Human Development
A June 30, 2005 Lecture by Gordon Vessels, Ed.D.
INTRODUCTION:
Certainly we change from the moment of conception until our last breath, but do we continually
develop? Even physical development cannot be viewed as an automatic, genetically determined process
of growth unless the needed environment supports are there including adequate nutrition. I recall seeing
the dramatic physical differences between persons who were sent out of Vietnam as young children and
raised in the U.S. by relatives or adoptive parents, and their siblings who did not leave and who were
raised without a comparable level of nutrition and health care in Vietnam. You would never have guessed
they were siblings if you did not know since the American-raised siblings towered over their brothers and
sisters and appeared younger. So let’s put to rest right away the notion that development is automatic.
With respect to other forms of development, particularly personality and social-emotional, I have
seen many cases where development apparently halted at a point for some reason and never resumed.
Take as an example the “adult” male who is only interested in teenage girls or the married adult male who
feels compelled to imprison his wife because he cannot allow her to show any interest in other men even
on a casual level. The latter suggests a level of friendship development that is typical of young teens but
not most older teens; the former suggests that the person may not have been successful in relating to the
opposite sex as a teenager and/or that he fled from challenges that Robert Havighurst and Erik Erikson
would have seen as necessary in order for him to continue developing normally. Recall from the lecture
on perception that a person’s visual-perceptual potential is never realized if they experience significant
sensory deprivation as an infant and toddler. So development occurs in a social-environment context, and
this context and the individual’s experiences and successes within it, irrespective of who might be
responsible, influence (a) whether or not, (b) to what degree, (c) and how smoothly development occurs.
Various theorists account for this better than others such as Martin Hoffman (2000) with his
inductive discipline encounters, Diana Baumrind’s (1967) types of parenting, Erik Erikson’s and
Sigmund Freud’s explanations of personality problems, Vygotsky’s (1989) implications with respect to
the effects of inadequate instructional scaffolding on knowledge and skill acquisition, Mary Ainsworth’s
(1978) and Jonathan Bowlby’s (1982) ethological studies of mother-infant attachment or lack thereof, and
the central proposition our ecological theorists including Urie Bronfenbrenner. It might even be
reasonable to say that the best of our developmental researchers and theorists explain both the normal
course of development under conditions of adequate support, and related causes of abnormal
development. Both parents and teachers need to have a sense of both and need to know what to do to
foster the former and prevent the latter.
REVIEW OF PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTIONS:
A. Keep in mind as you read through this information that there are philosophical assumptions that
underlie development theories, and they vary from theory to theory.1 Below, I’m listing dichotomies
that will help us to pinpoint the philosophical assumptions that underlie each scientific theory of
development. As you read through these, ask yourself if I took philosophical positions in my
introduction to this lecture, and be on the alert as you read further as to the theorists that share my
assumptions, or vise versa, and ask yourself if I should have allowed myself to conclude they are on
the right track.
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I will be shifting back and forth between types of theories, which can be categorized as cognitive, biological,
behavioral, etc., and domains of development, which will be identified in the next section.
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1. Free will vs. Determinism or Active Agent vs. Passive Organism: Is the free will to make choices
an illusion? Are we completely shaped by genetic and environmental events? Are we active
agents who direct, shape, and control our own development and destiny?
2. Nature vs. Nurture or Stability vs. Placticity: To what extent are we a product of our genetic
inheritance ("nature") or a product of our experiences ("nurture")? Are people essentially
programmed by their heredity and evolutionary past or can they be effectively shaped by others
through intentional acts?
3. Unconscious vs. Conscious Motivation: Is much or all of our behavior and determined by
unconscious factors? Or is little or none so determined? How much of our behavior is
determined by conscious forces?
4. Uniqueness vs. Universality: Are we each unique, or will psychology eventually discover laws
that explain all our behavior and our seemingly unique combinations of personal traits?
5. Physiological vs. Purposive Motivation: Are we more "pushed" by physiological needs? Are we
more "pulled" by our perceptions, knowledge, virtues, higher-level needs, and personal goals,
values, and principles?
6. Cultural Determinism vs. Cultural Transcendence: Do our cultures shape and control? Can we
rise above or transcend cultural influences? This repeats the free-will question with specific
reference to environmental as culture.
7. Continuous vs. Discontinuous Growth — Can development be characterized as a gradual change
process, or does it present sudden, distinct bursts of change and/or sudden delays or permanent
arrests? Some theorists view development as a continuous process. In contrast, stage theories
assume that development is discontinuous and involves periodic qualitative milestone changes.
