Reflections on Two Major Developmental Issues

1. Reflections on Two Major Developmental Issues • Any survey of developmental psychology must consider three points • How development is controlled though interactions of genes and experiences • Whether development is a gradual continuous process or a series of distinct stages • Whether development is characterized more by stability over time or by change

2. Continuity and Stages • Researchers who emphasize experience and learning see development as one slow, continuous process • Those who emphasize biological maturation tend to see development as a series of distinct steps • Caterpillar -> Chrysalis -> Butterfly • Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Erik Erikson propose that such stages do exist • However there are speculations that these stages do not exist • Some children have been found or attributed with characteristics not found in their own respective stages but of older stages

3. Stability and Change • Another point theorizing on development psychology is: Stability or change • Evidence have been found on both causes • Personalities are usually constant and stabilizes over time • And • Life is a process of change and of becoming

4. Researcher’s Agreement • Researchers have though come to an agreement to the following points: • The first two years provide a poor basis in predicting a person’s eventual traits. • Delinquent children have been found to turn out to be successful adults regardless of their past habits • As time goes on, personalities stabilize • Characteristics such as temperament are more stable than others such as social attitudes • Research on 1000 New Zealanders from age 3 to 26; have found out that there is a consistency of temperament and emotionality across time. Thus coming to a conclusion that there is stability within temperament and emotionality alike • In ways more than one, all people change with age • Shy, fearful babies begin opening up at the age of 4 • People become calmer, more self-disciplined, understandable, and confident after adolescence • 20 year old goof offs have turned into 40 year old business leaders or cultural leaders • A hard driving teenager’s determination may weaken as time goes by, yet later still be a relatively hard driven elder