THEORIES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Authors theory Life cycle stage Importance in health evaluation and

care.
SIGMUND FREUD. Psychosexual theory on personality 1. Oral (0 – 1 year)
development: 2. Anal (2 – 3 years) We consider that the importance of
 Freud believed that personality 3. Phallic (4 – 5 the theory of psychosexual stages in
developed through a series of stages years) health care consists of the knowledge
in childhood in which pleasure- 4. Latency (6 – 12 of those possible factors, mainly from
seeking energies or impulses are years) childhood, that can affect not only the
focused on certain erogenous zones. 5. Genitals (13 – physical health, but also the mental
This psychosexual energy, or libido, he adulthood) health of the patient. That is relevant
described as the driving force behind for us, as health professionals, to
behavior. focus on the context of our patients,
 Pleasure focuses successively on the and thus give them comprehensive
mouth (oral phase), on the anus (anal treatment.
phase), on the genitals (phallic phase).
The individual then enters a stage of
latency, which lasts until adolescence,
in which sexual impulses are activated
again (genital stage).

ERICK ERIKSON Psychosocial theory on personality 1.Basic trust versus

development: basic distrust (0 – 1 As doctors or any type of health
 Each of the stages are determined by year) professional, we must understand that
a conflict that allows individual 2. Autonomy our patients are not just a clinical
development. When the person versus shame – condition or a specific pathology, but
manages to resolve each of the doubt (2 – 3 years). rather they are human beings like us
conflicts, they grow psychologically. 3. Initiative against whose conflicts related to the social
 He emphasized the understanding of feelings of guilt (2 – stages they are experiencing may have
the 'I' as an intense force, as an 5 years). connotations on their health.
organizing capacity of the person, 4. Industriousness Understanding these psychosocial
capable of reconciling syntonic and versus inferiority (6 stages helps us improve the doctor-
dystonic forces, as well as resolving – 11 years). patient relationship, where dialogue
crises derived from the genetic, 5. Identity versus and understanding are the pillars so
cultural and historical context of each role confusion (12 that our help is effective and has a
person. – 18 years). dimension beyond just a treatment or
 He proposed the concept of 6. Intimacy versus clinical procedure.
personality development from isolation (Young
childhood to old age. adult).
 He researched the impact of culture, 7. Creativity versus
society and history on personality stagnation. (Middle
development. age).
8. Integrity versus
despair. (Old age).
JEAN PIAGET Cognitive Development Theory: 1. Sensory-motor Piaget proposes in his theory that
  The goal of the theory is to explain (0 – 2 years). infants experience mental processes
the mechanisms and processes by 2. Pre-operational that progress as the child grows and
which the infant, and later the child, (2 – 7 years). interacts with everything around him.
develops into an individual who can 3. Concrete In that sense, knowing the stages that
reason and think using hypotheses. operations (7 – 11 mark the cognitive development of
 For Piaget, cognitive development is a years). children is of vital importance when
progressive reorganization of mental 4. Formal establishing an interaction with them.
processes as a result of biological operations (11 to Knowing how they think and how they
maturation and environmental 14 years). perceive will help us create strategies
experience. so that our communication is effective
 Children build an understanding of so that our message is understood.
the world around them, and then
experience discrepancies between
what they already know and what
they discover in their environment.
LEV VYGOSTSKY Theory of Socio-Cultural Development: It does not specify Family medicine is characterized by
stages by age. starting from a comprehensive view of
 Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory However, it the patient, where in addition to the
emphasizes the proactive emphasizes disease or medical condition, other
participation of minors with the cognitive components are evaluated that give
environment that surrounds them, development us a clearer view of the individual's
with cognitive development being the during childhood context. Among these components is
result of a collaborative process. Lev and adolescence. the family and social level. Socio-
Vygotsky maintained that children cultural theory explains how an
develop their learning through social individual's family and social context
interaction: they acquire new and shape their experiences, skills, and
better cognitive skills as a logical behaviors. This is relevant when
process of their immersion in a way of evaluating risk factors for getting sick
life. or protective factors for health for
Those activities that are carried out in those cultures with distinguishable
a shared way allow children to behavioral patterns.
internalize the thought and behavioral
structures of the society that
surrounds them, appropriating them.

LAWRENCE Theory of Moral Development: Childhood, Morality is understood as the set of

KOHLBERG  Morality develops in six stages adolescence and convictions and norms that guide us to
throughout childhood, adolescence, adulthood. judge what is good or bad. In that
and adulthood. sense,
 In the two pre-conventional stages,
moral behavior is determined by the
concepts of punishment, rewards and
reciprocity.
 In the two conventional stages, moral
conduct is congruent with what
others believe to be right, compliance
with the law, and maintenance of
social order.
  In the two post-conventional stages,
the individual judges moral behavior
according to his or her conscience and
universal moral principles, rather than
social norms.