DOMAINS OF DEVELOPMENT:
A. I have looked at the contents of many developmental psychology textbooks and have yet to find one
that does what I feel is an adequate job of identifying all domains of development and treating them
as equally important. For the last ten years I have stressed the importance of addressing all domains
of development in our schools, as first called for by M.D. James Comer and his School Development
Program. To do otherwise is to be foolish and to allow education to be other than child-centered, or
more accurately, developmental-need-centered. There are indeed needs that correspond to levels
within each of the nine domains listed below, and it is incumbent upon educators to be aware of (a)
the domains, (b) the apparent levels for each child within each domain, and (c) what they can do to
promote development by recognizing and addressing developmental needs associated with every level
of every domain. This may simply be the right kind of stimulation, the right kind of supervision, the
right amount of activity or freedom, or the most promising social grouping arrangement.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Physical-Maturational
Cognitive-Intellectual
Artistic-Creative
Linguistic-Communicative
Knowledge-Skill
Moral-Ethical
Social-Interpersonal
Personality-Individuality
Emotional-Affective
B. Major contributing researchers/theorists for each domain:
1. Physical-Maturational — Gesell
2
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Cognitive-Intellectual — Piaget, Damon
Artistic-Creative — Lowenfeld, Gardner, Torrance
Linguistic — Chomsky
Knowledge-Skill — Vygotsky, Damon
Moral-Ethical — Piaget, Kohlberg, Kagan, Hoffman, Damon
Social-Interpersonal — Youniss, Selman, Damon
Personality-Individuality — Freud, Erikson, Dowlby, Ainsworth
Emotional-Affective — Hoffman, Kagan, Erikson, Dowlby, Ainsworth
C. Descriptions of these theorists’ models:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Psychosexual Personality Development (Freud)
Psychosocial Personality Development (Erikson)
Developmental Tasks as Developmental Milestones (Havighurst)
Cognitive Development (Piaget)
Moral Reasoning Development (Kohlberg, Piaget, Havighurst)
Moral Emotion Development (Hoffman, Kagan)
Social-Conceptual Development (Damon, Selman, Youniss)
Scaffolded Knowledge and Skill Development (Vygotsky, Damon)
Ecological-Social Development (Bronfenbrenner)
Maturational-Biological Milestones (Gesell)
Ethological Personality-by-Attachment (Bowlby, Ainsworth)
COGNITIVE-INTELLECTUAL AND KNOWLEDGE-SKILL DEVELOPMENT:
A. Cognitive or intellectual development can be distinguished from knowledge-skill development.
Cognitive has to do with thinking and forms of information processing and perception that are
involved in different types of thinking and reasoning. Short-term memory and working memory
capacities, which are among the first processing abilities to reach full maturity, can be viewed as the
bridge between cognitive-intellectual and knowledge-skill areas of development. Long-term memory
is part of this bridge as well but is more centrally important to knowledge and skill acquisition. Many
motor skills require a prerequisite level of physical and sensory development as evidenced by the
visual scanning necessary for reading, scanning that a three year old cannot do and a six year old can
do. Many gross-motor and fine-motor skills also require a specific level of physical maturation. The
fact that we remember so little prior to age five suggests that sensory experiences and prerequisite
levels of physical and conceptual (categorization and beginning non-abstract concepts) apparently
need to be in place in order for us to formulate places, files, or schematic files where we can store
information long-term. I don’t claim to have a lot of knowledge in this area, but I do want to make
the point of a loose interconnectedness or interdependency among the domains of development.
B. I think it is interesting that in the many decades since Jean Piaget (1948, 1952) put together his theory
of cognitive development, no other theorist has contributed a viable competing theory, and no theorist
has carried his theory much beyond where he left it. Jerome Bruner went the furthest with his stages
of enactive, iconic, and symbolic representation of the world around us, and his constructivist,
discovery learning model that builds on Piaget. The mountains of research that Piaget’s theory has
generated largely support his original theory. Lev Vygotsky, who worked in Russia at the same time
Piaget was at work, is credited in some texts for addressing better than Piaget the issue of the social
and cultural context of development, that is, for considering external influences on cognitive
development. But for anyone who has read all that Piaget has had to say about development
including moral development, the conclusion that he failed to address external and social factors is
unfounded. His concepts of adaptation to the environment via assimilation, accommodation, and
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conceptual schemas (assimilation involves interpreting the environment based on existing schemas,
and accommodation involves the construction or reconstruction of schemas when novel information
requires) imply an interaction with the environment as does his extensive explanation of autonomy
(intrinsically driven goodness) and heteronomy (externally imposed goodness) and how relationships
with parents (adults) and peers bring about each. Vygotsky (1989) does address the adult-child or
teacher-learner relationship in more detail as this pertains to knowledge and skill development, and
defining this relationship as central to socialization and cultural transmission, but beyond his concept
of the “zone of proximal development” (things the learner is ready to learn with guidance in the form
of scaffolding, support gradually removed), he says nothing about qualitative changes in how children
think as they mature. Put the two theories together and you perhaps have a near complete theory of
mental growth complete with internal and external variables addressed.
1. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development: Piaget’s theory of cognitive development identifies
four stages marked by qualitatively different modes of thinking. Interaction with the environment
and maturation gradually alter the way children think.
a. Sensorimotor: The child begins to interact with the environment; coordination of sensory
input and motor responses; development of object permanence; begin to explore
environment; experience the world through the senses and exploration (looking, hearing,
touching, mouthing, etc.); object permanence; stranger anxiety
b. Pre-Operational: The child begins to represent the world symbolically; early symbolic
thought marked by irreversibility, concentration, and egocentrism; assume you know what
they know; cannot decenter; represent things with words and images but have no logical
reasoning abilities; pretend play; egocentrism; rapid language development.
c. Concrete Operational: Children learn rules such as game rules and the law of conservation,
and they take them very seriously; mental operations are applied to concrete events only;
mastery of conservation and hierarchical classification; cannot think abstractly; thinking
logically about concrete events; grasping concrete analogies and performing math operations;
conservation; mathematical transformations
d. Formal Operational: Mental operations are applied to abstract ideas; begin logical, systematic
thinking; imagine hypothetical events; manipulate symbols in their minds the adolescent can
transcend concrete situations and think about the future and their own thinking; abstract
reasoning; reflection; thinking about thinking; potential for moral reasoning
2. Vygotsky’s theory includes the following components:
a. Children’s cognitive development is heavily influenced by social and cultural factors via
relationships.
b. Children’s thinking develops through dialogues with more capable people, usually parents
and teachers.
c. The Zone of Proximal Development is the range of tasks a child cannot master alone. Even
though they may be close to having the necessary mental skills, they need guidance in order
to complete the tasks.
d. Scaffolding is a framework of temporary support. Adults help children learn how to think by
using scaffolding or by supporting their attempts to solve problems and discover principles.
Scaffolding must be responsive to children’s needs. Scaffolding involves changing the level
of support over the course of teaching something — the more skilled person/teacher adjusts
the amount of guidance to fit students’ current performance level.
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e. Language and Thought: young children use language to plan, guide, and monitor their
behavior in a self-regulatory fashion – Vygotsky called this “inner speech” or private speech.
3. Jean Piaget (1948, 1952), William Damon (1983, 1988), Robert Selman (1980, 1990), Martin
Hoffman (2000), Lawrence Kohlberg (1970, 1983), and Jerome Kagan (1984) have added to our
understanding of cognitive development by identifying qualitative changes in their concepts of
authority, fairness, self, justice, right and wrong, and perspective taking, etc., concepts related to
social-moral development, but concepts nonetheless.
ARTISTIC-CREATIVE:
A. Converging Perspectives on Creativity: Now that Robert Sternberg has included creative intelligence
as one of his three forms of intelligence along with analytical and practical, and Howard Gardner has
included among his eight types many that imply creative problem solving and imaginative selfexpression, we are likely to see in the near future researchers and theorists attempting to identify
qualitatively distinct stages of creative and artistic development. Gardner back in the seventies
published a book entitled The Arts and Human Development, but it did not lead to a stage model of
artistic development, at least not in the sense of Piaget’s cognitive stages or Kohlberg’s moral
reasoning stages. The study of creative thinking has in the past been an isolated area of study but one
that has received lots of attention from Paul Torrance and Sidney Parnes, and to a lesser extent
Guilford and Renzulli who are more interested in intelligence and gifted education, respectively.
Torrance and Parnes have not laid out a complete series of stages, but they have observed age-specific
changes such as the third-grade slump in creative fluency, flexibility, and originality. The work of
researchers such as Florence Goodenough who used children’s drawings to reflect conceptualcognitive development may also prove useful to those looking at stages of artistic and/or creative
development.
