Case Study of Developmental Theories Essays

The first stage of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is physiological needs. As a person, physiological needs such as air, food, drink, shelter, sex and others are our necessities in our daily life. Basically, this requirement must be fulfill in order to achieve the next level or if not, it will eventually fail. Obviously, the most important stage is physiological need because it is the most basic essential before moving

Piaget asserts that, the instincts children have when they are born are inherited scripts, called schema, these schema are building blocks for cognitive development. As a child grows, he acquires more of these building blocks; moreover, these building blocks become more complex as the child progresses through different stages in development (Huitt, Hummel 2003). Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development are as follows. First, The sensorimotor stage where an infant has

The Physiological Needs: - These include the needs we have for oxygen, water, protein, salt, sugar, calcium and other minerals.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid consists of five basic levels of needs, progressing from physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization. According to Robbins and Judge (2014), physiological and safety needs are lower levels needs that are predominantly satisfied externally whereas social, esteem, and

The next level would include safety needs, personal and financial security health and well being. As you move up the pyramid the needs increase to love and belonging, self –esteem and the highest level would include self-actualization, reaching one’s full potential. The theory is that you can not reach the highest level without first obtaining the basics. (Wikipedia the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs, 10/20/10)

Self-actualization: The final level is self-actualization. This is the final step a person can achieve to reach their highest potential in life, to be the you that is possible real in life. In the movie carl is trying to achieve his wife’s dream to go to paradise falls and nothing could stop him from going there. As the movie goes on Carl learns of Kevin’s babies and then decides that getting to her kids is more important than taking the house to the falls.

In the hierarchy needs the basics are things such as physical needs and safety, but

Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory describes four stages of human development which he described as naturally emerging reasoning and development. The first two stages can be described as sensori-motor development. In all stages of development, the child learns to adapt, assimilate, and accommodate new information into their thought process.  Stage one is Sensorimotor which lasts from birth to 2 years of age. There are six substages which the infant’s source of actions shifts from reflexes to

Piaget now wanted to take this theory even farther. He created a theory to explain cognitive development at many different ages. His theory explained that cognitive development consists of four stages; sensorimotor, preoperational, concreter operational, and formal operational. The sensorimotor stage begins at birth and lasts until about the age 2. Piaget divided the stage into 6 sub-stages consisting of, simple reflexes, first habits and primary circular reactions, secondary circular reactions, coordination of secondary circular reactions, tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity, and the final sub-stage is internalization of

Piaget had 4 different stages to his Cognitive-Development theory. His ideas included the stages sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The main idea of Piaget’s theory was to explain that a childs reasoning develops in four different stages. His theory helped explain how children of different ages start to think and view the world for themselves.

Jean Piaget’s four stages of development explain the stages of the average cognitive development from childhood through adulthood. These four stages involve reasoning, intellectual capacity, and judgment. The four stages include the Sensorimotor Stage, the Preoperational Stage, the Concrete Operational Stage, and the Formal Operational Stage. Piaget recognized that some children may go through these stages at various ages, and children might even show signs of going through more than one stage at once. However, Piaget claimed that children will always go through these stages in a consecutive order and that all stages of development indicate an increasingly intricate comprehension of the world (Benaroch, 2014)

Piaget’s theory is in definition a stage theory. This implies that the individual child must complete certain requirements or accomplish specific tasks prior to entering the next stage. At the same time, Piaget indicates that the stages are somewhat specific to selected age groups. Thus, it is between the ages of two and seven that a child enters and then exits the preoperational stage of development. This suggests that the development is almost concrete and experiential. In other words, the child progresses through the stage and will eventually begin the next stage. The child will have completed the previous stage within the age range and with all the cognitive skills necessary for the next stage. This implies a rigidity that does not necessarily exist. Children progress differently, and most likely this is true even with regard to cognitive development. Keller demonstrates higher thinking at times than his age range may suggest, as children progress at different ages. While also keeping in mind that some experiences from further stages may be achieved while things from lower stages may not be yet achieved. Analyzing Piaget’s theory of cognitive development as a fluid timeline for children helps to better the use and understanding of the theory in todays society.

The development of the “pyramid of needs” by Maslow in 1943 became the blue print used today to identify the needs of individuals. Maslow believed that in the correct order, an individual can become self-actualized through a hierarchy of needs. Once an individual has met the basic physiological needs such as food, water, sex, sleeps etc., then they are able feel safety through the security of body, employment, morality, family health, etc. As the individuals moves up the hierarchy, feeling loved and belonged strengthens their self-esteem and reaching self-actualization is achieved.

The first and most important need for a person is physiological: these are the physical requirements for human survival, without these requirements the human body could not function properly. These are the most important needs to fulfill and should be met first. Some examples of physiological needs are: water, food, sleep, sex, breathing, excretion and homeostasis.

On the bottom of the hierarchy we have the physiological needs for breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, excretion etc. As these needs are satisfied we move up the pyramid to satisfy safety needs such as security of the self, of the family, property, health and employment. We move on to the need for love and belonging where we desire to connect with people through family, friendship and sexual intimacy. We then seek out our esteem needs to boost self-esteem, confidence, achievement and respect from others. The top of the pyramid is the need for self-actualization where we desire self-improvement through creativity and helping to make the world a better place.