Arnold Gesell and maturation
R. J. Havighurst and developmental tasks
One theorist who has made an important, if underrated, contribution to our contemporary understanding of child and adolescent development is Robert Havighurst (born in 1900). Havighurst described development in terms of 'developmental tasks', or 'those things that constitute healthy and satisfactory growth in our society' (1953: 2). In Havighurst's (1953) view, development is not one long slow uphill climb, but consists of both steep gradients where learning is difficult and plateaux where the individual can coast in terms of development. One example of this is a child who must work hard to master the art of catching a cricket ball, but who, having mas- tered the skill, can then 'coast' for years. Havighurst's theory addresses the issue of children's cognitive development as well as other aspects of devel- opment. His views provide some contrast to cognitive-developmental and information-processing theories.
A question often asked by parents is 'How well is my child doing?' This is often answered in relation to developmental tasks. Slee (2002) noted that evaluations of how a child is doing generally reflect expectations based on pooled knowledge about child development that are transmitted from one generation to the next. The expectations and concerns are often reflected in popular culture such as the milestones provided in child-rear- ing books. A recent example is an Australian list of developmental tasks presented in The National Mental Health Strategy Monograph (2000) (Figure 3.2).
Havighurst explained developmental tasks thus:
A developmental task is a task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of the individual, successful achievement of which leads to happiness and to success with later tasks, while failure leads to unhappiness in the individual, disapproval by society, and diffi- culty with later tasks.
(Havighurst, 1953: 2) Havighurst proposed that inner and outer forces set up certain develop- mental tasks for the individual. He identified three such forces:
1. The biology of the individual, involving physical maturation, such as learning to walk or learning to relate to the opposite sex during adolescence.
Systems
Major life changes & developmental tasks through adolescence Developing physical,
motor skills and communication skills
Acquiring language Developing self control School adjustment Literacy development Developing social skills School transitions Adolescence - puberty
Developing identity and independence Leaving home
Choosing a vocation/partner
Life Stages Birth Infancy and toddlerhood
Childhood
Adolescence
Early adulthood Adulthood Older adulthood Figure 3.2 Examples of Developmental tasks
Adapted from P.T. Slee (2002) (2nd Ed.) Child, Adolescent and Family Development.
Cambridge University Press: Melbourne.
2. Cultural forces, such as learning to read and write.
3. The personal values and aspirations of the individual, such as aspiring to become a doctor or engineer.
Havighurst identified nine key tasks to be accomplished during early childhood, such as learning to walk, to eat solid food and to distinguish right from wrong. Nine tasks for middle childhood are delineated, includ- ing learning the physical skills to play ordinary games and achieving per- sonal independence. Havighurst identified ten developmental tasks during adolescence, including achieving mature relations with the opposite sex, achieving some economic independence, and selecting and preparing for an occupation.
In a more contemporary development of Havighurst's theory, Selverstone (1989) proposed that the ten developmental tasks during ado- lescence may be clustered into four main categories:
1. identity, which involves the determination of the question 'Who am I?' 2. connectedness, which includes establishing relationships with peers 3. power - the development of a sense of control and power
4. hope/joy, which is achieved via the accomplishment of the previous three tasks.
According to Havighurst (1953), there is a right moment for teaching or
developing a task. That is, there is a moment or time in the individual's life when it is most opportune to be exposed to the learning involved in a task.
Havighurst also adopted a broad outlook about the nature of tasks, believing that they extend beyond the individual to the cultural-historical context in which the individual is growing or developing.
At this point it is worthwhile revisiting the usefulness and validity of the concept of developmental stages such as 'adolescence' or 'youth'. As dis- cussed earlier, organicism emphasizes the stages that help us identify and appreciate the nature of the challenges facing us as we grow and develop.
However, serious debate is now being engaged in to consider alternatives to simple linear classification of the developmental process identified by normative transitions. Present discussion emphasizes that
... the focus on youth is not on the inherent characteristics of young people themselves, but on the construction of youth through social processes (such as schooling, families or the labor market). Young people engage with these institutions in specific ways, in relation to historical circumstances.
(Wyn and White, 1997: 9) Thus, for example, historians such as Enright et al. (1987) have specifically argued that adolescence is a life stage created to meet the demands of industry for a skilled labour force. Furthermore, the notion of develop- mental tasks has been criticized as being merely descriptive. However, overall, it provides a means of understanding human development in a way that reflects a popular understanding: at particular times in our lives, we must address important developmental issues, and how effectively we fulfil these tasks has implications for current and future functioning.
Conclusions
In this chapter we have provided some important background to the root metaphor identified as 'organicism' (Pepper, 1942). Reese and Overton (1970: 132) noted that the basic metaphor for organicism is 'the organism, the living, organized system presented to experience in multiple forms'.
The emergence of new phenomena at each new level of organization that is not commensurate with a reduction to a lower level of organization is a feature of organicism. Lerner (1983: 53) referred to the idea of'epigenetic viewpoint' which
... denotes that at each higher level of complexity there emerges a new characteristic, one that simply was not present at the lower organizational level and thus whose presence is what establishes a new level as just that - a stage of organization qualitatively different from a preceding one.
