Moy Development Theory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melissa Moy

September 9, 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FRCD 3213

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                Many people have come up with their own theories of child development.  These people include Piaget, Freud, and many others.  These theories don’t account for all of the things that happen in life. I have developed my own ideas on life development. 

A person’s development is based on a number of principles.  The first is the environmental factors.  These include family, peers, and community pressures that a person may come in contact with.  According to Stameroff’s Dynamic Systems Theory, a person goes through morphogenisis, or growth and adaptation to internal and external changes. According to Stameroff’s these changes include school, marriage, divorce, social values, and social ills. (Hetherington and Parke, p. 25). Stamerhoff neglects to mention that this person is able to alter the environment that he is a part of or that they are an active participant. 

            Stameroff believes that development is continuous, or without stages. I agree with this point, but like the life-span perspective states I believe that at all ages the individual is susceptible to change, not just children (p. 28). An older person is just as likely to be changed by the death of a parent as a child.  Although it is more likely that the older person will perceive it differently. 

            As someone develops he becomes like others around the world, but he is a product of his culture.  For example, like others he learns to control his emotions and bodily functions, but because of his culture he learns a certain language and follows and certain code of ethics.  Stameroff calls this equifinity, where family across different societies and cultures share common characteristics, yet the particular customs of culture dictate different expressions of these characteristics.

            Divorce is a good example of development.  My parents just recently divorced and the process did have an effect on me.  Most would have thought that I would have had a hard time with my parents slitting up, but I didn’t.  This is because I was active in the way that I reacted to the information.  Instead of being upset that I wouldn’t see my family together again, I thought of the pain that my parents would avoid by this separation.  My view of marriage was altered, though.  I don’t view marriage as the unity of two people forever, anymore.  Therefore, what happened to my parents may alter my marriage in the future. 

Others in my family didn’t take the information so well.  One of my siblings stopped talking to everyone in the family for nearly a month.  She didn’t like the idea of her parents finding someone else and starting new families.  It made her feel less important to her parents. She didn’t react to the information the same way as I did and it caused her more pain.  Therefore, we are active participants in our development because we can use our own views to react to an environment and change the environment as well.