Human Development

Growth, development and maturation, the life-span perspective, Bronfenbrenner’s systems, Piaget’s four stages, moral reasoning and identity in adolescence.

Key ideas

Development is the orderly, lifelong pattern of change; growth is the measurable increase in size; maturation follows the genetic blueprint.
The life-span view: development is lifelong, multi-directional (gains and losses), plastic, and shaped by history and context.
Heredity sets a range of possibilities (genotype) and the environment decides how they show (phenotype).
Motor development runs head to foot (cephalocaudal) and centre outward (proximodistal).
Piaget’s children pass through four stages, from learning by senses and actions to abstract, logical thought.
Moral reasoning moves from reward and punishment to approval of others and then to a personal moral code (Kohlberg).
The main task of adolescence is forming an identity; the imaginary audience and personal fable show adolescent egocentrism.

Remember

Piaget’s stages	sensorimotor 0–2; preoperational 2–7; concrete operational 7–11; formal operational 11–15 years
Stage features	object permanence (sensorimotor); egocentrism, animism, centration (preoperational); conservation (concrete)
Bronfenbrenner	microsystem → mesosystem → exosystem → macrosystem (culture) → chronosystem (life events over time)
Sinha’s ecological model	upper visible layer (home, school, peers) over a lower layer (e.g. overcrowding, poverty)
Erikson, first year	trust versus mistrust
Teratogens	environmental agents that harm the baby before birth

Watch out

Using growth and development as the same word: growth is only the measurable part.
Putting the stage boundary on the wrong side: a 7-year-old has just entered the concrete operational stage.
Mixing up the mesosystem (links between a child’s settings) and the exosystem (settings that affect the child indirectly).

Worked example

Two siblings are 9 and 5 years old. How many years apart are they, and which of Piaget’s stages is each in?

Working: 9 − 5

Answer: 4 years; concrete operational (9) and preoperational (5)