Week 2 Growth and Development Theories

Developmental
Theories
Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Canada, a division of Reed Elsevier Canada, Ltd. All rights reserved.
Learning Objectives
 Identify basic principles of growth and development.
 Discuss factors influencing growth and development.
 Identify five major traditions that underlie modern
developmental theories.
 Name and describe the major developmental theories
associated with each tradition.
 Describe and compare the mechanisms that underlie
the major developmental theories.
 Discuss nursing implications associated with the
application of developmental principles to patient
care.
Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Canada, a division of Reed Elsevier Canada, Ltd. All rights reserved. 2
Growth and Development
 People progress through phases of growth

and development at a highly individualized
rate.
 Understanding typical growth and
development helps nurses to predict, prevent,
and detect any changes from patients’
expected patterns.
Growth
 Growth is a quantitative and measurable

aspect of an individual’s increase in physical
measurements.
 Indicators include changes in height, weight,
teeth, skeletal structures, and sexual
characteristics.
 Influences on growth are not just genetic;
growth is also affected by other contextual
factors, such as socioeconomic status.
Development
 A progressive and continuous process of

change leading to increased skill and capacity
to function
 The result of complex interactions between
biological and environmental influences
 Qualitative in nature, and difficult to measure
 Has certain predictable characteristics (e.g.,
simple to complex, general to specific)
Factors Influencing Growth and
Development
 Three major categories of factors influence
human growth and development:
 Genetic or natural factors
• Heredity, temperament
 Environmental factors
• Family, peer group, health environment, nutrition,
rest/sleep/exercise, living environment, policy and
political environment
 Interacting factors
• Life experiences, prenatal health, state of health
Key developmental periods in life
 Infant: birth to 12 months

 Toddler: 12 months to 3 years
 Preschool: 3-5 years
 School: 5-12
 Adolescent: 12-18
 Young adult: 18-35
 Middle adult: 35-65
 Older people: over 65
Major Changes as we grow and
develop.
 Heart and circulation
 Urinary system
 Digestive system
 Special senses
 Adipose tissue
Major Changes as we grow and
develop.
 Lymphoid tissue
 Respiratory system
 Skeletal system
 Muscle system
 Nervous system
Major changes as we grow and
develop.
 Reproductive system
 Integumentary system
 Endocrine system
Developmental Theories
 A theory is an organized, often observable,

logical set of statements about a subject.
 Human developmental theories are models
intended to account for how and why people
develop as they do.
 Theories help nurses assess and treat a
patient's response to illness.
Developmental Theories
 Developmental theories are grouped into five

traditions of theory development:
 Organicism
 Psychoanalytic and psychosocial
 Mechanistic
 Contextualism
 Dialecticism
Organicism
 The theoretical focus of organicism is on the

organism itself.
 Development is a result of biologically driven
behaviour and the person’s adaptation to the
environment.
Organicism
 Biophysical and cognitive–moral theories of

development are included in this tradition:
 Biophysical development theories
 Cognitive developmental theories
 Moral developmental theories
Biophysical Developmental Theories
 These theories describe and explain how

people’s physical bodies grow and change.
 The changes that occur as a newborn infant
grows into adulthood can be quantified and
compared against established norms.
Gesell’s Theory of Maturational
Development
 Behavioural norms serve as a primary source of
information for childhood development.
 The pattern of growth and development is directed by
the activity of the genes.
 Environmental factors can support, change, and modify the
pattern, but they do not generate the progressions of
development.
 Maturation follows a fixed developmental sequence in
all humans.
 Critical periods are times when the presence or absence of
particular experiences makes a biological system functional
or nonfunctional.
Mechanisms of Maturational
Development
 Maturation
 The biological internal regulatory mechanism that
governs the emergence of all new skills and
abilities that appear as the individual becomes
older
 An individual’s biological ability, physiological
condition, and desire to learn more mature
behaviour
 Relinquishing previous behaviour and
learning and integrating new patterns into
existing behaviour
Differentiation
 The process by which cells and structures

