Free Custom «Personal Portrait Integrating Developmental Theory» Essay Paper

The life is based on the learning facts from different aspects. The life is affected by the actions and behaviors that are taking place around an individual. The social theory states the growth of any person is literally dependent upon the impacts of the environment (Crain, 1985). The development of the human brain from an empty slate to a thinking one is because of the learning that happens for him. There are various stages of life where an individual has various competencies that make him to develop into an intelligent individual.

The human development is a continuous process and remains continuous all the life. Considering my personal life, various experiences in my life set the rules of what is to come. The importance of every action that I saw in consciousness or unconsciousness played a major role in the development of my mind and body. The development started right away when I was born. Though I didn?t know what I was doing all those times but certainly deep inside I was learning things and the nature helped in understanding things on continuous basis. The developmental phase of a human can easily be stated by the Erik Erikson?s developmental theory. He was the first one to study the human developmental stages in detail. However, the social learning theory was present at those times and it has a great emphasis on the development on the human right from their births but the social learning theory impacts on the learning processes rather than what actually derives the human mind to act in a specific way. Erik psychological development was also the result of his studies on the Freud, a famous sociologist.

The first phase of the developmental model forwarded by Erik was the infancy age. Erik established that the infancy age depicts some various important personality measures of the child. The things that happen to the baby are fine than the baby will learn to trust. Though the learning phase forwarded by social learning theory states the infant child has a slate mind but in actual this slate mind begins to take affects from the surroundings (Eagle, 1993). It has been observed that if this period of the child is not good, abusive and the child doesn?t get what he wants significantly affects his stature of mind in adulthood. Looking at my life I found myself in pretty good condition. My integrating development period was pretty good from infancy because I haven?t felt anything destructive in my adulthood. The reasons are quite clear as my parents were pretty good in providing me the nurturing facilities.

The period from first 18 months to 3 years is considered as the phase where the child learns his basic abilities. The child not only learns to talk and feed but also when subjected to various behaviors the child learns to nurture his abilities to learn good and bad.

This period allows the child to learn the events of shame and the ability of autonomy. When parents take good care of their child the child attaches the self confidence, will and courage to his personality (Crain, 1985). Erik emphasized this phase as what which will shape the overall sensitivity pattern of the child in the adulthood. Looking at my own personality, when I was young I was able to understand things better. The maturity which I obtained from the time when I was unable to understand anything but it significantly affected the whole life which I followed.

Erikson?s model moves parallel to that of Kohlberg?s. Kohlberg suggested various stages of life where the individual learns moral values. Both the theories were formed after the social learning theory had impacted the social world and both therefore follow it. The importance of the Kohlberg theory is the way the individual interprets certain actions to involve them in their personalities. Erikson? model provides the details of how the development occurs and Kohlberg states how the developmental take impacts from the moral values.

The play age is defined from 3 to 5 years in the developmental phase of a child as described by Erikson. Erikson states that this stage makes the individual to learn the purpose of life. It is like the time when the child involves in the playing of games and suddenly it affects the ways he moves ahead. As I grew up playing around the children I started to become aggressive in my approach, more objective and more motivated to gain something which I never had. Though it was very early in the development, I never had any idea of how to initiate these inner feelings and never knew how to cope them. The problem at this stage is that a child maximizes its learning process and takes control of his nature. If something goes wrong and the child never knows how to react at those situations, it can significantly affect the overall future.

Erikson?s model gives much important to the young age more than the adult. According to his theory the child understands and interprets all those things which are happening around him in the child age. His mind works according to his learning which he had done when he didn?t have any idea of what is happening around him. Therefore this leads to a conclusion that the adult age is only the outcome of what has been learnt in the young age. The school age is the most important part of the developmental stage of the child. The child at this age becomes social and his needs change from time to time. He meets other children and takes a strong impact of his gathering. Therefore at this stage he not only learns various methods that could allow him to use certain methods and take certain decisions based on the options available.

Other than this the child also starts other things like inferiority complex and proud. The whole thing is highly dependent upon the way the teacher teach, the reactions of the other students and how the child cope with the social society around him. Being a student my utmost importance was the ways to learn to take advantage over others. The moral values that were learnt under the proposed theory of Kohlberg helped in understanding what is good and what is bad. The punishments were given to the actions which somehow affected someone in a wrong way and that whole situation creates a negative association in the mind (Kohlberg, 1971). Similarly, when I did some good things I was also rewarded. But the real problem comes in the interpretation. How the child knows what is right and what is wrong is only due to the results that are obtained. If there are no punishments the child believes that everything he does is right and more rewards sometimes allows the child to lack the decision power and causes the downfall. Same was the situation with me all the time. During the studies I was very good in understanding teachers and was very friendly with the class fellows but nevertheless the conflicts appeared. The thing I learnt here was the implementation of the patience in every matter regardless of how serious was the issue.

