Physical, Social and Mental Development

Physical, Social and Mental (Cognitive) Development

Human development is a lifelong process beginning before birth and extending to death. At each moment in life, every human being is in a state of personal evolution. Physical changes largely drive the process, as our cognitive abilities advance and decline in response to the brain’s growth in childhood and reduced function in old age. Psychosocial development is also significantly influenced by physical growth, as our changing body and brain, together with our environment, shape our identity and our relationships with other people.

Physical Development

Although various scholars define physical development in slightly different ways, most generally break the process down into eight stages that include infancy; early, mid and late childhood; adolescence; early adulthood; middle age and old age. In recent years, as people have lived longer, some have added "very old age" to this list. At each stage, specific physical changes occur that affect the individual’s cognitive and psychosocial development.

 

Cognitive Development

Cognitive development refers to the acquisition of the ability to reason and solve problems. The main theory of cognitive development was developed by Jean Piaget, a Swiss developmental psychologist. Piaget broke childhood cognitive development into four stages spanning from birth through adolescence. A child who successfully passes through the stages progresses from simple sensorimotor responses to the ability to classify and create series of objects and eventually to engage in hypothetical and deductive reasoning, according to "The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography."

 

Social Development

The primary theory of psychosocial development was created by Erik Erikson, a German developmental psychologist. Erikson divided the process of psychological and social development into eight stages that correspond to the stages of physical development. At each stage, according to Erikson, the individual faces a psychological conflict that must be resolved in order to progress developmentally. Moving from infancy to old age, these conflicts are trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, industry versus inferiority, identity versus role diffusion, intimacy versus isolation, generativity—that is, creativity and productivity—versus stagnation, and ego integrity versus despair.