Psychology

Development theories in psychology are known to provide a structure for thinking about the growth, learning and development of an individual or human being.  Three well-known development theories in psychology include Freuds Theory of Psychosexual Development, Eriksons Theory of Psychosocial Development and Piagets Theory of Cognitive Development. Sigmund Freud introduced the theory of psychosexual development which states that the development of personality of a human being is focused or centered on the impacts of the drive of sexual pleasure on the mind or the psyche (Ewen, 2003). He claimed that an individual is specifically perceptive to erotic and sexual stimulation.

Meanwhile, Erik Eriksons theory of psychosocial development is composing of eight stages through which a human being must undergo from infancy to late adulthood. In every stage, the individual is known to confront and eventually masters new challenges (Hutchison, 2003). The challenges faced on every stage by an individual, if not successfully accomplished, could reemerge as a problem in the future.

The theory of cognitive development initiated by Jean Piaget has four stages and was primarily aimed at studying the development of intelligence of human beings. According to this theory, intelligence is considered as the fundamental mechanism of maintaining the balance of relationship between a person and his environment (Kail and Cavanaugh, 2008). The theory has four stages or periods to attain the cognitive development of an individual. Child development is also outlined in these three theories through their stated stages. As such, these theories can be considered to be interrelated since they affect various aspects of development of a child like physical, emotional and cognitive development.

The Course of Human Development
Development is defined as the regular changes occurring in an individual between his conception and death. The course of human development covers three aspects namely (1) Physical Development  which refers to the development of the body including its organs, the performance of physiological systems, aging, transformation of motor abilities and other changes that would be attributed to the growth of an individual (2) Cognitive Development  refers to the changes in the manner of speaking a language, memory, perception, learning, problem solving skills and other processes related to mentality and (3) Psychosocial development  Evident changes in a persons interpersonal aspects like personality traits, motives, relationships, interpersonal skills and roles played in the immediate family and in the society. Meanwhile, the periods of a typical life span of a human being starts at the prenatal period, infancy, preschool period, middle childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood.

Key Concepts of the Three Developmental Theories
Freuds theory of psychosexual development was presented by means of explaining the stages that outline the psychological requisites in the development of an individuals sexual attitudes and behaviors. The theory was considered a crucial factor in the later theories of Sigmund Freud like the sexual drive theory which stated that from the birth of a human being, he or she have innate sexual appetites or libido which can be unfold through a number  of stages. By strongly believing that sexuality and personality are developed simultaneously, the following stages were created by Freud to represent his theory (1) Self-love  This is the first stage of the theory of psychosexual development introduced by Sigmund Freud which is described as the concentration of an individual to his or her own self that starts from infancy until reaching four to five years. Individual attitudes are formed in this stage of development such as involvement, tenderness and self-concern. This stage of development is also characterized with the constant need of a child to experience love by means of frequent physical contact with people close to him or her that highly contribute to the development of the attitudes mentioned earlier. In this sense, love can be express to a child by means of showing him or her feelings of security and comfort which will develop positive emotional attitudes. These attitudes, will, in the long run, allow the child to express and feel love and show concern for other people (2) Parental Identification  Roles on sexuality were identified in this stage which normally begins between the ages of five and six. Close relationship or contact with an adult of similar sex is vital during this stage of development according to Sigmund Freud. The adult becomes a role model for the child by means of demonstrating the proper sexual role of a man or woman in the society or thinking of a child. A number of theorists believed that the failure to recognize the task associated with this stage of psychosexual development result to homosexuality and (3) Gang  This stage of psychosexual development is easily identified throughout the elementary school years of a child wherein each sex have a tendency to avoid the other. Sigmund Freud coined this stage as the latency period because of his belief that few things occurred in the sexual life of a child at this time but they are increasingly engage in more experiments related to sex. The gang period also supports a child in terms of learning to cooperate and reinforce feminine and masculine roles (Bruess and Greenberg, 2004). These are the key concepts associated with the psychosexual development theory represented by its various stages introduced by Sigmund Freud.