The adolescence age from 12 to 18 was the major period when everything started to become a reality. All the learning that had been done before was now in the practical stage. This was the stage where I started to have my problems. The first problem was my identity. I was not able to understand my role in the world first up. It was very difficult to understand the motives of life and the inspirations that affect. So what happens was that I became confused. Rather than going strong at things I found myself strayed in the middle of things and not choosing options even if they were still there. This led to a total misconception when I was having problems in the schools and with the playmates. The conflicts that rose in my personality led me to think very differently from the others. The ego development was taking the most impressive run as I was always not ready to go down but was unable to take decisions rather bravely. This was also the stage when I learnt various moral values as well. Living in a social society it was imperative that I must understand the behaviors of the people and must make myself accustomed to other persons? obligations and rights. Erikson states that if the person faces unsuccessfulness in some matters it largely affects the whole nature of the individual (Crain, 1985). The actions that were done to me by my parents and my mates made me to think in somewhat different manner.

The next phase of the Erikson?s model is the young adulthood which encloses the ages from 18 to 35. This is the main solidarity period of any individual. Either make or break situation where all the previous learning play a major role in identifying the purpose of life (Eagle, 1993). I had my problems as I entered this period. This period requires the person to love and to be loved. Life has much more meaning than it was before. The need of companion sometimes frustrated and sometimes made me happy. The important thing was the emergence of the need of a career, which made me take things rather positively. Education became an important continuous part of my learning process and affected me to take better decisions by understanding the things better. But most importantly this was the stage when I was having my gender problems. I was in the search of love because people around me had stereotyped this as an important part where I was not at first comfortable with this. I was unable to understand my basic gender identity in the society but as the time went pass I started to realize important ups and downs of life by understanding basic moralistic values. This was the time I was more into my interpersonal skills and personality. The development of my personality was taking place at a rapid pace. I understood the importance of giving respect to others and doing well for the other beings. I was not into my own self and running for my rights but rather interested in my obligations towards the society. This period allowed me to become independent, so now I was working and studying two important facts of life much needed for the survival. By working I was able to understand the basic trading skills and the relationships with my colleagues. The life became more disciplined and stable with small events were no more taking toll on my work and study and not on my personality after all. The responsibilities increased on me but more or less I didn?t feel much obliged to these things and lived my life the way I wanted. This developmental phase of my life was most interesting and informative because I was full mature and had all the abilities in full which I didn?t have in the previous years. I had full control over myself and the way I behaved. The maturity led me to take sober decisions which were long term. I critically analyzed my future and it seemed very successful. The important things included the moral values which are stated in the Kohlberg?s moral value model.

The next stage was the middle adulthood from 35 to 55 years. This age group was the consistency of the work provisions. The family bearing and other responsibilities were too much for me.

The things which differentiated this period from my life were that I was no longer a young one who had no obligations. I had to be responsible and more agreed to the situations. The compromising became an important aspect of my personality and the children were always there to allow me to compromise my own interests in their favors. My grandparents died in this period which was most tragic event of my life but it helped me understand other perspectives of the life. The death was inevitable and therefore I remained patient. This brought me closer to my family including my parents, my wife and my children. Thus these events are part of life and it in the end depends on us as how we interpret these things positive or negative. Negative associations might lead to further consequences allowing my concentration to move away from my family which I couldn?t have done. These all things made me stronger in my approach. The influences of the society and cultural allowed me to devise myself accordingly throughout my life making me more worthy to the people and to myself.

The importance of being successful life was due to the various developmental stages which I passed successfully. My parents were always there to take good care of me when I needed it most. Even the mates and the colleagues were helpful in identifying my objectives and creating motivations. The important thing was to understand myself better which I eventually did. The two theories of Kohlberg and Erikson made very important impact on my life. The life seemed to be running around these cycles in a progressive way. At each these two theories come along and helped in making my life better.

These two models work in conjunction with each other. The important thing is that it makes possible to understand the true realities of life. When I look back on the life which I have lived I find that at every aspect of my learning process I had been influenced by the theories that these two authors have put forward. There developmental theories of the body, mind and consequently the spiritual makes it possible to take better decisions in regards to the future. The future has to be corrected. Kohlberg?s model of moral values allows the individuals to understand the basic proposition of the life when it comes to the obligations to the others and our rights (Kohlberg, 1971). Similarly developmental theory puts forward the ways how the mind reacts to certain actions and the reactions differ in the individual from individuals. The social learning theory influences both the theories and it is quite obvious that it makes the learning to be divided into two portions and look at both of them separately. By doing this we can critically get the answers to the questions that are related with social theory of learning.