The Stage Development Theory

By Timothy Sarmiento and Harpreet Kaur

 

 

Piaget's Stage Theory of Development

Piaget was among other things, a psychologist who was interested in cognitive development. After observation of many children, he posited that children progress through 4 stages and that they all do so in the same order. These four stages are described below.

 

The Sensorimotor Period (birth to 2 years)

During this time, Piaget said that a child's cognitive system is limited to motor reflexes at birth, but the child builds on these reflexes to develop more sophisicated procedures. They learn to generalize their activities to a wider range of situations and coordinate them into increasingly lengthy chains of behaviour.

 

PreOperational Thought (2 to 6 or 7 years)

At this age, according to Piaget, children acquire representational skills in the areas mental imagery, and especially language. They are very self-oriented, and have an egocentric view; that is, preoperational chldren can use these representational skills only to view the world from their own perspective.

 

Concrete Operations (6/7 to 11/12)

As opposed to Preoperational children, children in the concrete operations stage are able to take another's point of view and take into account more than one perspective simultaneously. They can also represent transformations as well as static situations. Although they can understand concrete problems, Piaget would argue that they cannot yet perform on abstract problems, and that they do not consider all of the logically possible outcomes.

 

Formal Operations (11/12 to adult)

Children who attain the formal operation stage are capable of thinking logically and abstractly. They can also reason theoretically. Piaget considered this the ultimate stage of development, and stated that although the children would still have to revise their knowledge base, their way of thinking was as powerful as it would get.

 

This is from http://penta.ufrgs.br/edu/telelab/3/piaget%27s.htm

 

 

 

A SUMMARY OF LAWRENCE KOHLBERG'S
STAGES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Lawrence Kohlberg was, for many years, a professor at Harvard University. He became famous for his work there beginning in the early 1970s. He started as a developmental psychologist and then moved to the field of moral education. He was particularly well-known for his theory of moral development which he popularized through research studies conducted at Harvard's Center for Moral Education.

His theory of moral development was dependent on the thinking of the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget and the American philosopher John Dewey. He was also inspired by James Mark Baldwin. These men had emphasized that human beings develop philosophically and psychologically in a progressive fashion.

Kohlberg believed...and was able to demonstrate through studies...that people progressed in their moral reasoning (i.e., in their bases for ethical behavior) through a series of stages. He believed that there were six identifiable stages which could be more generally classified into three levels.

Kohlberg's classification can be outlined in the following manner:

    LEVEL           STAGE             SOCIAL ORIENTATION

Pre-conventional      1            Obedience and Punishment

                      2         Individualism, Instrumentalism,

                                        and Exchange

  Conventional        3                "Good boy/girl"

                      4                 Law and Order

Post-conventional     5                Social Contract

                      6              Principled Conscience

The first level of moral thinking is that generally found at the elementary school level. In the first stage of this level, people behave according to socially acceptable norms because they are told to do so by some authority figure (e.g., parent or teacher). This obedience is compelled by the threat or application of punishment. The second stage of this level is characterized by a view that right behavior means acting in one's own best interests.

The second level of moral thinking is that generally found in society, hence the name "conventional." The first stage of this level (stage 3) is characterized by an attitude which seeks to do what will gain the approval of others. The second stage is one oriented to abiding by the law and responding to the obligations of duty.

The third level of moral thinking is one that Kohlberg felt is not reached by the majority of adults. Its first stage (stage 5) is an understanding of social mutuality and a genuine interest in the welfare of others. The last stage (stage 6) is based on respect for universal principle and the demands of individual conscience. While Kohlberg always believed in the existence of Stage 6 and had some nominees for it, he could never get enough subjects to define it, much less observe their longitudinal movement to it.

Kohlberg believed that individuals could only progress through these stages one stage at a time. That is, they could not "jump" stages. They could not, for example, move from an orientation of selfishness to the law and order stage without passing through the good boy/girl stage. They could only come to a comprehension of a moral rationale one stage above their own. Thus, according to Kohlberg, it was important to present them with moral dilemmas for discussion which would help them to see the reasonableness of a "higher stage" morality and encourage their development in that direction. The last comment refers to Kohlberg's moral discussion approach. He saw this as one of the ways in which moral development can be promoted through formal education. Note that Kohlberg believed, as did Piaget, that most moral development occurs through social interaction. The discussion approach is based on the insight that individuals develop as a result of cognitive conflicts at their current stage.

This is from http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/kohlberg.html

 

Psychosocial Theory: Erikson

The Epigenetic Psychosexual Stages

Erikson believed that childhood is very important in personality development. He accepted many of Freud's theories, including the id, ego, and superego, and Freud's theory of infantile sexuality. But Erikson rejected Freud's attempt to describe personality solely on the basis of sexuality, and, unlike Freud, felt that personality continued to develop beyond five years of age.

All of the stages in Erikson's epigenetic theory are implicitly present at birth (at least in latent form), but unfold according to both an innate scheme and one's up-bringing in a family that expresses the values of a culture. Each stage builds on the preceding stages, and paves the way for subsequent stages. Each stage is characterized by a psychosocial crisis, which is based on physiological development, but also on demands put on the individual by parents and/or society. Ideally, the crisis in each stage should be resolved by the ego in that stage, in order for development to proceed correctly. The outcome of one stage is not permanent, but can be altered by later experiences. Everyone has a mixture of the traits attained at each stage, but personality development is considered successful if the individual has more of the "good" traits than the "bad" traits.