Unconscious motivation is playing a crucial role in the theory of human behavior of Sigmund Freud. According to Sigmund Freud and his avid followers, majority of the behavior of humans are a result of impulses, memories and desires that are known to be repressed in the unconscious circumstances but still influence human actions. Freud highly considered the human mind as consisting of a tiny, conscious part available for direct or human observation including the larger portion of the human mind that is subconscious that is playing a more fundamental role in the determination of human behavior (Greenwood, 2008) The term known as Freudian slip is referred to as the demonstration of these unconscious impulses. For instance, an individual who replies Bad to meet you instead of the normal Glad to meet you could be revealing his or her true feelings. The replacement of the word bad for the word glad is more than a slip of the tongue as it is considered a human expression or unconscious feelings of dislike or fear (Person, Cooper and Gabbard, 2005).  In the same way, a gifted athlete who plays an unexpectedly poor showing on a game could be acting on an unconscious desire to punish inattentive parents. Unknown to the athlete, the inferior performance is actually communicating an imperative message. Freud also argued that desires and memories that are repressed are the sources of majority of mental disorders. Psychoanalysis was developed as a way of giving assistance to patients in addressing their unconscious thoughts to consciousness. The assistance will then be delivered to the patient by way of guiding the patient in altering aspects of his undesired behavior.

Some psychologists argued that a significant part of the behavior of humans is driven and stimulated motives that are unconscious. Abraham Maslow, for instance, stated that psychoanalysis has often disclosed that there should not be any connection between an eventual unconscious aim and a conscious desire. Putting this perspective differently, established motives do not always need to conform to those assumed by expert observers. For example, an individual can probably be prone to accident because of his or her unconscious desire to harm himself and not because of being unaware to safe rules. To be specific, most people who are obese are not really hungry for food but for love and attention. As such, eating is known as a defensive response to the lack of attention. Everything that is happening in the mind of an individual and every action of an individual has an identifiable and specific cause known as psychic determinism (Greenwood, 2008). Psychoanalytic theory provides no room for free will, miracles or accidents. Accordingly, all known contradictions of behavior and mind can be resolved as psychoanalysts believed that nothing is accidental (for instance, it is not accidental when an individual forget the name of someone, drop something, do things and say things). As such, psychoanalysis was introduced to be able to give meanings to the hidden causes of human actions, provide conscious understanding and find resolutions to the cause of these unconscious behaviors.

Freud utilized the method of free associations during the period of 1892 to1898, beginning from a number of criteria. The technique was to change the use of hypnosis in the investigation of neurotic antecedents in his patients.To be specific, this process relied on the idea ofpsychic determinism (Cox, 1988). According to this perspective, psychic activity is not subordinated to free choice instead all our mind generates an root that is unconscious which people can achieve by means of free associations, following the model offered by the saying all roads lead to Rome. The theory ofpsychic determinismis sufficiently debated upon in the works of Sigmund Freud entitled ThePsychopathology of Everyday Life. It is in the same place that people find a number of instances offree associationsassociated to a variety of faulty and symptomatic acts (like Freudianmistakes and slips), proving that unintentional psychic acts are determined by specific causes too. Returning tothe idea of free associations, it can be said that this technique is the main standard of the psychoanalytic therapy.

Key concepts of Erik Eriksons theory of psychosocial development include the theorys eight developmental stages, that psychosocial development is supported by resolving crises and the view that the development of an individuals identity is significant in his or her overall development. This theory created a structure for the purpose of understanding the usual patterns of psychosocial development. In the like manner, the theory asserted that development is evident throughout the lifespan of people. Erikson clearly established eight developmental stages to effectively describe the theory of psychosocial development that is summarized by the resolution of a crisis in a given stage to be able to move up to the next stage of the theory. During the stage of infancy or the first year of life, Erikson theorized that trust versus mistrust is the main crisis to be resolved by the individual. Meanwhile, the second year of life or the toddler stage (2 to 3 years of age) was primarily labeled as autonomy versus shame and doubt and the preschool stage (3 to 5 years of age) as initiative versus guilt. The elementary school or childhood stage was known as the battle between competence and inferiority. As the child move to the adolescent stage, he or she face the conflict between identity and role confusion, the senses of intimacy versus isolation in the young adulthood stage, the clash between generativity and despair and finally, the sense of integrity versus despair in the senior age. According to Erik Erikson, individual strengths and virtues emerge when an individual passed the crisis associated with each stage. As a result, the psychologist was also able to offer eight fundamental virtues that he believed will arise out of emerging from the crisis related to each stage of the theory of psychosocial development and they are hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care and wisdom, in that order (Cross, 2005).