NOAM CHOMSKY Language development: Childhood–pre-

adolescence
 Noam Chomsky maintained that,
although the child's environment
provides the content of language,
grammar is a biologically determined
human capacity; He insists that
language is another genetically
programmed inevitability of human
development, on par with the
processes that determine that we
have arms and not wings.

 Chomsky proposes a name for the

innate language organ: language
acquisition device (LAD). He justifies
this for three reasons: children are
born with the ability to construct and
understand all types of sentences
even though they have never heard or
learned them; All human languages
seem to share certain universal
elements; and we acquire some
grammatical principles regardless of
our culture or level of intelligence.
Another proof is that the speech
organs, the respiratory system, the
auditory system and the brain are
specialized for oral communication.

WATSON Theory Childhood- It is very common for people to

learning behaviorist: adulthood associate going to the doctor with
 Watson maintained that learning being sick or about to be sick. This
determines what children will consequently generates a negative
become. He assumed that, with response towards everything involved
proper methods, almost everyone can with clinics, consultations or medical
learn anything. In other words, from care.
their perspective, experience is the Our challenge as health professionals,
only thing that matters in the course based on this behavioral theory, is to
of development. be, through humanized treatment, a
positive stimulus to generate an
  Watson saw the child as a perfect equally positive response in our
tabula rasa, affirming that behaviorist patients, where they do not visualize
principles could serve to mold seeing the doctor as something
children and turn them from artists to tortuous or undesirable, but rather On
doctors regardless of their nature. The the contrary, an opportunity to
child is formed by the environment, improve your health and therefore
and said environment is controlled by your quality of life.
the parents; He considered parenting
as an objective exercise in modifying
behavior, and in particular the
emotions of fear, anger and love.

b. F. SKINNER The theory of reinforcement: Childhood- This theory maintains a close

adulthood relationship with Watson's behavioral
theory, but including the concept of
 The theory of reinforcement positive and negative reinforcers. In
developed by Skinner, also known as the area of health, it is important to
operant conditioning or instrumental apply positive reinforcers to improve
conditioning, attempts to explain patients' experience of their care,
human behavior in correspondence encouraging them to take preventive
with the environment or stimuli that or care measures to avoid any disease
surround it. that puts their health at risk.
 Reinforcement Theory emphasizes
that a person is more likely to repeat
a behavior that is positively
reinforced, just as they will be more
likely to repeat those that are
associated with negative stimuli or
reinforcement.

ALBERT Social learning theory: Childhood- Social learning theory is useful in

BANDURA adulthood explaining how people can learn new
 The theory is based on the fact that things and develop new behaviors by
there are types of learning where observing other individuals. The
direct reinforcement is not the main relevance of this for health care is that
teaching mechanism, but rather the it allows us to evaluate how the social
social element can lead to the context of which our patients are a
development of new learning part affects their health habits.
between individuals.

 Children pay attention to all of these

people or models and encode their
behavior. Subsequently, they can
imitate (i.e., copy) the behavior they
have observed. But they can do this
 regardless of whether the behavior is
appropriate or not, although there are
a number of processes that make a
child more likely to reproduce the
behavior that his or her society deems
appropriate for him or her.

JOHN BOWLBY Attachment theory: Childhood This theory explains the importance of
the attachment bonds that are formed
MARY  John Bowlby argued that since between a child and his mother. The
AINSWORTH newborns are totally helpless, they importance of this in health consists of
are genetically programmed to attach the relationship, based on what was
themselves to their mother and thus stated by Bowlby, between alterations
ensure survival. Anything that to this link and psychiatric disorders.
threatens to separate the mother
from the child activates instinctive
attachment behaviors and emotions
of insecurity and fear.
 Bowlby believes that early secure
attachment is essential because it is
indispensable for the formation of an
internal working model or structure,
which the child uses to understand
himself, others and the world. This
model guides the person's thoughts,
emotions, and expectations even into
adulthood. Since early attachment is a
model for future relationships, its
capacity will determine whether the
child learns to trust others and feel
valuable and secure in society.
 Ainsworth also thought that control
systems existed, but he went a little
further and proposed his concept of
the “strange situation”, with which he
added three behavioral styles to
attachment theory: Secure, Insecure-
Avoidant and Insecure-Ambivalent.
Later other authors identified other
types of attachment, such as anxious
attachment or disorganized
attachment.

URIE Systemic – Ecological Theories: Birth-death

BRONFENBENNER  Urie Bronfenbrenner's Ecological
Systems Theory consists of an
environmental approach to the
development of the individual
 through the different environments in
which they develop and that influence
change and their cognitive, moral and
relational development.
 It proposes that all aspects of
development are interconnected, just
like the weaving of a spider web, so
no aspect of development can be
isolated from the others and
understood independently.

 From least to greatest globality, Urie

Bronfenbrenner names four systems
that surround the primary nucleus
understood as the same individual.
The systems are the following:
microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem
and macrosystem.