To that end, organismic theorists would generally agree with the Gestalt position that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Moreover, the whole is not only greater but 'different' in the sense that when one is experiencing a rainbow one is experiencing more than the sum of the various colours. Lerner (1983) has summarized the organicist outlook as comprising viewpoints that are:
• epigenetic
• anti-reductionist
• qualitative
• discontinuous
• multiple and interactionist in nature.
The organicist outlook also emphasizes that the individual's world moves through increasing levels of integration, that individuals are agents in constructing their reality and that there is some structural interdepend- ence to the parts of development. One key feature of the organicist view concerns the universal features of human development.
In the following chapter we continue to pursue the organicism metaphor in considering constructivist theories of development.
Introduction
In this chapter we continue the presentation of theories associated with organicism. The previous chapter began with some background ideas rele- vant to this viewpoint, including Gestalt psychology, functionalism, the search for meaning, and general systems theory. In introducing here the field of thinking broadly referred to as 'constructivism', we add some fur- ther background ideas, including the philosophical notion of the 'world of ideas', George Kelly's theory and the psychological construct of 'cogni- tion'. We then address in particular the theoretical contributions of Piaget, Maccoby and Bruner, and also consider the significant contributions that 'connectionism' and 'theory of mind' are making to our theorizing about human development.
Background ideas
Popper (1972) proposed that the task of philosophy is to enrich our image of the world, arguing that the generally accepted picture involves a vari- ation of mind-body dualism. Popper suggested that there are, in fact, the following three worlds.
The first is the physical world or the world of physical states; the sec- ond is the mental world or the world of mental states; and the third is the world of intelligibles, or of ideas in the objective sense'., it is the world of possible objects of thought: the world of theories in them- selves, and their logical relations; of arguments in themselves; and of problem situations in themselves.
(Popper, 1972: 154) In World 1 we have physical reality, which we relate to with our five senses.
World 2 is the inner world of thoughts, feelings and emotions, accessible through introspection. In World 3 we have the world that can be examined using the objective methods of logic and mathematics (similar to the Platonic realm of 'Ideas', to be described briefly in Chapter 6). Writers such as Tonnessen (1999) argue that cognitive psychology is located in World 3, and in this chapter we will see the emergence of information- processing theory and connectionism as reflecting mental structures and
models derived from logical and mathematical reasoning.
As reference to the 'milestones' in Appendix 1 indicates, the 1960s and 1970s were witness to a significant shift toward cognitive psychology.
Behaviourism had been the dominant influence in the 1940s and 1950s, particularly in North America. As we will describe in Chapter 6, the early psychologists, including William James and Wilhelm Wundt, were certainly interested in aspects of cognition, including attention and memory, but the dominance of behaviourism discredited the study of the 'mind'. In his crit- ical 1913 paper, the behaviourist John Watson confidently wrote that after psychology accepted behaviourism, psychology could then be equated with the physical sciences: 'The findings of psychology ... lend themselves to explanation in physico-chemical terms' (Watson, 1913: 177).
Despite Watson's prediction, the mid-twentieth century was witness to the emergence of a strong interest in cognitive processes, including an increasing interest in children's cognitive development, social cognition and cognitive therapy. Significant influences bearing on this shift in influ- ence included the work of George Kelly and his personal construct theory.
Kelly (1963: 12) posited two notions, namely '(1) that viewed in the per- spective of the centuries, man might be seen as an incipient scientist, and (2) that each individual man formulates in his own way constructs through which he views the world of events'. This indicated that the personal con- structs people hold lead them to understand and explain events in different ways, which in turn leads to different action. Personal construct psycho- logy as developed by George Kelly argued that individuals develop bi-polar dimensions of meaning. These personal constructs are used to make sense of experience and anticipate the future. Each person psychologically con- structs understandings of self, others and relationships, and continually evaluates whether these constructs effectively account for the world around them. (Readers are particularly encouraged to read further regarding the work of George Kelly to better understand the point being made here.)
Apart from the writings of Kelly, methodological advances in the middle part of the twentieth century meant that it also became possible to study cognition without resort to introspectionism. For example, bar-pressing in the context of a certain stimulus, such as a green light, would indicate that the subject was attending to the stimulus. All in all, there was an increasing research effort directed toward the understanding of cognitive development.
Kreitler and Kreitler (1976: 4) noted rather sceptically that 'the term
"cognitive" has been used so widely that one might wonder whether there is anything in psychology that is not cognitive'. We would suggest that cog- nitive psychology is concerned with mental representations, symbols and computations. A number of the theoretical developments described in this chapter have received some significant input from the field of artificial intelligence. As Newell and Simon (1972: 282) noted, 'There is a growing
body of evidence that the elementary information processes used by the human brain in thinking are highly similar to a subset of the elementary information processes that are incorporated in the instruction codes of ...
computers'. In fact, cognitive psychologists have used the metaphor of the computer to compare with cognitive processes, highlighting at the same time the objectivity of their research (Tonnessen, 1999).