ch 7 Assessing Psychosocial, Cognitive, and Moral Development

Growth: The addition of new skills or components.
Development: The refinement, expansion, or improvement of existing skills or components.
Three Key Theories of Growth and Development:
- Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development
- Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
- Kohlberg’s theory of moral development

Describe the following developmental theories: Erikson (psychosocial), Piaget (cognitive), and Kohlberg (moral).
Interview clients for an accurate history reflecting their psychosocial, cognitive, and moral development.
Assess a client’s psychosocial, cognitive, and moral development based on subjective and objective data findings.
Differentiate between normal and abnormal findings of psychosocial, cognitive, and moral development.
Describe findings frequently seen when assessing the older client’s psychosocial, cognitive, and moral development.
Analyze client’s subjective and objective data to make valid clinical judgments regarding developmental level.

Focus: Psychosocial development.
Definition of Psychosocial: Refers to intrapersonal and interpersonal responses to external events.
Core Interest: Erikson was interested in understanding healthy personality development, believing that personality continues to develop throughout the entire lifespan.
Influences on Personality Development: This development is influenced by socio-cultural factors, biophysical processes, and cognitive function.
Structure: Erikson identified $8$ stages of life, with each stage possessing a central developmental task.
Progression: He posited that a positive resolution of the central task of each stage is needed to progress successfully to the next stage.

Focus: Cognitive development.
Definition of Cognition: The process of obtaining understanding about one’s world.
Core Interest: Piaget wanted to understand how a person learns.
Key Concepts:
- Assimilation: The process where new information is incorporated into existing cognitive schemas or what we already know.
- Accommodation: The process of changing how we see things or reorganizing existing schemas to better fit new information or reality.

Sensorimotor ( $0-2$ years):
- Thoughts are primarily demonstrated by the physical manipulation of objects.
- Infants and toddlers learn about their world through sensory experiences and motor actions.
Preoperational ( $2-7$ years):
- Characterized by an increasing ability to mentally represent something not physically present (e.g., using language and symbols).
- Develops the ability to give reasons or rationales, but thinking is often biased by their own perspective (egocentric).
Concrete Operational ( $7-11$ years):
- Children become able to reason logically about concrete objects and events in their environment.
- They can mentally perform actions and understand concepts like conservation.
- Reasoning is largely limited to “what is” rather than hypothetical “what if” scenarios.
- Crucially, they become able to understand that others may have a different perspective than their own.
Formal Operational ( $11-15+$ years):
- Individuals develop the capacity to think abstractly and logically about past, present, future, and theoretical situations.
- This stage includes the ability to think about thinking itself (metacognition), enabling systematic problem-solving and hypothetical-deductive reasoning.

Core Interest: Kohlberg was interested in understanding the reasoning behind a person’s decision, specifically how someone decides what is “right” and “wrong.”
Premise: He did not believe that infants and toddlers were capable of moral reasoning.
Progression: Moral development doesn't automatically progress with age. Instead, development is largely dependent on life experiences and the challenges individuals face in making decision-making choices.
Connection to Piaget: Kohlberg's theory builds on Piaget's. Individuals need to achieve Piaget’s formal operational stage to reach the higher levels of moral development.

Preconventional/Premoral (Preschool – School Age):
- Individuals act primarily out of self-interest.
- Moral decisions are motivated by the avoidance of punishments and the attainment of rewards.
- Moral reasoning is externally controlled.
Conventional (School Age – Adulthood):
- Marked by adherence to perceived norms, societal laws, and the expectations of others.
- Individuals aim to maintain the external expectations of others and uphold social order.
- Moral decisions are often made to gain approval or avoid disapproval.
Postconventional (Adulthood):
- Decisions are based on internal, self-chosen values and ethical principles, which may or may not align with conventional laws.
- Individuals act in alignment with their personal values.
- Important Note: Not all people reach this stage of moral development.
- Prerequisite: Achievement of Piaget’s formal operations cognitive stage is required for postconventional moral development.

When under stress, a person may regress to an earlier stage of development in any of these domains.