UNDERGRADUATE B. A. Honours SUBJECT: Psychology PAPER: V, Human Development TOPIC: An Introduction to Lifespan Development LESSON: Developmental Tasks LESSON MAP: 5.1.3.C.1 Developmental Tasks • Develop adult leisure time activities • Relate oneself to one’s spouse as a person • Accept and adjust to the physiological changes of middle age • Adjust to ageing parents (60 and over) Later maturity Adjust to decreasing physical strength and health Society plays an important role in the overall development of its individuals. Each society has its own demands and expectations from children at different stages of development. The codes and expectations vary from culture to culture, and the child learns these at different stages of development. The society aims to transmit its expectations to all its members. These social expectations are known as developmental tasks. Some tasks are the same for everyone, regardless of where we live, due to human biology. E.g. crawling and walking are the same across all societies. Some tasks vary across cultures. E.g. the task of enrolling the child’s name in school varies in different countries. The idea of "developmental task" is generally credited to the work of Robert Havighurst (1972). Havighurst defined developmental task as “…a task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of an individual, successful achievement of which leads to his happiness and success with later tasks, while failure leads to unhappiness in the individual, disapproval by society, and difficulty with later tasks.” From this definition we understand that developmental tasks have a profound impact on the person’s adjustment and success. Purposes of developmental tasks – The three main useful purposes of developmental tasks are discussed below: 1. They act as guidelines to make parents and teachers aware of what children should learn at a given age and what will be expected of children. Knowing that a youngster of a certain age is encountering one of the tasks of that period (learning an appropriate sex role) helps adults to understand a child's behaviour and establish an environment that helps the child to master the tasks. 2. They serve as motivating forces for children to learn what the social group expects them to learn at that age. 3. They reveal to the individual about what happens in the further stages and hence the person is prepared to act accordingly. Children who are quick at mastering developmental tasks are rewarded by social approval (i.e., their achievements put such children in line for leadership roles).and self approval. They also benefit from self approval as they develop self confidence and strong motivation to live up to social and self expectations. On the other hand, failure to complete developmental tasks has three consequences: 1. It makes the child feel inferior, and this leads to unhappiness. 2. It results in social disapproval, which is accompanied by social rejection (immature and babyish). 3. It can also make the mastery of new developmental tasks difficult. Robert Havighurst’s developmental task theory: Robert Havighurst’s developmental task theory talks about different problems faced by people in all stages of life and he explains them really well. We are all aware that biological aspects have some kind of effects in our development. Similarly, psychological factors and society also play a role. According to our biopsychosocial model, the first source corresponds to the "biological" factors, the second to the "psychological", and the third to the "social" aspect. Havighurst’s framework takes into account these multiple dimensions and accordingly identifies three sources of developmental tasks: 1. Tasks that arise from physical maturation: These include learning to walk, talk, control of bowel and urine, behaving in an acceptable manner to the opposite sex and adjusting to menopause. 2. Tasks that arise from personal values: Examples include choosing an occupation and figuring out one’s philosophical outlook. 3. Tasks that have their source in the pressures of society: For instance, we are required to learn to read and learn to be a responsible citizen. Havighurst categorised developmental tasks into two categories: in the first are the tasks which have to be completed in a certain period, and the second category includes the tasks that continue for a long period perhaps even for a lifetime. Therefore, it is critical that the tasks should be completed during the appropriate stage; otherwise it would result in the failure to achieve success in future tasks. Six major stages in human life identified by Havighurst are: 1. Infancy & early childhood (Birth till 6 years) 2. Middle childhood (6-­‐12 years) 3. Adolescence (13-­‐18 years) 4. Early Adulthood (19-­‐30 years) 5. Middle Age (30-­‐60 years) 6. Later maturity (60 years and over) Havighurst has given the following list of developmental tasks occurring in each stage of human development. (Ages 0-­‐6) Infancy & early childhood • Learn to walk • Start to crawl • Learn to take solid food • Start to talk Learn to control the elimination of body wastes Understand sex differences and sexual modesty Get ready to read, and Form concepts and learn language in order to describe social