Melissa Young
PSY/280
June 13, 2011
John Smith
Life span perspective of Human Development
In this essay I will touch on several different theories of human development and growth as well as their theorist. I will show how hereditary and environment play a vital role in human development and identify a few aspects of life span perspectives. Psychosexual Theory
One theorist was Sigmund Freud who believed that the development of sexual personality or libido was the development of personality. Freud beliefs were that every individual goes through five stages that further form your personality. The first stage or the earliest is the oral stage which includes sucking and drinking, sexual drive is focus around the mouth, later on leading to more aggressive biting, chewing, sucking of thumb and later years of possible cigarette smoking. The second stage is the anal stage or the toddler stage. His stage is actually broken down into two parts; the first part is called the expressive period in which the child takes pleasure in having a bowel movement. The other part to the second stage is the retentive stage where they will store their feces.
The Phallic stage is where children gain pleasure from stimulation there private area, this also is a time were the child will begin to identify with either mother or father depending on the sex of the child. This will help to identify gender roles. The latency stage is the puberty stage where teens find a more acceptable way channeling their sexual aggression. The last stage is the Genital stage in which the adult has reach sexual and emotional maturity. Ego Development
Ego development theory was created by Erik Erikson. Erikson believed our personality is formed from opposites such as dependant or independent, aggressive person or passive person, are just an example of a few. Erikson stated that some of these traits you are born with others are learned. Erikson