Personality and Lifespan Development

Personality and Lifespan Development

Cassie Hazelton

PSY/103

Jack Morana

November 8, 2010

Personality and Lifespan Development

Infancy is a time of rapid growth. Physical, cognitive, social and moral developmental changes are evident. Most infants follow a similar pattern of development from month to month, although there is variation in the rate of growth for some infants. Much of this growth is under the influence of genetic maturation; however, the child's environment is critical. Infants need interaction, tenderness and touch, healthcare, and quality nutrition in order to take advantage of their abilities and potential.

Physical changes in the body that involve changes in size, gross motor, bone thickness, vision, weight, fine motor, hearing, and perceptual development refer to a child’s physical development. The first two years of life growth is rapid. The child gains new abilities as each physical change occurs. During the first year physical development mainly involves the infant coordinating motor skills. Motor actions are repeated, which serve to build motor coordination and physical strength.

Nature refers to heredity: the genetic makeup or "genotypes" an individual carries from the time of conception to the time of death. [Heredity may range from genetic predispositions that are specific to each individual and that therefore potentially explain differences in individual characteristics (e.g., temperament), to those supposedly specific to certain groups and that therefore account for group differences in related characteristics (e.g., gender and height), and to those that are theorized to be shared by all humans and are generally thought to set humans apart from other species (e.g., the language acquisition device in humans)] (Free Encyclopedia, 2010).

[Nurture, by contrast, refers to various external or environmental factors to which an individual is exposed from conception to death. These environmental factors...