become modified and refine their
characteristics
 Simple-to-complex development of activities
and functions
 Embryonic cells: at first vague and
undifferentiated; then develop into complex,
highly diversified cells, tissues, and organs
Chess and Thomas’s Theory of
Temperament Development
 Temperament is a physical and emotional
response style that affects a child’s
interactions with others.
 It is the way a person adjusts to life
experiences.
 Knowledge of temperament helps parents
have a clearer perspective of their child and
enables health care providers to guide them
appropriately.
Cognitive Development Theories
 Focus is on reasoning and thinking

processes, including the changes in how
people perform intellectual operations.
 These operations are related to the ways
people learn to understand the world in which
they live.
 Mental processes, including perceiving,
reasoning, remembering, and believing, affect
certain types of emotional behaviour.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive
Development
 Addresses the development of children’s
intellectual organization and how they think,
reason, perceive, and make meaning of the
physical world
 Four stages:
 Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years of age)
 Preoperational (2 to 7 years of age)
 Concrete operations (7 to 11 years of age)
 Formal operations (11 years to adulthood)
Moral Developmental Theories
 Moral reasoning is how people think about the

rules of ethical or moral conduct, but it does
not predict what a person would actually do in
a given situation.
 Moral development is the ability of an
individual to distinguish right from wrong and
to develop ethical values on which to base his
or her actions.
Moral Developmental Theories
 A subset of cognitive theory that describes

the development of moral reasoning
 Piaget’s theory of moral development
 Kohlberg’s theory of moral development
 Gilligan’s theory
Piaget’s Theory of Moral
Development
 Moral development goes through a series of
successive stages, just as cognition and
learning do.
 Three stages of development:
 Premoral stage
 Conventional stage
 Autonomous stage
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral
Development
 A child’s moral development does not
advance if the child’s cognitive development
does not also mature.
 Levels and stages do not occur at specific
ages; people attain different levels of moral
development.
 Preconventional level
 Conventional level
 Postconventional level
Quick Quiz!
According to Kohlberg, moral development is a

component of psychosocial development. Moral
development depends on the child’s ability to
understand which of the following?
A. Modelling of others
B. Faith and optimism
C. Self-control and independence
D. Decisions of right and wrong
Gilligan’s Theory
 Men and women develop in parallel ways;

neither is superior to the other.
 Separation and individuation are critically tied
to male development.
 Separation refers to the boy’s emergence from a
dependent relationship with his mother.
 Individuation is based on the child’s awareness of
differences in will, viewpoint, and needs.
Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial
Theory
 Describes the development of personality,
thinking, behaviour, and emotions
 Freud’s psychosexual theory
 Erikson’s theory of eight stages of life
 Bowlby’s attachment theory
 Extensions of Bowlby’s theory of attachment and
separation
 Havighurst’s developmental tasks
Sigmund Freud
 Psychosexual theory is a formal, structured

theory of personality development.
 The id, ego, and superego regulate
behaviour.
 Freud’s goal was to promote successful
participation in society through the
development of balance between pleasure-
seeking drives and societal pressures.
Sigmund Freud
 Psychosexual developmental stages

 Stage 1: Oral (birth to 12–18 months of age)
 Stage 2: Anal (12–18 months to 3 years of age)
 Stage 3: Phallic or Oedipal (3 to 6 years of age)
 Stage 4: Latency (6 to 12 years of age)
 Stage 5: Genital (puberty through adulthood)
Erik Erikson
 The psychosocial model covered the whole

lifespan, not just childhood and adolescence.
 Development occurs in eight stages.
 Each stage builds upon the successful
resolution of the previous developmental
conflict.
Erik Erikson
 Eight stages of life:
 Stage 1: Trust versus mistrust (birth to 1 year of age)
 Stage 2: Autonomy versus sense of shame and doubt
(1 to 3 years of age)
 Stage 3: Initiative versus guilt (3 to 6 years of age)
 Stage 4: Industry versus inferiority (6 to 11 years of
age)
 Stage 5: Identity versus role confusion (adolescence)
 Stage 6: Intimacy versus isolation (young adulthood)
 Stage 7: Generative versus self-absorption and
stagnation (middle adulthood)
 Stage 8: Integrity versus despair (old age)
Theories
 John Bowlby: Attachment and separation
theory
 Attachment refers to the tie or relationship
between an individual and another person, such
as a parent or caregiver.
 Extensions to Bowlby’s Theory
 Patricia Crittenden’s dynamic maturational model
of attachment is one extension.
 Behavioural and psychiatric developmental
disorders are considered within the context of
family attachment relationships.
Theories
 Havighurst’s developmental tasks
 Series of age-specific essential developmental
tasks arising from predictable internal and external
pressures
 Cultural pressure: creates the conditions
necessary to learn social behaviours and ethical
norms
Quick Quiz!
Nurses who use developmental theories to

understand their patients know that people
experience which of the following?
A. Themes or tasks at different stages of their lives
B. The need to develop certain characteristics
during their lives
C. Delayed development as a result of illness
D. The same stages at specific points throughout
their lives
Mechanistic Tradition
 The organism is similar to a machine.

 Development depends on the level of
stimulation, the kind of stimulation, and the
history of stimulation from the environment.
 The environment activates human
development, and behaviour is responsive to
environmental forces rather than driven by
internal causes.
 Social learning theory follows from this
tradition.
Contextualism
 Bioecological theory
 Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory
 Stresses the importance of interaction between the
developing individual and the surrounding social
environments
• Microsystem
• Mesosystem
• Exosystem
• Macrosystem
Dialecticism
 All developmental theories are considered

mutually interactive.
 A key element of the dialectic tradition is the
ability to incorporate multiple contexts.
 Keating and Hertzman’s population health theory
 Resilience theory
Dialecticism
 Keating and Hertzman’s population health

theory
 Strong association between the health of a
population, developmental outcomes, and the
social and economic forces affecting the larger
society
 Developmental health: the physical and mental
health, well-being, coping, and competence of
human populations
Dialecticism
 Resilience theory
 The maintenance of positive adjustment under
challenging life conditions
 Focuses on the interaction between protective
processes and vulnerability processes
• Vulnerability processes (physical illness,
psychological stresses, social risk)
• Protective processes (self-efficacy, good
parenting and problem solving, social support
acquisition and maintenance)
Developmental Theories and Nursing
 No single theory successfully describes all

aspects of growth and development.
 Nurses need to consider an individual’s
development within the context of families,
social relationships, communities, and the
larger society.
 Developmental theories help the nurse use
critical thinking skills to consider how and why
people respond as they do.
Summary
 Growth
 Development
 Organicism
 Biophysical development theories
• Gesell’s theory of maturational development
• Chess and Thomas’s theory of temperament
development
 Cognitive developmental theories
• Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
 Moral developmental theories
• Piaget’s theory of moral development
• Kohlberg’s theory of moral development
• Gilligan’s theory
Summary
 Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial Tradition
 Freud’s psychosexual theory
 Erikson’s theory of eight stages of life
 Bowlby’s attachment theory
 Extensions of Bowlby’s theory
 Havighurst’s developmental tasks
 Mechanistic Tradition
 Contextualism
 Bioecological theory
 Dialecticism
 Keating and Hertzman’s population health theory
 Resilience theory

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Developmental

 People progress through phases of growth

 Growth is a quantitative and measurable

 A progressive and continuous process of

 Infant: birth to 12 months

 A theory is an organized, often observable,

 Developmental theories are grouped into five

 The theoretical focus of organicism is on the

 Biophysical and cognitive–moral theories of

 These theories describe and explain how

 The process by which cells and structures

 Focus is on reasoning and thinking

 Moral reasoning is how people think about the

 A subset of cognitive theory that describes

According to Kohlberg, moral development is a

 Men and women develop in parallel ways;

 Psychosexual theory is a formal, structured

 Psychosexual developmental stages

 The psychosocial model covered the whole

Nurses who use developmental theories to

 The organism is similar to a machine.

 All developmental theories are considered

 Keating and Hertzman’s population health

 No single theory successfully describes all

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