1. Development and Maturation
I am not going to get into physical maturation here (that’s a Health topic). What we’ll be discussing here is maturation and development in psychological terms.
Sigmund Freud
Jean Piaget
Erik Erickson
Lawrence Kohlberg (moral dev.)

2. Sigmund Freud

3. Freud
Freud believed that you had to really “fight” to get through each stage and that it was, in fact, highly likely that you would get fixated (stuck) somewhere along the way.
Freud stated that the majority of the population would not get all the way through this age/stage progression. …But he said that he, himself, had made it all the way through.
Freud believed that young people only develop up until age 12 (then stop). In order to get a whole lifetime supply of growth (in 12 years), quite a lot has to happen very quickly. This is called front loading.

4. Jean Piaget

5. Piaget and Conservation
Piaget also believed that children develop up until age 12 and then stop. This assertion seems more unusual for a researcher who believed that our thoughts become more complex as we age.
One of the things that differentiates a child between the pre-operational stage and the Concrete operational stage is “conservation.”
Two short cups of water are shown to a subject and stated that they have equal amounts of water in each. Then, water is poured from one of the cups into a tall think graduated cylinder. A young child will say which one has more? An older child will still be able to say that they are the same.

6. Consider this question
All animals are dead.
Would there be any birds left??
All birds are dead.
Would there be any animals left??
Young children cannot answer these questions

7. Erik Erikson

8. Erikson
Even though he worked at the time of Freud, Erikson was the first person to suggest that we spend our lives developing (not just the first 12 years).
Unlike his compatriots, Erikson also believed that it was possible for a person to get stuck in a stage, but that this did not stop you from moving onto the next stage. Further, this fixation could be worked out “on the go” so to speak.
Erikson actually addresses something that the other researcher didn’t get to in their papers – Old Age.

9. Development
One of the odd things about having an age/stage theory end at age 12 is, “what happens after age 12?”
Puberty is generally just starting (though it can start earlier).
Cognitive development has not ended. Why do they choose 16 as the year that you can drive? Did they just make that up? No, frontal lobe development (judgment) is just finishing. So, why choose age 12??
In Victorian times people got married very young as life expectancy was short
In Victorian times children were (in many cases) expected to get to work right away
In older times childhood did not have an “a adolescence”, you were a child and then adult
In older times adults often viewed children as “little adults” who had the same motivations and desires (even inappropriate ones) as adults did

10. Lawrence Kohlberg
Moral development. There are 6 stages, but each is broken down into three sections. We will only be addressing the three major points here. Preconventional thinking Conventional thinking Postconventional thinking

11. Preconventional thinking:
A young person will follow the rules and do the “right” thing because they will get punished if they don’t follow the rules.
In this way, a child will primarily do what they are supposed to if they believed that punishment is a possibility. This means that you might have a “good” person who is caught doing something bad because they thought the possibility of getting caught was remote.

12. Conventional thinking – This is where most adults would be
Conventional thinking – This is where most adults would be. Kohlberg said most adults get stuck here.
In this way of thinking, you obey the “accepted rules of society” because the collective society has agreed that these rules keep things orderly.
I consider the First level and the Second level to be pretty much identical. Reason: Why do children and adults “follow the rules?” Because if they don’t follow the rules and they get caught what happens?
Punishment!

13. Postconventional thinking: YOU decide for yourself what is moral and what isn’t.
In this part, you have all the rules in your head. However, as each new situation arrives, you evaluate, “Does this situation fit with what is known, or must we create a new rule for this exception?” Think about these……
It’s okay to shoot a person who is committing suicide.
It’s okay to kill endangered species as long as you plan to eat the whole carcass.
It’s okay to act against the law if the end result has a “noble” outcome. (Terminator 2, John Doe)