and physical reality (Ages 6-­‐12) Middle childhood • Learn physical skills necessary for ordinary games • Learn to get along with age mates • Build wholesome attitudes toward oneself as a growing organism • Understand the appropriate masculine or feminine social role • Develop concepts necessary for everyday living • Develop conscience, morality and a scale of values • Achieve personal independence, and • Develop attitudes toward social groups and institutions (Ages 12-­‐18) Adolescence • Achieve new and more mature relations with age mates of both sexes • Develop a masculine or feminine social role • Accept one’s physique and using the body effectively • Achieve emotional independence from parents and other adults • Prepare for marriage and family life • Acquire a set of values and an ethical system as a guide to behaviour, and • Desire and achieve socially responsible behaviour (Ages 18-­‐30) Early Adulthood • Select a mate • Learn to live with a partner • Start a family • Bring up children • Manage one’s home • Get started in an occupation • Take on civic responsibility, and • Find a congenial social group (Ages 30-­‐60) Middle Age • Assist teenage children in becoming responsible and happy adults • Achieve the adult social and civic responsibility • • • • • • • • • • Reach and maintain satisfactory performance in one’s occupational car Cope with retirement and reduced income Adjust to the death of a spouse Establish an explicit affiliation with one’s age group Adopt and adapt to social roles in a flexible way, and Establish satisfactory physical living arrangements Nature of developmental stages: We will now examine how the characteristics of different developmental stages influence the achievement of developmental tasks. To do so, we will look at three principal stages: Infancy and childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood. Infancy and childhood: During infancy (birth to 18 months), babies are dependent upon adults for meeting all their needs. They do not differentiate themselves from their parents, and they gain a sense of themselves by taking in their caretakers’ feelings about them. Children (18 months – 3 years) are very active and move back and forth between wanting to be independent and wanting the security of their parents. They become frustrated easily, and their frequent tantrums are an expression of that frustration as well as their lack of communication skills and abilities. They do not want to share things. Children (aged 4-­‐5 years) are active and ask a lot of questions (how, why, when, how long) as they try to understand the world. They can be resistant to their parents’ instructions as they experiment with power in relationships. They also like to be involved in many different activities and they begin to be quite social. Children (6-­‐ 11 years) also ask a lot of questions as they gather information about the world and how it works. They are very interested in rules and why they exist. They want people to obey rules even though they do not necessarily abide by them. They may test rules, disagree with them, break them or try to set them as they learn to internalise them. They use their more mature reasoning abilities to understand the values that underlie the rules and to differentiate between wants and needs. Along with exploration of rules and the beginnings of a cooperative spirit, games become prominent in their play. Six to eleven year-­‐olds are eager to learn new skills, including social skills. Adolescence: The major task during adolescence is to create a stable identity and become complete and productive adults. Adolescents find their role in society through active searching which leads to discoveries about themselves. Following are the developmental tasks that enable adolescents to create an identity. i. Achieving new and more mature relations with others-­‐ Physical maturity plays an important role in peer relations. Adolescents who mature at a slower or faster rate than others will be dropped from one peer group and generally will enter a peer group of similar maturity. For early-­‐ maturing girls, entering into a peer group of similar physical maturity can mean a greater likelihood of early sexual activity. ii. Achieving a masculine or feminine social role-­‐ Adolescents develop their own definition of what it means to be male or female. However, most adolescents conform to the sex roles of our cultural view of male (assertive & strong) and female (passive & weak) characteristics. iii. Accepting one's physique-­‐ The beginning of puberty and the rate of body changes for adolescents varies tremendously. How easily adolescents deal with those changes will partly reflect how closely their bodies match the well-­‐defined stereotypes of the "perfect" body for young women and young men. iv. Achieving emotional independence from parents and other adults-­‐ Adolescents deal with their emotions independently and move toward self-­‐reliance. Children derive this strength from internalising their parents' values and attitudes. v. Preparing for marriage and family life-­‐ Sexual maturation is the basis for this developmental task and it is usually not achieved until late adolescence or early adulthood. vi. Preparing for