Stages of Lifespan Development of Young Adulthood and Old Age

INTRODUCTION

The focus of this psychology paper, involves the uniqueness of individuals from both genetic and environmental influences within the specific areas of psychological development in lieu to language and behavior and the explanation of their uniqueness in terms of those influences. This paper will show how the uniqueness of psychological development is reflected in the lifespan stages of young adulthood and old age and will have to examine how understanding of psychological development at various stages of lifespan development might be used effective practice in nursing as well as diverse perspectives in psychology theories of lifespan psychology as it integrates human development of developmental resources of such adaptation and function as it deals with language and the interplay of behavioral nature of the lifespan development as this paper is supported by empirical evidence on the development of generic and environmental influences in terms of shaping and molding language and behavior and the development of the lifespan in young adulthood and old age and how this development be of effective realization to the nursing practice respectively.

MAIN BODY

Recently, people have thought of adults as being developmentally on a plateau. as children became adolescents, adolescents developed into adults. Then there is presumed to be a static plateau across the life span until people become old and begin to again reveal developmental influences. The assumption was that they are expected to become mature, responsible citizens conducting productive lives. According To Wikipedia, ