- As opposed to other theories and writings focused on childhood development, the lifespan developmental theory offers an organizational framework through which developmental psychologists can understand the link between middle adulthood and childhood or old age. And thus, the lifespan developmental theory covers all the processes regarding ontogeny (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 417).
- The lifespan developmental theory offers counselors and other helping professionals a logical way of assessing and interpreting the challenges and possibilities that adults face, and therefore, helping them to achieve effective development (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, pp. 416-417).
- To achieve the therapeutic and psycho-educational goals relative to development, helping professionals need to consider different elements of the life span developmental theory including the gains and losses in development; the growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss relative to development; defining successful or effective development at any age, and identifying various influences on adult development.
- The gains and losses in development arise from the interaction between biological processes and physical/environmental influences at any point in people’s lives (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 417).
- Therefore, for children to develop into fully functioning adults, their biological processes become optimal in typical environments coupled with cultural supports resulting in successful development.
- As persons enter adulthood life, the biological processes begin to weaken signaling the completion of the reproductive process and the beginning of biological dysfunctions (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 417).
- Biological dysfunctions in middle adulthood life (ages 30-55 years) are further accelerated by modern cultures including economics, lifestyles, technology, and nutrition.
- Therefore, lifespan development relative to age entails gains during the childhood stage and losses during adulthood and old age stages.
- Considering the gains and losses in development, the lifespan developmental theory holds that development across the lifespan including adulthood proceeds through growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 418). These are the three adaptive processes through which persons adjust to various influences in their lives.
- For clinical purposes, clinicians need to define successful/effective development at any age. Effective development is widely defined as the minimization of losses and the maximization of developmental gains (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 419).
- However, the adaptive developmental process encounters various influences, which may lead to stability or changes in lifespan development.
- The sources of stability in development have been associated with personality characteristics such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, which influence people’s behaviors, thoughts, and feelings (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 421).
- The historical experiences and cultural predispositions notwithstanding, various personality attributes tend to remain stable across different cultures.
- Furthermore, researchers have described a link between childhood temperament and adulthood personality attributes considering that the two have a biological basis in that they arise from the reactivity and self-regulation systems in the human body (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 422).
- Additional studies note that consistency in personality attributes across the lifespan is highest when the underlying biological and environmental variables support the consistency.
- Despite the personality attributes contributing to stability in human development, people must adapt to various changes to achieve effective development.
- The sources of changes can be categorized into age-graded, history-graded, and non-normative changes (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 423).
- The age-graded changes are further subdivided into physical, cognitive, and life-task changes in adulthood.
- The physical changes in adulthood encompass all the bodily changes associated with the transition from adolescence to adulthood. These changes include hair losses; skin wrinkling; and declines in the visual, auditory, reproductive, cardiovascular, and immune processes (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, pp. 423-425).
- The cognitive changes in adulthood include various changes in intellectual abilities including the declines in fluid intelligence and some increments in crystallized intelligence, which occur as adults begin to age.
- The life-task changes in adulthood entail the shifts in task performance throughout life considering that people tend to perform the most important tasks relative to their stage of life. This may also include reallocation of the intellectual abilities in confronting various tasks as elaborated by Erik Erikson’s stages of self-development (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 425).
- The history-graded changes in adult development entail the life-time experiences that adults encounter by living through historical events such as technological shifts, sexual revolutions, wars, and economic depressions. These events have a direct effect on various aspects of human development (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 430).
- The non-normative changes affect both the cohort and individual lives through events that are unexpected such as sudden deaths, traumatic illnesses, accidents, winning a lottery, and imprisonment. These events have both positive and negative effects on human development.
- The discussions above confirm that life in the middle adulthood stage is continuous and evolving relative to various stable attributes and changes in development (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 431).
- Therefore, adults engage in different tasks during their midlife including keeping relationships and friendships, reproducing, and providing for their families.
- Furthermore, adults contribute to the continuity or discontinuity of the family cycle through marriages and divorce respectively (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, pp. 432-438).
- Another important task performed by adults is child-rearing, which is a challenging task for many adults considering that the successful process of child-rearing is influenced by the parent’s age, personality attributes, and coping skills (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 445).
- Overall, considering that the middle years in lifespan development present many challenges to a person’s life, helping professionals need to understand the processes and challenges associated with this stage to help their clients to achieve successful development and healthy functioning (Broderick & Blewitt, 2003, p. 451).
Reference
Broderick, P.C., & Blewitt, P. (2003). The lifespan: Human development for helping professionals. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.