an economic career-­‐ In our society, an adolescent reaches adult status when he or she is financially independent. vii. Acquiring a set of values and an ethical system as a guide to behaviour -­‐-­‐ developing an ideology-­‐ Adolescents’ abstract thinking and hypothetico-­‐deductive reasoning help them to develop their own set of values and beliefs. viii. Desiring and achieving socially responsible behaviour – An adolescent defines the world from her/his new social role once s/he becomes a member of the larger community through employment (financial independence) and emotional independence from parents. As adolescents become independent they must learn to be responsible. Adulthood-­‐ The six adult life tasks are as follows: Identity: Prior to entering the adult world it is important that the adolescent achieves a sense of what Erik Erikson termed as Identity: a sense of one’s own self. Intimacy: The task of living with another person in an interdependent, reciprocal, committed, and contented fashion for a decade or more, often seems neither desirable nor possible to the young adult. Career consolidation: Mastery of this task involves expanding one’s personal identity to assume a social identity within the world of work. This permits the adult to find a career that is both valuable to society as well as to him/ her. Generativity: Generativity involves a broader social circle through which one manifests care for the next generation. It reflects a different sort of capacity – to be in relationships where one “cares” for those younger than oneself and, simultaneously, respects the autonomy of others. Research reveals that between the age of 30 and 45 years the need for achievement declines and the need for community and affiliation increases. Keeper of the meaning: This task involves passing on the traditions of the past to the next generation. It is epitomised by the role of the wise judge as the focus of a Keeper of the Meaning is on conservation and preservation of the collective products of mankind – the culture in which one lives and its institutions – rather than on just the development of children. Becoming a Keeper of the Meaning allows one to link the past with the future. Integrity: This is the last of life’s developmental tasks. It entails the task of achieving some sense of peace and unity with respect both to one’s own life and to the whole world. The virtue of Integrity is wisdom. Erik Erikson described Integrity as “an experience which conveys some world order and spiritual sense”. Factors influencing mastery of developmental tasks: There are a number of factors that aid the mastery of developmental tasks that are discussed below: (a)Accelerated physical development-­‐ Faster development of physical ability than normal allows the child to engage in advanced tasks. (b)Strength and energy above average for age-­‐ Having higher level of strength and energy compared to children of same age will be useful to undertake a wider range of activities. (c)Above average intelligence-­‐ High intelligence equips one with the potential to develop skills, traits and abilities faster and more effectively than should be possible. (d)An environment that offers opportunities for learning-­‐ An enriched environment which provides all types of facilities will be a strong motivator to achieve and master the developmental tasks. (e)Guidance from parents and teachers in learning-­‐ Guidance and all sorts of help from parents and teachers will aid the child in learning novel things and difficult skills. (f)A strong motivation to learn-­‐ A desire to learn will instigate the child to do something and explore new areas. (g)Creativity accompanied by a willingness to be different-­‐ Producing something that is both original and worthwhile and having the courage to be different adds the winning streak to the child. Obstacles to mastery: Likewise, some factors hinder the mastery of developmental tasks and they are as follows: (a)Retardation in developmental level, whether physical or mental-­‐ Problems during the critical period of development or growing up in an impoverished environment hinders holistic development. (b)Poor health resulting in low energy and strength levels-­‐ A child with a lot of health problems will experience lowered strength and energy level. (c)A handicapping physical defect-­‐ A handicap in physical development has a negative effect on physical as well as mental growth. (d)Lack of opportunity to learn what the social group expects-­‐ A child who lacks facilities and exposure to different skills and concepts may not be able prove himself/herself according to the expectations of others. (e)Lack of guidance in learning-­‐ No proper guidance from elders will delay learning. (f)Lack of motivation to learn-­‐ Children who have to be constantly forced to learn may not be sufficiently motivated and this may be due to environmental factors such as lack of support or may be resulting from learning difficulties. (g)Fear of being different-­‐ In order not to be separated from one’s group, children may not display their unique skills and abilities. In conclusion, it is important to ensure that positive forces of development are facilitated and negative factors are reduced.