B. Lowenfeld’s Stages of Artistic Development: The one person I am aware of who has identified stages
of artistic development, with emphasis on visual art, is Lowenfeld. “Viktor Lowenfeld (1970)
emphasizes the unfolding character of the child’s developmental stages and urges teachers to avoid
intervening in the natural course of the child’s artistic expression. According the Lowenfeld, this
natural progression yields two differing orientations of the world. The ‘haptic’ person who relies
mainly on kinesthetic responses to the environment, and the ‘visually’ minded person who perceives
that world in a more literal way. He believes that these types are genetically determined. Lowenfeld’s
theory includes the idea that the child’s sensory perception of the world needs to be developed and
that the child’s imagination is developed through direct experiences. Lowenfeld’s most valuable
contribution to the study of child art is the concept of systematic creative and mental stages of
development through which individual children progress. He believes that a child’s artistic
development is both stage and age related. In his book Creative and Mental Growth, Lowenfeld
identifies these stages that children progress through as” (Grenfell, 1999):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The scribbling stage: 2 to 4 Years
The pre schematic stage: 4 to 7 Years
The schematic stage: 7 to 9 Years
The gang age: 9 to 12 Years
The age of reasoning: 12 -13 Years
The Crises of adolescence: after 13 Years
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT:
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16 of 25 consonant
sounds by 30 months
Early
Language
Development
See cat!
Telegraphic means
lacking connection
words
Grpmph
!
Cat!
said with gestures;
serves as whole
sentence
9-12 months is the
quiet period since
there is a
decrease in
vocalization
Gradual narrowing of
sounds to meaningful
phonemes of the
language being learned
PERSONALITY AND RELATED AFFECTIVE-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT:
A. Personality is a relatively stable pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving that distinguishes one
person from another (Davis and Palladino, 2005, p 459). Some are more convinced by the stability of
our distinctive characteristics across time and situations than others, with Erving Goffman ( )
perhaps being the social psychologist least convinced that there is anywhere near the consistency that
many assume. Personality takes time to solidify, and it is in the teenage years that people consolidate
their roles, characteristics, beliefs, values, etc. into a clear sense of who they are and where they are
going. This is why personality disorders are not ordinarily diagnosed until the age of 18. Before this
age, there is typically too much change, and even at the age of 18, people are still trying on different
behaviors, attitudes, values, goals, etc. to see how comfortably the fit the personality molding still in
progress.
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B. Although all theoretical schools of thought in psychology would like to think that they have
adequately explained personality development, only two areas have contributed explanations that I
view as significant. The first is psychoanalytic, with emphasis on Erik Erikson, and other is the
ethological attachment theory or Mary Ainsworth (1978) and Jonathan Bolby (1982). To round
things out, we need to acknowledge the contribution of psychologists who have studied temperament.
So I will devote some space to each of the three beginning with temperament.
1. Temperament is the biological-genetic basis for the self-expressive, arousal, and self-regulatory
components of personality. In 1984 Buss and Plomin proposed the following criteria for
temperament: inherited, present early in development, predictive of later personality
development. These rudimentary roots of personality are evident in infancy in the forms of
activity level, irritability, fearfulness, sociability, etc. In 1977 Thomas and Chess stated that
childhood temperamental characteristics are relatively innate and well-established by 2-3 months
of age. They identified three types of temperament evident in infancy:
a. Easy ─ high approach response; positive mood (mild to moderate intensity); quick
adaptability;
b. Difficult ─ high withdrawal response; frequent negative mood of high intensity; slow
adaptability;
c. Slow-to-warm-up ─ many withdrawal responses (mild to moderate intensity); slow
adaptability.
2. The attachment theories of Ainsworth and Bolby include types of attachment, or lack thereof,
between the mother and baby that are strangely similar to those identified by our temperament
researchers and thus assumed to be present at birth. So could it be that one of the two schools is
attributing cause to the wrong thing? Could it be either the type of mother-child attachment that
produces these types and related personalities later in life or genetically determined
predispositions but not both? Ainsworth and Bolby offer the postulate that the human infant is
pre-adapted to respond to its caregiver. They contend that attachment behaviors promote close
proximity to the caregiver so that the child can be protected from danger — an evolutionary
function. They identify four types of attachment behavior that are largely determined by the
mother’s or caregiver’s behavior toward her baby. These types are as follows:
a. Secure — After separation from the mother, the baby is positive greeting by mother and is
comforted
b. Ambivalent — After the mother returns the baby is not comforted by a passive mother even
though comfort is sought by her baby, and the baby shows anger or resistance. Mothers of
ambivalent infants tend to be inconsistent, insensitive, and unpredictable in their interactions
with their babies.
c. Insecure-Avoidant — After separation from the mother, the baby avoid contact when she
returns and avoids her gaze. The mothers of insecure-avoidant babies tend to be averse to
physical contact, are inclined to interfere unnecessarily, and generally appear emotionally
unavailable or dismissive.
d. Insecure-disorganized — After the mother returns the baby appears disorganized and
confused. The mothers of insecure-disorganized infants are typically suffering from an
unresolved trauma, such as abuse or the unresolved loss of an attachment figure, which
results in their babies being afraid of them. The mother may actually be abusive or neglectful.