Erik Erikson was known as a psychoanalyst and developmental psychologist known for his theory on social development of human beings. He was a follower of Freudian theory but extended his particular emphasis on the ego as the main component on the functioning of an individual. The psychosocial theory pioneered by Erik Erikson had provided a significant impact on the study of the processes of development because his theory was formulated to address development across the entire life span of an individual (Greenwood, 2008). As a result, Erikson is regarded as the first life-span developmental psychologist in his time. He begun by expanding the network of factors behind human development without regressing from the primary assumptions developed by Sigmund Freud. According to him, psychological development is a result of the interaction or relationship between or among biological needs and maturational processes including the demands of the society and the social forces experienced in everyday life (Salkind, 2004).

Cognitive development theory proposed by Jean Piaget specifically stressed the significance of knowledge and how it is transforming an individuals logic, problem solving and reasoning skills. According to the theory, each organism endeavors to be able to achieve equilibrium or the balance among organized frameworks whether sensory, motor or cognitive. Consequently, disequilibrium subsist every time changes in the organism or the environment necessitates the revision of the basic structure. Jean Piaget exerted efforts for the theory of cognitive development by turning its focus on the establishment of schemes (referring to the organization or framework of action in thought) and operations (which are the mental manipulations of concepts and schemes) which are combined to generate logical and systematic structures for the comprehension and analysis of experience and on how equilibrium is realized within the operations and schemes. Achieving equilibrium is appreciated by means of process called adaptation (Newman and Newman, 2008). This process has the power of altering existing operations and schemes with the goal of accounting to changes or differences between what is known and what is being experienced by an individual. In effect, the theory of cognitive development was able to generate four stages where every stage has the distinctive capacity of sorting and interpreting information. The first stage, known as sensorimotor intelligence, begins at the time of birth of an individual and lasts until the 18 months of age. This initial stage is described by the establishment of increasingly complex motor and sensory schemes allowing an infant to exercise and organize control over his or her environment. Preoperational thought is the second stage of the theory of cognitive development stating that the child starts learning a language and ends at approximately the age of five and six (Newman and Newman, 2008). This stage is characterized by the development of the tools needed by children to represent schemes with the use of a language, imagery, imitation, symbolic drawing and symbolic play which evidently suggest that their knowledge is still dependent to the way they view the world or their perceptions. Meanwhile, the concrete operational thought or the third stage begins at around the age of 6 and 7 and ends in the early adolescence stage of a child. This phase of the theory of cognitive development is depicted by the appreciation of children of the coherent necessity of definite causal relationships with their capacity of manipulating classification systems, categories, and hierarchies in teams. Lastly, formal operational thought is the fourth and final stage of the theory stating that the level of thinking of a person allows him or her to conceptualize simultaneous and interacting variables which begin when reaching adolescence and persists through adulthood.

Lifespan Characteristics based on the Three Theories
The three theories of development presented in this paper are similarly affecting the overall development of a child. To be specific, children are known to develop cognitively by progressing through the several developmental stages presented by Jean Piaget through the theory of cognitive development while a childs social development is intimately tied with his emotional development which is the main theme of both psychosexual and psychosocial theories of development of Freud and Erikson, respectively. In other words, the three theories interact on every stages of life of a person in a simultaneous or in a separate manner that determines his or her overall development. The interactions of these theories provide a positive environment for the child as they learn the importance of trusting their family members. Since every theory has several stages, the cognitive, emotional and physical aspects of a child are expected to develop in the long run when considering the factor of following the process of development of each phase of life of a typical human being. In particular, the theory of cognitive development itself could affect the performance of a child in school with the improvement of his or her intelligence. Likewise, the theory of psychosexual development affects the emotional and physical development of a child which can be achieve in the long term lifespan of an individual since physical improvements are expected to be generated. Finally, the psychosocial development theory provides the needed emotional maturity of an individual throughout life periods wherein the experiences faced by a person shaped overall development. These set of interactions of the mentioned theories highly influence the cognitive, physical, and emotional development of a child.