Individual
Development Narrative
1. Please check coherence, grammar error and APA 6th
referencing.
2. Please check some strange sentence, you can add or edit
appropriate sentences.
3. I have to make socio-culture development related my lifespan
and sum up the conclusion.
4. The reference (Mpofu) is wrong according to my tutor, but I
can’t find. Can you find the correct
reference?
Task;
Critically analyse a life story in relation to theories of
lifespan development.
-the domains of development (physical, cognitive, emotional,
socio-cultural and/ or moral)
-the biological and environmental influences on development, including
examples that demonstrate understanding of the nature and nurture argument.
Human development
can be defined as a process of progressive changes and stabilities of people
that happen from a birth of a baby to the death (Berk, 2009). The changes are
divided into five different domains; physical, cognitive, social, emotional,
and moral (Mpofu, 2010). Also, the changes are
happening all the time in people’s lives and affect the others as people grow
through their life (Sigelman & Rider, 2006). In the IDN, I will explain the
five domains of development and the biological and environmental influences on
development with the nature and nurture throughout my lifespan by using a
number of theories.
My parents had
me when they were 30 years old and I was a first girl of offspring in the
family. My uncles loved me so much and they came back to home early to see me.
When I was born, my grandmother was so surprised because I took similar to my
father. Since my parents are relatively tall and well-built, my weight and
height were much bigger and taller than other babies. Physical development is
the growth of body, brain and gens inherited from parents. It relates to
changes in body size, compositions, looking, and abilities of body
organizations (Berk, 2009; Rice, 2001). Surprisingly, on the back of my
father’s right hand, there is a blue mole and I also have the same size and
colour mole on the same side of my right hand (genetic and biological
influence). In accordance with my paternal grandmother, my appearance and size
of body totally took after my father’s side. Those can be fully explained
dynamic system theory of influence of motor development which indicates the
capability of motor skill (Berk, 2009). Whenever my father had me in his arms,
other people said to us that you look exactly like your father and you can find
your find easily. A few months later, I started standing up, crawling and
speaking rapidly rather than the same age’s babies.
Jean Piaget, one
of the powerful theorists focuses on children’s cognitive development,
indicated that children acquire constantly through experiences. He used a
systematic model to describe and define individual development the basic
cognitive development in four typical categories; sensorimotor, preoperational,
concrete operational, and formal operational (Berk, 2009). During infancy, I
started scanning objects and grabbing them by myself with advanced motor and
perceptual skills. Also I liked to go and be with my mum and I could
distinguish people, places and objects and also was able to feel fear when I
was with strangers, not my parents. At this stage, babies can feel trust and
mistrust. They are much closer to caregivers who are emotionally related. It
can be explained by Berk in 2009 and Rice in 2001 as knowing other people
through changes in emotional communication, personality, friendships and
intimate relationships. I began playing with toys alone by grabbing and
mouthing and fitting certain shapes of block to holes that match the shapes. In
addition, almost 8 months old, I finally spoke words such as “mama” and “papa”
and sometimes, I solved a matter by getting on a lower chair to get a toy.
According to my mother, I was stubborn from this stage, which made her so
stressed. It can be explained that sensorimotor stage (0-2 years) of the
cognitive development. Cognitive development is connected with alteration of
intellectual stages of thinking such as language, problem solving, reasoning,
imagination, memory and logical thinking. It accounts for the different
perspective about the same theory and includes perceiving, learning,
remembering and thinking. (Berk, 2007; Rice, 2001). When I was 4 years old, my mother was
pregnant and I had a pretty little girl.
My father and mother only focused on the baby and I was behind of their
sight. Sometime I bothered the baby or cried out and yelled out intentionally
to receive a lot of attention and affection from them. At that time, I think
that my emotion development is not fully fulfilled. When I was around 5 and 6 years,
I used to play mothers and fathers with my younger sister and brother, which
was my sole comfort. From 6 years old, I started going to kindergarten and at
least twice of a week, I teased to my mother not to go to there. However, I
could easily draw simple things like an apple and wrote my name and my parent’s
names. This is an example of preoperational stage (2-6 years) of the cognitive
development is that children develop presenting something with some words and
images that they know (Berk, 2009). Since I was 6 years old, I have learnt
playing piano and drawing for 7 years with strong recommendation of my mother
and also, I could symbolise some object with some words that I liked. A year
later, I went to primary school, I could develop the category of numbers and
symbols when playing card games with my friends. At the stage, children can
perform logical thinking and they can classify into group with mathematical
transformations (Berk, 2009). The stage is referred concrete operational stage
(7-11 years). When I was 7 years old, I found a cell phone on a street. In my
mind, I really wanted to have the one because I did not have any cell phone. I
did not tell anyone about the phone and I had a mental and inner conflict.
Finally, I told my grandmother and we went to a police station to give it. When
I told her about it, I got scolding from her but, I learnt from the incident
that I should not take what does not belong to me and until now, the learning experience
was bred into my mind at an early age. Moral development includes judgement
that requires behaviours and emotions to decide about the social standards of
right and wrong that happen in the daily life. Across the lifespan, moral
development is developed by parents, siblings and teachers and influenced by
changes in social, cognitive, emotional and behavioural aspects (Mpofu, 2010).
From the primary school to middle school, I was able to understand classes
easily at school without any visual and experimental tasks in history and
chemistry class. In the ages, Children think logically about abstractions,
which contain hypothetical concepts, such as think about possibilities and
logical outcomes; Formal operation (over 12 years). Moreover, people are able
to have reflection on their own thoughts and potential for moral reasoning
(Berk, 2009).
I didn’t mention about the socio-cultural development across my
lifespan. (You can make a story)
Biological
(Genetic)/Nature Influences
Genetic and biological factors are very
significant contribution to the individual development along a variety of natural
features. There are no inherited diseases like cancers and diabetes in the
family history. In terms of my paternal family members, they are blunt but calm
and warm-hearted. Average height is around 188 cm and I also relatively taller
than the same age’s girls in my country. On the other hand, in the maternal
side, they are little bit overweighed but social and have calm personality. I definitely
believe that I look similar to my father, especially appearance and
characteristic because we are a timid and indecisive person. Surprisingly, on
the back of my father’s right hand, there is a blue mole and I also have the
same size and colour mole on the same side of my right hand. This can be totally
explained some skin genetic influences.
My father has double eyelids, my mother
has single eyelids, and thus I have single eyelids, which can be demonstrated
by dominant-recessive inheritance which occur only one allele has an impact on
the child’s characteristics. Dominant characteristic refers that the allele
affects, and recessive means that the allele does not affect. Recessive characteristic is only demonstrated
when both parents give the recessive allele (Berk, 2009). There is an example
that my mother gives the dominant allele to me, hence I get the dominant
feature (single eyelids) from her.
Environment/Nurture
Influences
Environmental factors are one of the
contributions to human developments. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory sympathize
that people are close to social context that has influences on children’s
developments. He paid attention to interaction five different kinds of contexts
that relate to the individual children based on the social context of human
development. In the category, it is defined from the smallest model to the
biggest model; individual person, microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and
macrosystem (Drewery &Bird, 2004; Berk 2009).
Figure 1.5 (Berk, 2009, p20)
–Microsystem
The microsystem refers to interaction
with intimate people or close environment such as family members and classmates
(Drewery & Bird, 2004). For instance, When I was a little, I spent most my
time with my grandparents, especially grandmother until I was a high school
student. My personality and values are highly affected by her. When she was
angry with something, she tried to relieve the stress by reading a book or
cooking. Through being seriously influenced by her, I get rid of amount of
stress by cooking. I think that positive thinking is the most important thing
in my life, and this value is passed from my grandparents.
–Mesosystem
The mesosystem refers to a system to the
link of the microsystem and the relationship between home and school which
plays a pivotal role in the category (Berk, 2009). For instance, at primary
school and middle school, I could meet diverse people and learn other differences
between people. In addition, I learnt to respect from classmates and teachers.
I firmly believe that it was a good chance to broaden my perspective at that
time.
–Exosystem
Berk indicated in 2010 that the exosystem
refers to people and larger social groups such as community, mass media,
neighbours and welfare services.There is an
examplethatwhen
I was around 14, the massive impact of mass media was
dominant in my country, especially singers and movie stars. I followed
what super stars do and was usually hanging out with community members that
were got together for a super star. My dream was be a wife of the super star. At
the moment, I was crazy about the super star and my studying was pushed aside.
–Macrosystem
According to Drewery &
Bird in 2004 and Berk in 2009, the macrosystem
refers to large culture such as language, values, customs and law. As everybody
knows, most Asian countries cultures are the Confucian including my country,
South Korea. Some of the Confucian traditions continue to this day in my
country. When I was adolescence, I learnt the Confucian ideas from my great
grandparents. Along the tradition, I was not able to wear short skirt and
sleeveless shirts and also it was prohibited by law. However, as time passed
and with adopt western culture, I can wear them without any permission freely.
Please make some argument between nature
and nurture.
Picture- hanging out with others
Please summarize the essay.
Reference
Berk, L. E. (2009). Exploring
lifespan development. (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Drewery, W., & Bird, L.
(2000). Human development in Aotearoa: A journey through life.
(2nd
ed.). Auckland, New Zealand: McGraw Hill.
Mcilveen, R., & Gross,
R. (1999). Aspects of psychology: Adolescence, adulthood and old
age. London, England: Hodder & Stoughton.
Mpofu, C (2010). Psychology and lifespan development: an
introductory text for health
professionals.
North Shore, New Zealand: Pearson Custom.
Rice, F. P. (2001). Human
development: A life-span approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice
Hall.
Sigelman, C. K., &
Rider, E. A. (2006). Life-span human development. (5th ed.). Belmont,
CA:
Vicki Knight.
Social/emotional development. (2000). Scholastic Early Childhood Today, 15(1), 61-61.
Retrieved from
http:ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/
217909839?accountid=8440