(Ainsworth, 1982)
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CHILD ATTACHMENT STYLE
PARENT ATTACHMENT STYLE
SECURE: Limited distress,
continued exploration after initial
reunion
SECURE/AUTONOMOUS:
developmentally appropriate interaction;
recognizes significance of attachment.
AVOIDANT: child appears indifferent
DISMISSING: dismissive about
attachment; withdrawn and rejecting
RESISTANT OR AMBIVALENT:
child appears distressed and is
preoccupied with caregiver and clingish
PREOCCUPIED: recognizes
significance of attachment but is
preoccupied with past and appears
angry; blurred or unclear boundaries
DISORGANIZED/DISORIENTED:
difficult to categorize reunion with
caregiver; describes 80% of maltreated
children.
UNRESOLVED/DISORGANIZED:
frightened by memory of past;
trauma promotes momentary
disassociation; scripts child into
past dramas
Bolby has also identified stages of normal attachment for behavior:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Birth to 2-3 months — Undiscriminating social responsivenss
2-3 months to 6-7 months — Discriminating social responsiveness
6-7 months to 3 years — Active proximity seeking /true attachment
3 years and older — Goal-corrected partnership
3. The third major contribution to personality theory development comes from the psychoanalytic
school and the psychosocial theory of Erik Erikson in particular. I’m passing over Freud’s
psychosexual theory because it just doesn’t make sense to me. Erikson on the other hand
identified psychosocial crises that we must address and resolve at different points in our lives and
explained how the resolution of these depends on significant others including, for babies and
children, their mothers or primary caregivers. Erikson assumes a genetically determined
unfolding of maturation, but he proposes that how we turn out is a function of social/
environmental forces and experiences and their interaction with genetics. He calls this the
epigenetic principle.
Erikson’s theory proposes eight stages during our lives with each bringing us a psychosocial
crisis or conflict that needs to be resolved interactively. Each involves confronting a question
such as, “Who am I and where am I going?” The stages are described above in terms of
personality traits that are potential outcomes from handling these crises. Each stage provides
pivotal opportunities for personality qualities or ego strengths and virtues to develop interactively
The crises are as follows:
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a. Trust versus Mistrust — infants and babies who are deciding, “Is my world predictable and
supportive?” A successful resolution yields hope and faith; an unsuccessful resolution brings
withdrawal and sensory distortion.
b. Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt — toddlers are asking, “Can I do things myself, or must
I depend on others?” A successful resolution yields a strong will and independence; an
unsuccessful resolution brings impulsivity, compulsivity, and self-doubt..
c. Initiative versus Guilt — young children are deciding, “Am I good, or am I bad?” A
successful resolution yields purpose, courage, and a good imagination; an unsuccessful
resolution brings cruelty, inhibition, and fear of failure.
d. Industry versus Inferiority — older children are asking, “Am I good at things or am I a
failure?” A successful resolution yields competence, skill, pride, and a conscience; an
unsuccessful resolution brings a lack of confidence and a feeling of inferiority.
e. Identity versus Role Confusion — adolescents are asking, “Who am I really, and where am I
going in life?” A successful resolution yields fidelity and loyalty; an unsuccessful resolution
brings fanaticism and repudiation.
f. Intimacy versus Isolation — young adults are asking, “Shall I share my life with others or go
it alone?” A successful resolution yields a capacity to love and trust; an unsuccessful
resolution brings promiscuity and exclusivity.
g. Generativity versus Absorption — middle age people are asking, “Will I produce something
of value or leave a legacy?” A successful resolution yields caring and altruism; an
unsuccessful resolution brings a tendency to over-extend and to be rejecting.
h. Integrity versus Despair — older people are asking, “Have I lived a full life and taken
advantage of what life offers?” A successful resolution yields wisdom; an unsuccessful
resolution brings despair and presumption.
SOCIAL-MORAL:
The last two domain I will address as a pair, social and moral, are difficult to separate. Moral
development, in fact, is not only linked with social development, but also with cognitive and emotional
development. You can’t take the perspective of others or engage in moral reasoning and understand
justice, equality, equity, fairness, authority, etc. unless you can reason on some level; you can’t empathize
or acquire and follow the dictates of conscience unless you have a normal range of feelings. So
separating and combining these domains of development tends to be somewhat arbitrary and related to the
purpose at hand. I refuse to separate moral and social since moral development emerges from
relationships and communities and since the strength of community is directly proportional to the moral
functioning and concern for others among its individual members. Social and moral development and the
moral emotion and thinking on which they depend can be broken down into qualitatively different stages,
and all researchers and theorists who have worked in this combined area or these component areas have
offered stage models of development. Before I briefly describe some of these, I think it would promote
your understanding to cover first some of what we know about our emotionality as a species, presumably
determined by evolution.
