Psychology Class free essay sample

Life span perspective helps us to know about other people and developmental nature and changes during their lifetime. It focuses on how individual process and carry out the movement and evolution throughout their lives along with the change. Lifespan perspective is multidirectional and development is also multidimensional. Life span perspective is not unidirectional and is focused on the experience, observation and experiment. Human development is plastic in nature and its main characteristics are development and change (Berger, 2008). There are two theories of lifespan perspective development: 1. Erik Erikson’s theory 2. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis. Both of these theories focus towards the internal drives and crisis due to management and internal conflicts. Freud treated his patients and discovered that their problem were as the outcomes of experiences they had in their early life (Berger, 2008). He analyzed that as children proceed further in their developmental stage, their focus drifts from mouth to the anus and then finally to the genitals. We will write a custom essay sample on Psychology Class or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Freud in his theory discovered the three most important stages in development of a child including oral, phallic and anal and are characterized by taking an erotic nature. The initial stage is oral stage which focuses on the mouth. During initial childhood time, the anal become the erotic center while during the preschool year’s penis and phallic stage is the erotic center. He also states that phallic stage produces envy in girls and pride in boys. He concluded that reaction of their parents to child erotic drives create a deep and ever-lasting effect on the lifelong development and the personality of an individual (Berger, 2008). According to Feud, first and foremost motivation for behavior of a human being is sexual in nature however Erikson theory accepts the reason behind it to be social and shows a desire to affiliate with other human being. Freud theory focuses that our basic personality is molded during the early five years of life but Erikson theory states that, developmental change can occur in short stages all along the life span of an individual. Freud gives early experience more priority than later experience while Erikson laid more importance to both later as well as the experiences that occur in the early stages of life. In Erikson’s theory, he considered life as eight stages of development. At every stage, a unique and rare task of development is being faced by the individual with a crisis which must be faced and solved (Berger, 2008). The more successfully an individual resolve the crisis, the healthier their development will be. Erik Erikson’s theory focuses on how parental response, society, cultural patterns and history alters the stages of growth during childhood development. He also focuses on the exchange of development in human psyche in childhood and its social influence. He had a strong belief that psychological crisis enhances the development and growth all along the eight important stages of development. Heredity and environment has a great effect on the development. They influence the individuals from birth throughout their life time (Berger, 2008). They both constantly influence on development. There are various ways in which individuals are affected by environment. Environment and gene are related to each other. In human being have gene in their DNA which gets affected by the environment. If there is no gene, then there is no behavior and without an environment, none of the gene is able to express. Berger’s theory states that nature is something that is focused on the traits which are being inherited and nurture refers to external affects which influence the individual from the birth of an individual and throughout his lifespan (Berger, 2008). The interaction of nurture and nature both have an influence on the individual. The exchange of initial experiences and various experience and situation along with worldly accepted tendencies of culture and whole human race come together to create dynamic nature of the individual. Biological and genetic situations also have a deeper effect on an individual (Kempler, 2001). According to Berger, genes plays an important role as it affects every stage of human behavior including cognitive and social behavior, influence of environment on children which live in same home are not shared. So, both environmental influence and intrinsic states modify and affect the development. The genetics exchange along with the surrounding predicts the way of changes occur and the way by which these changes affect the individual and affect its development. So, heredity and environment play an important role in one’s life span development. References Berger, K. S. (2008). The developing person through the life span (7th ed. ). New York: Worth Publishers Kempler, B. (2001). Jung Society of Atlanta Resilience of the Human Spirit. Jung Society of Atlanta Provides fellowship amp; education relating to the work of Carl Jung. Retrieved December 16, 2010, from http://www. jungatlanta. com/resilience. html