Ponce de Leon 1

Alondra Ponce de Leon

Professor Flynt
Lifespan of Human Development
22 April 2015
Reflective Writing Signature Assignment
Humans; they are as complex as can be. The built and structure of the human body is the
few similar things that all humans share and that itself can become very complicated to fully
comprehend it all. What makes each one unique is the mind, the psychological perspective that
is different within each one. If one wants to grasp as much knowledge about the psychological
development of a human it needs to be seen as a whole, not by sections. As the human grows
multiple things change along the way, including psychologically. It all coincides with each other
as the development occurs and to want to know one part of the human development you must
understand the full cycle to completely comprehend it.
That is why the lifespan human development perspective is so important. It allows a full
view of each of the phases of life into one complete cycle on a humans psychological
development. It takes into account all phases of life to truly understand a human and how they
change over time and their process in development due to ones own experiences through their
life. This brings a new understanding leading to the ideas of the human development being
multidirectional, multicontextual, multicultural, multidisciplinary, and plastic.
Through this perspective many ideas were created in attempt to further understand human
development, one of them being a theory known as the cognitive theory. The cognitive theory

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indicates that a humans perspective and expectations can actually take into play of ones actions,
not just by ones thoughts but by ones attitude, beliefs, and assumptions as well. How one
chooses to see the world determines our idea of it and with age this may change overtime. The
Swiss scientist Jean Piaget developed this theory as well as using this theory by observing his
own children. With this he understood that human thinking is changes through time but also by
experiences. Piaget saw this occurring in which he brought into 4 different stages: sensorimotor,
preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational, which were all age-related. The
more one knows the more their thoughts and actions are modeled/molded through that.
Another idea that was development was that of which how an adolescents mind grows
and changes from intuitive thinking to analytical thinking. Or another form of it being from
inductive reasoning to deductive reasoning. This has brought a huge understanding of an
adolescences development and an explanation of their actions and reasoning. Intuitive thought is
a quick processes of just ones beliefs and their gut feeling taking over into action, where as
analytical thought takes its time in seeing the full outcome of the actions by using logical
thinking. This has opened a huge door in uncovering the adolescents mind process and how the
development/growth affects it as age comes along.
Through this information it has brought great knowledge to myself and has even
encouraged my beliefs in how I saw human development before-hand. In Piagets cognitive
theory it really grabbed my attention because that is how my own thoughts perceived human
development to be, an every changing process that was affection by ones experiences and
thoughts. Of course he brought it in a much more detailed and developed theory but it allowed
me to further understand reasoning, as well as with the change in thinking for adolescence. I
enjoyed understanding the developing mind of adolescence because it wasnt too long ago when

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I took part in that phase of development. It allowed me to personally understand why I was a
certain way and how adolescents in general are still growing in the development of their mind
and reasoning.
I believe that these two ideas shown can be very valuable in someones life, regardless of
who you are. Really everything from this course can be valuable information for ones
knowledge. The reason being is that it talks about humans and what are we? We are humans. The
more we understand ourselves and the others around us the more understanding we can become
of the human species as a whole. Who wouldnt want to know more about themselves and the
processes of how we become who we are.