A. Foundations of Moral Emotion: I’ve already touched on temperament with its social-emotional
aspects, and some of the social-affective characteristics that Erikson, Bolby, Ainsworth, Thomas, and
Chess have found us to have as a species and as individuals. Beyond this, Jerome Kagan, Martin
Hoffman, and others have pretty much established that we are wired to be empathetic. This is evident
even in infancy when a newborn baby while still in the hospital will become distressed and begin
crying when it hears another baby crying. This is referred to as global empathy. Then as the toddler
and young child develop caregivers are able to use this natural ability to feel others’ distress as a way
to get them to begin taking the perspective of others, at least affectively, including their victims.
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Hoffman devoted a good part of his 2000 book to explaining how this foundation and the related use
of disciplinary inductions by adults largely ensures the normal emergence of conscience. Conscience
normally begins to form at about age six, and prior to this, the child is dependent on parents to do the
right thing. The parents have at their disposal clear expectations, the strategic use of consequences,
and their understanding of the child’s natural affective empathy. Young children cannot take the
perspective of others intellectually, that is, they cannot describe to you how a situation looks from
another’s point of view. It is not until formal operational thinking and at least late childhood that this
capacity develops. Without this, moral autonomy or intrinsically motivated goodness isn’t possible.
Many including Piaget, Hoffman, Baumrind, Kagan, William Damon, Selman, and Youniss have
described the kinds of relationships with peers and adults needed in order for this internal,
conscience-driven motivation to do the right thing to result. It does not happen suddenly nor does it
first appear in fully mature form. Havighurst (1953) introduced the concept of an “authoritarian
conscience,” which is essentially the internalization of the parents’ moral voice about right and
wrong, and he said it forms if discipline is moderate thus allowing for identification, and if love is
combined with discipline. Diana Baumrind, William Damon, Jerome Kagan, and Martin Hoffman
have added details to this early but accurate description of the ideal parent-child relationship.
Baumrind (1967), for example, mentions (a) firm but fair discipline, (b) high expectations for morally
maturity, (c) extensive communication but not necessarily lectures about right and wrong, and (d) lots
of love and nurturing. It sounds simple and straightforward, and it is, but maintaining the right
balance and choosing the right level of monitoring are not easy things to do.
Affection for children
Affection for adults
Elation
Joy
Delight
Excitement
Distress
Anger
Jealousy
Disgust
Fear
Months
0
3
6
9
12
15
18
21
24
27
Emotions are rapidly differentiated from an initial capacity for excitement
(K.M.B. Bridges, 1932).
The chart above shows at what age a baby/toddler acquires each of the emotions shown. This
unfolding is presumably a result of brain growth as well as environmental stimulation and learning.
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B. Moral-Affective Stages of Development: The researchers/theorists whose findings/propositions are
juxtaposed below have collectively brought what we know about moral-affective development up to
the level of understanding we have had about moral-cognitive development for decades now thanks to
the work of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and, most recently, William Damon. Those shown in
the three columns to the right still living and have contributed hugely to our understanding of
empathy, how it eventually comes complete through the acquisition of perspective-taking, and how
conscience emerges through a combination of inborn affective empathy (without intellectual
perspective-taking), parent-child relationships that take advantage of this natural ability to feel others’
pain and add such things as love and firm yet fair discipline, and perhaps mental health maintained
through the resolution of developmental crises as described by Erikson.
Moral-Social-Affective Development
Havighurst
Infants
no information
Age 0-1
Toddlers
Early
Elementary
Middle
Childhood
Late
Elementary
Late
Childhood
Need to become
Trusting, open, and
no information
discomfort at
another's distress
Need to become
Independent, and
Self-Regulatory
Empathy
Willful
feelings of concern
that limit aggression
or be self-doubting
Beginning of moral Need to take Initiative
responsibility; the and Imagine or may
Dawn of
be cruel and critical
throughout life
Conscience
Authoritarian
Conscience:
voice of parent taken
in as a moral guide
via love & discipline
Rational
Conscience:
through cooperation
with peers and an
understanding
of rules
Middle School
Early
Adolescence
Complete Set
of Moral
Principles
High School
Late
Adolescence
no information
Hay
Global Empathy
Hopeful or will be
fearful through life
Age 2-3
Preschool
Early Childhood 4-5
Hoffman
Kagan
Erikson
Moral emotion of
guilt presumably
experienced when
aggression is not
controlled
no information
natural
nonselective
prosocial
tendency
emotions
of shame
and guilt
Perspective Taking the
Move from a need
for initiative to need
for Industry, Skill,
and competence
Need to be Competent
or do things well or
will feel inferior and
be unable to work well
with others thereafter
cognitive component
of empathy combines
with affective component that is present
at birth; guilt and
self-scorn related to
irresponsibility and
over-indulgence are
presumably
experienced here
Need to form an
Moral emotion of
Identity or consolidate
Anxiety related to
roles, identifications,
and characteristics or
will be insecure,
compulsive, or even
deviant; tend to be
clannish and preoccupied with how they are
perceived by peers
inconsistency
between beliefs and
actions presumably
emerges sometime
after late childhood
or during
adolescence
Selman
Damon
prosocial
behavior
more
selective
and
declining
no
information
no
information
no information
Can’t distinguish their
perspective from that of
others; know self in terms
of unrelated
surface characteristics
Know people have
different viewpoints but
take one at a time and
favor their own;
understand self in terms
of comparisons
Better understanding of
different view- points and
know they can have more
than one & mixed feelings;
same as above for self
Step outside situation
and see as complex; have
third-party view of self,
others, and relationships;
know self in terms of
effects on otherpeople.
Understand self in
terms of personal
philosophy and plans
for the future
Developed by Gordon Vessels © ©
C. Stages of Friendship Development, Perspective Taking, and Self: There is another group of
researching theorists who have focused even more on the social-interpersonal domain of development
with specific emphasis on how friendships, play, and perspective-taking change with age. Youniss
looked at friendship through children’s stories as shown in the left column in the chart that follows;
Selman looked at friendship in terms of how children relate to one another, how much reciprocity is
involved in these relationships, and how enduring they are. I especially like his use of
“unevenhanded reciprocity” for children in the seven to ten range (roughly) wherein they buy into
11
give and take but will take more from their friends than they give if they can get away with it.
Coupled with these terms are the terms “fair-weather friendships” that last as long as there is no
conflict. Selman also looks at perspective-taking ability as shown in the third column. Finally,
William Damon looks at self-concept, and as you can see from the descriptions below, this becomes
increasingly interpersonal or reflective of comparisons with and effects on others. Although not
shown in this chart, Damon also looks at changes in children’s perceptions of fairness, which evolves
from a purely self-centered notion to an understanding of equality, and eventually an understanding of
equity. Like Jean Piaget, he also looked at children’s conceptions of and attitudes toward authority,
which not surprisingly perhaps moves toward more and more questioning of authority rather than
blind acceptance. This look at fairness and authority carries Damon into the area of moral-cognitive
development that is typically associated with Lawrence Kohlberg and Jean Piaget.
Friendship / Self / Perspective Taking
Youniss
Children's
Friendship Stories
Damon
Selman
self-concept and
view of self
Friends Are . . .
Friendship Is . . .
Perspective Taking
Ability
those who live nearby;
those with whom they
are playing; those whose
toys they want
cannot distinguish
their own perspective
from that of others
understand self in
terms of unrelated
surface
characteristics
subjectivity and unevenhanded reciprocity; know
feelings, not just activities,
keep them together
recognize others may have
different viewpoints but
can consider only one at a
time and favor their own; a
one-way social perspective
understand self in
terms of comparisons
with others,
particularly peers
more cooperative, evenhanded reciprocity; fairweather friendships don't
withstand conflict
have a better understanding
of peoples’ different viewpoints and know they can have
more than one or mixed
feelings; two-way perspective
play activities
reciprocal interest; friendships withstand conflicts
13
13 year old children
tell stories about
assisting each
can step outside a situation
and view its complexities
and have a third-party
perspective on self, others,
and relationships
13-18
other
autonomous interdependence: close and intimate
friends grant each other the
right to have other friends
3-6
6
6-8
8
8-10
10
10-13
18
18-25
6 year old children
tell stories about
sharing toys and
play activities
no stories
gathered
10 year old children
tell stories about
playing and
mutual understanding and
sharing
exclusive trust replaces
18 year old
adolescents tell
stories about
sharing private
thoughts and
same as above
understand self in
terms of effects on
others of personal
characteristics
understand others in
terms of personal
philosophy and plans
for the future
feelings
Developed by Gordon Vessels ©
D. Stages of Moral Reasoning and Conceptions of Fairness: Below you will find a graphic illustration of
Lawrence Kohlberg’s states of moral reasoning, which reflect how children and adults conceptualize
justice. I do not have a similar graphic illustration of William Damon’s findings about children’s
changing ideas about fairness and authority, but I will try to describe these stages in this section.
1. Kohlberg looked only at reasoning and the issue of justice and has been criticized for ignoring
moral emotion and caring in particular. What he offers is a model that reflects the gradually
expanding external world of children as they grow older as shown in the fourth column:
egocentric, individualistic, interpersonal, organizational, societal, and universal. As this scope
broadens, the child’s understanding of justice also changes. It begins with children viewing right
12
as that which brings rewards, and wrong as that which brings punishment — strictly external and
what Piaget has termed heteronomy. As the social sphere broadens, the notion of justice begins
to involve relations with and acceptance by others. They then come to understand the purpose of
societal rules and laws and hopefully reach the point where they formulate universal moral
principles that are not time, situation, or culture specific. Following the chart directly following, I
have broken down the moral reasoning levels and described each with bulleted points.
KOHLBERG'S BEHAVIORAL-SOCIAL-COGNITIVE THEORY
View of
"Right"
Primary Levels
That Which
Gains
Approval
From
Others
PreConventional
(self-serving)
That Which
Adheres
to
Rules or
Principles
Conventional
(otherserving)
PostConventional
(principleserving)
Motivation
Perspective
Age/Grade
Punishment
Avoiding
Egocentric
Pleasure/
Reward Seeking
Individualistic
Acceptance/
Approval Seeking
Interpersonal
Grades 3-5
Late Childhood
Rule Following/
Status Seeking
Organizational
Grades 6-8
Early Adolescence
Law Abiding/
Rights Respecting
Societal
Grades 9-12
Late Adolescence
Justice Seeking/
Conscience Driven
Universal
Adulthood
Preschool
Early Childhood
Grades K-2
Middle Childhood
Developed by Gordon Vessels ©
a. Preconventional 1
●
●
●
●
●
They display heteronomous or adult-dependent morality.
They think in absolutes of right and wrong.
They have an egocentric viewpoint.
They are good to avoid punishment or gain rewards.
They view the value of life the way they do the value of objects.
b. Preconventional 2
●
●
●
●
They see right as that which satisfies their needs.
They have a concrete, pleasure/ reward-seeking, individualistic perspective.
Their cooperation is instrumental, and they exchange favors to satisfy needs.
The value of life is viewed as instrumental to need satisfaction.
c. Conventional 3
●
●
●
●
They view right as what gains approval.
They have an interpersonal, Golden Rule, good-child/bad-child perspective.
They gain approval by being caring and accommodating toward significant others.
They view the value of life in terms of affectional bonds.
13
d. Conventional 4
● They view right as doing one's duty, showing respect to authority, and maintaining social
order.
● They have an organizational-need, societal-need, law-maintaining view.
● They view life as sacred within the context of a scheme or moral rights.
e. Post-conventional
● They view right as guarding basic rights and legal contracts, or as meeting mutual
obligations in context of societal rights and standards.
● They have a law-creating, moral-legal view that obligates them to honor social
commitments.
● Principled moral reasoning.
2. Damon’s (1983, 1988) model is quite a bit different. He has his stages numbered and lettered, but
I will add a descriptive term for each pair of stages.
a. Pre-Moral:
●
●
0-A: (4 years old): They make no attempt to justify choices and feel they should get more
because they want more. They distort adult orders to fit their wishes.
0-B: (5 years old): They justify choices in a selfish, after-the-fact way and view authority
only as a block to satisfying their own desires.
b. Egalitarianism:
●
●
1-A: They view fairness as equality. Authority is confused with the power to enforce.
1-B: They view fairness in terms of merit and reciprocal obligation. Fairness takes on
value in its own right. Children see obedience as legitimate trade for adult favors and
help.
c. Equity and Benevolence:
●
●
2-A: They view fairness as a right of all, and they view leaders with knowledge as more
legitimate.
2-B: They view justice (by age 10) as context dependent and can make reasoned
decisions based on claims and conditions, but their perspective is limited to the situation.
d. General ideas about early adolescents:
●
●
Self-understanding is based on social and personality traits rather than the abilities of
childhood or the beliefs of late adolescence.
Will gain ability to view situations that involve disparate claims to justice from a wider
perspective than the situation and can apply moral principles.
e. General ideas about late adolescents:
●
Self understanding or self-concept is based on beliefs, philosophies, and thoughts rather
than personality qualities as was the case in early adolescence.
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT OR MATURATION:
14
A. “The two main processes that cause individuals to change across their lifetimes are
maturation and learning. Maturation refers to developmental changes that occur as a result of
the aging process, not from injury, illness or other life experience, including learning.
Maturation information is encoded in an individual's genes. On the other hand, learning is a
relatively permanent change in behavior (or potential behavior) as a result of experience or
practice” (Pritchard, 2005).
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