Lifespan Development Theories and Key Life Stages Overview

Lifespan Developmental Psychology (LDP)

This field studies the changes and stabilities that occur throughout a person's life that fundamentally affect how they understand and interact with the world around them.

Erikson's Psychosocial Stages

Development occurs across eight stages, each marked by a psychosocial crisis (a psychological vulnerability linked to a social relationship).

Strengths of Erikson's Theory

Extending development across the entire lifespan, recognizing the active role of the person, and acknowledging the relationship between the person and their social environment.

Baltes' Taxonomy of Influences

Development is characterized as lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, and contextual, involving gains and losses.

Normative Age-Graded Influences

Events happening due to age (e.g., Erikson's psychosocial crises).

Normative History-Graded Influences

Events happening to everyone in a community.

Non-Normative Influences

Events that do not happen to the majority of people.

Havighurst's Developmental Tasks

These tasks arise at a specific, culturally embedded life period. Successful achievement provides the foundation of competence and confidence for the next stage.

Dynamic Systems Theory

Any event comprises multiple systems, and relationships between these systems define each system; substantial change to one system will affect others.

Developmental Tasks in Childhood

Early tasks, such as learning to walk or control bodily waste, arise from physical maturation and contribute to resolving autonomy vs. shame and initiative vs. guilt.

Social Competence (SC)

The ability to integrate affect, motivation, cognition, and behavior to achieve goals in social situations.

Peer Relationships

More equal and competitive than asymmetrical family relationships, teaching self-regulation and a repertoire of social interactions.

Play

Universal, non-serious, and allows exploration; Parten's Categories describe social engagement, including solitary, parallel, associative, and cooperative play.

Moral Reasoning

Development is affected by cognitive abilities (e.g., perspective-taking) and social experiences (e.g., peer interaction).

Heteronomous Morality

Rules as moral absolutes, described by Piaget.

Autonomous Morality

Rules as social agreements, described by Piaget.

Antisocial Behavior (ASB)

Childhood-onset ASB is linked to neuropsychology, temperament, and family instability.

Gender Development

Gender roles are learnt from interactions between the individual and the environment.

Rigid conceptualization of gender

Younger children typically hold this view that becomes more flexible after approximately seven years.

Developmental Tasks in Adolescence

Include completing puberty, gaining independence from family, securing a first job, and identity development.

Psychosocial Crisis in Adolescence

Identity vs. Confusion; identity development is not a linear progression.

Cognitive Control Network

Strengthens steadily and is responsible for self-regulation and planning.

Social Emotional Network

Fluctuates and is overstimulated by social situations, affecting risk/reward and identity exploration.

Peer influence on risk/reward pathway

The presence of peers changes activation, making young people highly responsive to social rewards and vulnerable to peer pressure.

Autonomy

Refers to independence and control over one's life, including the freedom to regulate one's thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Caregiver-child conflict

Conflict over social conventions and household rules is frequent but considered a non-normative experience.

Sibling Influence

Siblings influence behavior by modeling and normalizing attitudes such as substance use and sexual activity.

Emotional Regulation (ER)

Adolescence is a period of increasing capacity for self-regulation and ER.

Developmental Psychopathology

Pathways into mental illness involve a dynamic interaction between the person and their biological, psychological, and social systems over time.

Adulthood Markers

Brain development continues until at least the mid-20s, marked by the development of higher-level functions.

Havighurst's Tasks for YA (19-30)

Tasks include establishing a stable partnership, independent household, family, and starting a career.

Emerging Adulthood (EA)

A distinct, culturally constructed period characterized demographically and subjectively, often marked by financial dependence on parents and late marriage.

Separation-Individuation

Involves resolving the interaction between developing an individuated self and retaining a sense of connectedness to parents.

Nest-Leaving

Independent living is associated with young adults viewing themselves as more adultlike.

Wellbeing and Coping

Avoidance coping significantly decreases between the ages of 18 and 24, while approach coping is associated with higher wellbeing.

Erikson's YA Crisis

Intimacy vs. Isolation; the basic virtue acquired is Love.

Loneliness in Young Adults

Young adults (18-29) are among the most likely age groups to report feeling lonely, with social engagement being a predictor against loneliness.

Developmental Tasks in Middle Adulthood

Tasks include coping with declining physicality, managing parental decline and mortality, establishing a legacy, and reassessing life goals.

Psychosocial Crisis in Middle Adulthood

Generativity vs. Stagnation; considered a natural progression in psychosocial development.

Crystallized Intelligence

Knowledge that develops with experience and is shaped by culture and personal experience, increasing with age through adulthood.

Practical Intelligence

The capacity to learn from experience and adapt to one's environment.

The Sandwich Generation

Mid-adult children provide support (emotional, financial, health care) to late-adult parents, often in a reciprocal relationship. Success in this caregiving role is termed filial maturity.

The Empty Nest

Outcomes vary based on the person's preparedness and resources. Negative outcomes include 'role-loss'; positive outcomes include 'role-strain relief' and improved marriage quality.

Marital Stability

Stability is linked to shared ideologies (beliefs about the relationship) and engaging in adaptive communication processes.

Wellbeing

Mental health issues decline across middle adulthood (including affective, anxiety, and substance use disorders). Wellbeing indicators include life satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, and generativity.

Workplace Context

Organizational attitudes significantly influence employee outcomes. A depreciation culture focuses on age-related losses, while a dynamic approach focuses on supporting employees to thrive and manage burnout.

Primary Aging

Inevitable age-related changes (e.g., visual loss).

Secondary Aging

Age-related changes that are consequences of a person's behavior or environmental conditions.

Senescence

The degenerative phase causing increased vulnerability to disease and mortality.

"Use it or Lose It"

Participants engaging only in sedentary behaviors were 3x more likely to transition to severe frailty.

Optimal Aging

Optimal aging is the maintenance of psychological adjustment and well-being across the lifespan. The Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC) model involves selection, optimization, and compensation.

Ageism

Discrimination against people based on their age, manifested through negative stereotypes (e.g., viewing older people as frail and lacking competence or as onlookers to life).

The Subjective Age Bias

Feeling younger than one's age is associated with a stronger subjective age bias and lower age group identification.

Activity Theory

Supports the maintenance of regular activities and social pursuits for optimal aging.

Disengagement Theory

Views a reduction in social involvement as a mutual process driven by the older adult wanting release from societal expectations.

Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory (SST)

Suggests a 'selective narrowing of social networks' across adulthood to interact with close partners who are more emotionally satisfying.

Loneliness and Relationships

The oldest group (60+) is among the most often lonely (U-shaped curve). For those aged 60+, the quality of social engagement (especially having a confidant) is the best predictor against loneliness.

Widowhood

The loss of a spouse/partner. Grief trajectories include Resilience (no significant distress) and Chronic Grief (enduring chronic depression/distress).

Peck's Tasks of Ego Integrity

Include Ego Differentiation (finding self-worth outside of career/children), Body Transcendence (emphasizing adaptive skills over physical limitations), and Ego Transcendence (facing death constructively by making life meaningful for younger generations).

Mental Health

Aging may be associated with an intrinsic reduction in susceptibility to anxiety and depression, possibly due to increased emotional regulation and increased psychological immunization.

Death Anxiety

Death-related thoughts and death anxiety decline across the lifespan and continue to decline into older age. Accepting the past (integrity) increases neutral acceptance and decreases death anxiety and avoidance.