In this paper we will be exploring and discussing human development. We will explain the life span perspective of development as well as summarize two theories of lifespan development. Lastly we will explain how heredity and the environment interact to produce individual differences in development.
Life Span Perspective of Development
Set forth by Margret Baltes, Paul Baltes and their associates, the life span perspective is the viewing of human development as multi directional, multi cultural, multi contextual,multi disciplinary and plastic. Human development is viewed as multi-directional because with time the characteristics of a human tend to change. Each person’s body consists of a large amount of genes and therefore bring the possibility of having several different directions that they could develop. Different events in life can lead to a change in direction. Some examples of those events may be the death of a loved one, losing a job, getting married, getting into college.etc. Researchers have used the multi directional perspective to figure out that losses and gains tend to occur simultaneously and that losses can lead to gains and gains can lead to losses. Human development is seen as multi contextual because it occurs in various contexts such as physical surroundings and the constellations of family. Urie Bronfenbrenner was the first to shine light on the need to consider multiple contexts. He recommended that when conducting a developmental study we should use an ecological-systems approach. This involves the belief that the individual should be considered in all contexts and interactions that life consist of in the study of human development. Bronfenbrenner later changed the name of this approach to bioecological to show the natural and biological aspects of this theory. There are three nested levels that each person is affected by. Microsystems is immediate