Ego Psychology

Erikson's theory of ego psychology holds certain tenets that differentiate his theory from Freud's. Some of these include:

• The ego is of utmost importance.
• Part of the ego is able to operate independently of the id and the superego.
• The ego is a powerful agent that can adapt to situations, thereby promoting
• mental health.
• Social and sexual factors both play a role in personality development.

Erikson's theory was more comprehensive than Freud's, and included information about "normal" personality as well as neurotics. He also broadened the scope of personality to incorporate society and culture, not just sexuality. Criticisms of his theories, in addition to the factors discussed in class, have noted that he did no statistical research to generate his theories, and it is very hard to test his theories in order to validate them.

Zones, Modes, and Modalities

"a" "b" and "c" identify the oral, anal, and gential zones, respectively; and numbers "1" through "5" pertain to the passive and active incorporative, the retentive and eliminative, and the intrusive modes, respectively.

Erikson's illustration of "the interplay of one zone with all the modes" (1950, p. 73ff.) by means of circles and arrows is among the most confusing moments in his book. Here are the diagrams (Erikson, 1950, p. 89), at the point male and female development are said to diverge in locomotor/intrusive/"phallic"/Oedipal Stage 3:

Each cell of the diagram represents a child at some moment of zone-mode interaction.

Note that the dark-bordered, stair-case-like, trend of developmet for the boy (Figure 4) is turned back in the case of the girl (Figure 5), but that each has the other's dominent mode in latent (dotted-border) form. The boy seems to give up much of his incorporativeness, and the girl much of her intrusiveness, at the fourth level (i.e., early in the "Initiative/Guilt" stage).

Here are the concepts in chart form
(You should be able to reproduce and explain each column)

Here's an expanded chart (extrapolating from Erikson) that may help as you use Erikson for the essay final.

Stage 1 - Basic Trust vs. Mistrust

• Developing trust is the first task of the ego, and it is never complete.
• The child will let mother out of sight without anxiety and rage because she has become an inner certainty as well as an outer predictability.
• The balance of trust with mistrust depends largely on the quality of maternal relationship.

Stage 2 - Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

• If denied autonomy, the child will turn against him/herself urges to manipulate and discriminate.
• Shame develops with the child's self-consciousness.
• Doubt has to do with having a front and back -- a "behind" subject to its own rules. Left over doubt may become paranoia.
• The sense of autonomy fostered in the child and modified as life progresses serves the preservation in economic and political life of a sense of justice.

Stage 3 - Initiative vs. Guilt

• Initiative adds to autonomy the quality of undertaking, planning, and attacking a task for the sake of being active and on the move.
• The child feels guilt over the goals contemplated and the acts initiated in exuberant enjoyment of new locomoter and mental powers.
• The castration complex occuring in this stage is due to the child's erotic fantasies.
• A residual conflict over initiative may be expressed as hysterical denial, which may cause the repression of the wish or the abrogation of the child's ego: paralysis and inhibition, or overcompensation and showing off.
• The Oedipal stage results not only in oppressive establishment of a moral sense restricting the horizon of the permissible, but also sets the direction towards the possible and the tangible which permits dreams of early childhood to be attached to goals of an active adult life.

After Stage 3, one may use the whole repetoire of previous modalities, modes, and zones for industrious, identity-maintaining, intimate, legacy-producing, dispair-countering purposes.

Stage 4 - Industry vs. Inferiority

• To bring a productive situation to completion is an aim which gradually supersedes the whims and wishes of play.
• The fundamentals of technology are developed
• To lose the hope of such "industrious" association may pull the child back to the more isolated, less conscious familial rivalry of the Oedipal time
• The child can become a conformist and thoughtless slave whom others exploit.

Stage 5 - Identity vs. Role Confusion (or "Diffusion")

• The adolescent is newly concerned with how they appear to others.
• Ego identity is the accrued confidence that the inner sameness and continuity prepared in the past are matched by the sameness and continuity of one's meaning for others, as evidenced in the promise of a career.
• The inability to settle on a school or occupational identity is disturbing.

Stage 6 - Intimacy vs. Isolation

• Body and ego must be masters of organ modes and of the other nuclear conflicts in order to face the fear of ego loss in situations which call for self-abandon.
• The avoidance of these experiences leads to isolation and self-absorption.
• The counterpart of intimacy is distantiation, which is the readiness to isolate and destroy forces and people whose essence seems dangerous to one's own.
• Now true genitality can fully develop.
• The danger at this stage is isolation which can lead to sever character problems.

Erikson's listed criteria for "genital utopia" illustrate his insistence on the role of many modes and modalities in harmony:

• mutuality of orgasm
• with a loved partner
• of opposite sex
• with whom one is willing and able to share a trust, and
• with whom one is willing and able to regulate the cycles of work, procreation, and recreation
• so as to secure to the offspring all the stages of satisfactory development

Stage 7 - Generativity vs. Stagnation

• Generativity is the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation.
• Simply having or wanting children doesn't achieve generativity.
• Socially-valued work and disciples are also expressions of generativity.

Stage 8 - Ego Integrity vs. Despair

• Ego integrity is the ego's accumulated assurance of its capacity for order and meaning.
• Despair is signified by a fear of one's own death, as well as the loss of self-sufficiency, and of loved partners and friends.
• Healthy children, Erikson tells us, won't fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.

 

From http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/erikson.stages.html