Piaget And Freud's Five Stages Of Lifespan Development

The lifespan of an individual is said to be from the moment they were conceived through their death. The individual passes through different periods of developmental stages of growth called lifespans development. Piaget and Freud theories were different concerning lifespan development. Freud’s theory is based on a person’s ego, superego or id and Piaget’s theory is based on a person’s cognitive development over their lifespan. Nurture and nature influences a person’s will and how they will be in the development of their lifespan.

The lifespan of a person is developmental process, it begins as a seed planted into the womb of a woman. It is sustain and nurtured there for nine months as a fetus which grows and its sex is being determined. A person has several stages of development from birth to their infancy stage to adolescent stage, adult stage, the old age stage and then death. Process of growth includes learning how to feed ourselves, wash and cloth ourselves, talk and communicate, to love, walk and to work.

There are three developmental areas

called domains in a person’s life the social, cognitive and physical domains. Cognitive domain addresses memory and mental processing, perception, language and learning, along with problem solving abilities. Social domain deals with psychosocial development such as a person’s personality, emotions, traits and motives, and their interaction with society family and relationships. The Physical domains addresses the development of a person’s physical body such as the organs, growth of and within the body, aging and mobility of the body and all physical change (Sigelman & Rider, 2009).
There are five lifespan development characteristics that are helpful in understanding the human development.

Plasticity is also a developmental characteristic that is based on the theory that a person traits can be changed at any time in their life and that the change is ongoing, (Berger 2008). Changes are not often straight lined but can also be multidirectional meaning from every direction and it is multicultural. Academic areas, genetics, sociology, psychology and religion contributes to the growth process. Berger (2008), defines developmental theory as a systematic statement of principles that provide generalization or a coherent framework in order to understand the changes people as they grow older. Freud’s theory on the lifespan is a controversial theory. He believe that there are three stages which occur during the first six years of an individual’s life, the infant, early childhood and preschool (Berger

2008).
Piaget’s cognitive theory of developmental emphasizes on development of thought and structure. He realized that children were thoughtful and curious and the cognitive develops in four stages, the preoperational, sensorimotor, formal and concrete operations. The stages are related to the age of the individual. Birth to age two is considered to be the sensorimotor stage. This stage is when the infant begins to sense and understand and use their motor skills. Preoperational stage is from age two to six when they understand and use language. The concrete stage occurs between the age six to eleven and the children is capable of using principles and logic, experience and can interpret. The formal stage occurs at age 12 to adulthood when the adult and adolescent think about hypothetical concepts, abstracts, and can reason without emotionalism.
Freud’s and Piaget theories are both dependent upon the rules of nurture and nature. Nature is a person’s reality, abilities, appearance, temperament and it includes their eye and hair color, as well as their height. Nurture refers to the person’s environment and how they were developed and brought up. The environment and surroundings of an infant in its growing stage can influence the growth and development of the child. The way an infant is nurtured by its parent effects the development of the infant in a negative or positive way. The process of nurture and nature begins in the early development stage of an infant and is a crucial time in the developmental stage. Mary 2011