 or 12 years to adulthood) during which the child
develops the capability of logical thought, deductive reasoning and systematic planning.
Define the following terms:
• Empiricists
• Organicism
• psychodiagnostic
Empiricists subscribe to the doctrine of empiricism, which maintains
that experience is the only source of knowledge. The doctrine was
formulated by John Locke and is the forerunner of behaviorism.

Organicism is the theory that the total organization of an organism is

the determinant of life processes. The Gestalt psychologists, such as
Kurt Goldstein subscribe to the theory.

Psychodiagnostic is a type of testing that assesses how a patient's

thinking and emotions may affect his or her behavior.
List the three levels and each stage of Kohlberg's theory.
Building on the work of Jean Piaget, John Dewey and James Mark Baldwin, Lawrence
Kohlberg's studies of moral development led him to identify 3 levels of moral development
with 2 stages within each level.
(1) The Preconventional Morality level is the period in which a child is influenced by
reward and punishment. In Stage 1- Obedience And Punishment Orientation, the child
sees authority as handing down the rules on right and wrong. In Stage 2 -
Individualism and Exchange, the child begins to perceive that there is not just one
right way.
(2) The Conventional Morality level is the period when the person strives to meet
standards set by the family and society. The person is often a teenager by the time he
or she reaches Stage 3 -Good Interpersonal Relationships. During this period the
person is motivated by such feelings as love, empathy and concern for others. In
Stage 4 - Maintaining the Social Order, the person becomes more concerned with
society as a whole.
(3) The Postconventional Morality Level is the period of selfaccepted principles. In Stage
5 - Social Contract and Individual Rights, the person begins to think about what makes a
good society and what any society should value. In Stage 6 - Universal Principles, the
person has a concern for justice and its impartial application to everyone.
Explain
• epigenetic
• cephalocaudal
• in vivo desensitization
• instinctual
• ethology
• psychometrics
• psychopharmacology.
Epigenetic theory states that an individual is formed by successive development of an unstructured
egg rather than by the growth of a preformed entity. Kohlberg, Erikson and Maslow used epigenetic
principles in developing their theories of human development.

Cephalocaudal means from head to tail and can be used to refer to the head of a fetus developing
before the legs.

In vivo desensitization is a behavior therapy technique in which a person is gradually exposed to

something he fears.

Instinctual is an adjective derived from instinct and refers to behavior that is innate rather than
learned.

Ethology is the study of animals in their natural environment and makes

use of Darwinian theory. Ethology research findings can be applied to humans as "comparative
psychology."

Psychometrics is the design, administration and interpretation of tests that measure intelligence,
aptitude and personality characteristics.

Psychopharmacology is the study of the effects of drugs on psychological functions

Describe the basic elements of the
Oedipus and Electra Complexes.
According to Freud, the Oedipus Complex in boys and the Electra
Complex in girls occurs during the phallic stage of development,
usually between the ages of three and five. The complexes involve the
child's usually subconscious sexual feelings toward the parent of the
opposite sex. The feelings include jealousy of the same-sex parent and
may include a desire for the death of that parent. Successful
resolution of the complex is achieved when the child identifies with
the parent of the same sex and internalizes the parental values. The
process ends in the development of the conscience or superego.
Describe Bowlby and Harlow's theories on
why attachment or bonding is necessary
for normal Development.
John Bowlby believes that bonding with an adult before the
age of three is vital if a person is to lead a normal social life.
According to him, the Jack of bonding, or a bond that is
severed during infancy, can cause abnormal behavior or
psychopathology. His opinion is that the mother should be the
primary caregiver for the child with the father in the role of
emotional supporter for the mother. Harry Harlow's Work with
monkeys led him to believe attachment to be an innate
tendency. He saw monkeys raised in isolation develop autistic
and abnormal behavior. Placing those monkeys with normally
reared ones could somewhat reverse those behaviors.
Describe the concepts of
• Centration
• Egocentrism
• Epistemology
• symbolic schema.
Centration in Piaget's preoperational stage is the focusing on one nature of
an object while ignoring the rest of the object. An example could be seeing
an alligator's teeth but not its eyes or nostrils.

Egocentrism in Piaget's preoperational stage is a child's ability to see the

world from only his own viewpoint The child's viewpoint is current and not
influenced by remembering features or details seen at an earlier me.

Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. Piaget was a genetic

Epistemologist His theory was that children learn from their own actions
and experiences with their peers rather than from adults.

Symbolic schema is Piaget's term for language and symbolism becoming a

part of play during the preoperational stage when the child two to seven
years of age. This process allows a child to substitute an object for another,
such as when a box becomes a car with a paper plate for the wheel.
Describe imprinting in terms
of the work of Konrad Lorenz.
Imprinting refers to the way newly hatched ducks and geese
instinctively follow the first moving object they see. This is usually
the mother but may be any living or non-living thing. Konrad
Lorenz worked with goslings and applied his results to the principle
of "critical periods."

"Critical periods" is the concept that certain behaviors must be

learned at specific stages of development or they may not be
learned at all. Heredity and environment are both important in
critical periods of development.
Describe the following:
• Nature vs. nurture
• Genotype vs. phenotype
• Tabula rasa
• Plasticity
• Resiliency
Nature vs. nurture is the question of whether a person is more influenced by nature
(genetic and hereditary traits) or by nurture (learning from parents and others in his
environmental and social setting.

Genotype is the genetic makeup of an organism.

Phenotype is the physical or biochemical characteristics determined by genetics

and the environment of an organism.

Tabula rasa is John Locke's philosophy that a child is born with an unformed mind
that develops through experience. This is sometimes referred to as a "blank slate."

Plasticity is the smooth transition of a person from one stage of development to the
next.

Resiliency is the ability of a person to deal successfully with adverse conditions and
adapt effectively.
List the broad categories used to categorize
the theories of human development and how
growth and development changes are viewed.
The categories of human development are:
• Learning, which includes behavioral, social learning and information-processing
theories;
• Cognitive, which is concerned with obtaining knowledge;
• Psychoanalytic, which is the method of investigating psychological phenomena
developed by Freud;
• Humanistic, which explains development through reasoning and the scientific
method.
Human growth and development changes are viewed as:
• qualitative, which involves a change in structure such as sexual development;
• quantitative, in which measurable changes occur such as in intellectual
development;
• continuous, which denotes sequential changes that cannot be segmented, for
example personality development;
• discontinuous, which are changes in abilities and behaviors such as
language that develop in stages;
• mechanistic, which places behaviors in common groups, such as instinctual or
reflexive; and
• organismic, in which new stages of development use cognition and includes moral
and ethical development.
Describe the major theme in Levinson's
The Seasons of a Man's Life.
The book is based on a study Daniel Levinson did with adult males that led him to formulate a
comprehensive theory of adult development. He divided life into four periods:
1. Pre-adulthood
2. Early adulthood
3. Middle adulthood
4. Late adulthood
with a major transition occurring as the person moves from each period or stage to the next. He
believed the transitions occurred at about 17 to 22 years as the person moved into young adulthood,
between 40 and 45 years into middle adulthood, and between 60 and 65 as the person became an
older adult
He identified three sets of developmental tasks:
(a) build, modify, and enhance a life structure
(b) form and modify the single components of the life structure
(c) tasks necessary to becoming more of an individual.
Levinson believed that 80 percent of the men he studied experienced midlife crisis during the
transition period into middle adulthood, as they questioned their life structure, including their career.
Define
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• Gesell's naturationist theory
• The behaviorism learning approach
Abraham Maslow, a humanistic psychologist, developed a theory of motivation, which he called a
hierarchy of needs. According to this theory, a person must first satisfy basic needs such as the
need for food and shelter, before he can turn his attention to higher needs. In order from basic to
higher the needs are: physiological; security/safety; belonging/love; esteem; and self-
actualization.

Arnold Gesell advanced the maturationist theory, which holds that development is a biological
process that proceeds in an orderly and predictable manner, and is independent of environmental
influences.

According to the behaviorism theory of learning, learning is a change of behavior brought about
by the consequences of behaviors - the child is rewarded for a desirable behavior or punished for
an undesirable one. Punishment can be active, such as the denial of a privilege, or passive, in
which case the behavior is ignored. The work of John Watson, B.F. Skinner, and Edward
Thorndike has been important to behaviorism. Thorndike formulated the ‘law of effect" which
states that a behavior followed by a reward is strengthened and more likely to be repeated.
Discuss the work of
• Jean Baker Miller
• Carol Tavris
• Nancy Chodorow
• Harriet Lerner
• Carol Gilligan
• Gail Sheehy.
The work of these women deals with the development of women.

Jean Baker Miller defined "care taking" as helping others to develop emotionally, intellectually, and socially.
In her opinion care taking is the main factor that differentiates women's development from that of men.

Carol Tavris believes that society "pathologizes" women and judges them according to how they fit into a
male world. She sees women as not really different from men but perceived as different because of the
roles that male dominated society has assigned to them.

Nancy Chodorow saw psychoanalytic theory as using gender stereotyping with male-irnposed standards.
In her view and it devalues feminine qualities and contributes to women's Status as second-class citizens.

Harriet Lerner's writing expressed the idea that women need to achieve a healthier balance between
activities that center on others and those that center on themselves. She believes that women need to
show strength, independence and assertiveness in their intimate relationships.

Carol Gilligan's opinion is that women develop "in relationship" to other women and that their
communication patterns are different from those of men. Women make moral judgments based on human
relationships and upbringing, while men use justice and rights.

In her book, Passages Gail Sheehy wrote of the transitional, crisis periods between the stages of a
woman's life that provide opportunities for growth.
Describe the scheme developed by William Perry.
Perry developed his "Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development" based on his
studies of college students. The scheme consists of four general categories with 3
positions within each category.
• Category 1 is Dualism and is divided into Basic and Full. Students in the basic position
believe authorities know the truth, but in the full position begin to realize that not all
authorities know all the truth.
• Category 2 is Multiplicity and is divided into Early and Late positions. Students in this
category come to believe that any opinion is as good as any other and realize that
there is more than one approach to solving a problem.
• Category 3 is Relativism and is divided into Contextual and Pre commitment Students
here realize that knowledge is subject to change and that opinions develop from
values, experience and knowledge.
• Category 4 is Commitment and has three positions: Commitment, Challenges to
Commitment, and Post-commitment In these positions the student focused on moral,
ethical and identity development.
Discuss the difference between intelligence and
emotional intelligence.
A dictionary definition of intelligence is "the capacity to acquire and apply
knowledge." It can also be thought of as the ability to reason, think in abstract
terms and understand abstract ideas, plan, and acquire language and
knowledge. Piaget's definition specified adaptive thinking or action.
Intelligence is not determined solely by genetics; it also Involves a person's
environment, experiences, and culture. A major criticism of intelligence testing
is that it is often culturally biased and measures things some people have not
had the opportunity to learn.

Emotional intelligence according to Daniel Goleman is self-motivation and

self-awareness, empathy, social awareness, and persistence. The emotionally
intelligent person also has strong interpersonal skills.
Explain how spirituality influences a
person’s personality development.
A person may see himself or herself as spiritual even though he or
she does not practice any particular organized religion. According
to some surveys, more than 90% of the U.S. population believes in
some sort of divine power or a force greater than him-or herself. A
person's sense of self, his relationships with others, his perception
of society, and his reaction to problems are all influenced by his
spirituality. Counselors find it helpful to identify a client's spirituality
issues and address how they affect his situation. A counselor may
find it necessary to examine his own spirituality as he learns about
how such issues affect his clients. In some religions, such as
Buddhism and Hinduism, the development of the person is
included in the belief system.
Discuss the concept of
generativity versus stagnation.
Generativity is the ability to recreate or produce offspring.
Erikson, in his "Stage 7 - Middle Adulthood" uses the term to refer to a
person's ability to care for another. He relates it to parenting and social
responsibility. A person with generativity will not be self-centered. In
the middle years (35 to 65) a person is most concerned with creative
ind meaningful work and family issues.

According to Havinghurst, stagnation is the opposite state in which

the person will demonstrate self-absorption.
Explain how ego and id interact and state
the theories based on the id and ego.
The id is the component of the personality most concerned with primitive instincts
such as hunger, sex, and aggression and is not concerned with the consequences
of actions.

The ego is the personality component responsible for balancing the id and the
superego or conscience. The ego has most immediate control over behavior and is
most concerned with external reality.

The id and ego, along with the superego are one part of Freud's theory of
personality. He believed people are born with an id, which helps the baby get it
needs met By the age of three, the child begins to develop an ego.

Based on the reality principle, the ego meets the needs of the id while taking the
child's reality into consideration.
For the following theorists, list the theory associated
with them and their view of human nature:
• Rogers
• Berne
• Freud
• Ellis
• Perls
Rogers Person-Centered: People are essentially good and under the right
conditions will move themselves toward self-actualization.

Berne - Transactional Analysis: Each person has the 3 ego states of parent, adult
and child.

Freud - Psychoanalysis: Biological instincts and development through psychosexual

stages control people.

Ellis - Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy: A person's instincts are both rational and
irrational, but different reactions can be taught

Perls - Gestalt: People are whole and complete but are affected by their
environment Learning and change result from how a person organizes experience.
Define the terms:
• EDMR
• Umwelt, Mitwelt & Eigenwelt
• Parroting
• Paraphrasing
• Summarization
• Bibliotherapy
• Musterbations
• awfulizations.
EDMR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) - an information processing therapy that
uses an eight phase approach to reduce the emotional stress of a distressing event or memory.

Umwelt, Mitwelt & Eigenwelt - in Existential philosophy the three components of the conscious
experience of being alive –
• Umwelt is biological
• Mitwelt is social
• Eigenwelt is psychological.

Parroting - the counselor repeats what the client has said. Paraphrasing - the counselor rephrases what
the client has said.

Summarization - the counselor sums up or reviews what has happened in a session or in the course of
the therapy.

Bibliotherapy - the use of books or other written material as part of therapy.

Musterbations - absolutist thinking by the client - the use of "musts, shoulds, and oughts."

Awfulizations - looking at a situation or anticipating an event with irrational beliefs about how awful or
difficult it is.
For the following theorists, list the theory associated
with them and their view of human nature:
• Glasser
• Adler
• Jung
• Skinner
• Frankl
• Williamson
Glasser - Reality Therapy: People have physical needs such as food and shelter plus the need
to feel worthwhile and be successful.

Adler - Individual Psychology: People are essential good. Birth order determines much of a
person's behavior.

Jung - Analytic Psychology: People strive for self-fulfillment.

Skinner - Behavioral/Cognitive Behavioral Modification: Humans are machines that cannot

make free-will decisions. Behavior is learned from a person's environment and the
reinforcement he receives from others.

Frankl - Existential: People are good and rational, and have the freedom to choose their
behavior.

Williamson - Trait-factor: The potential for both good and bad is innate.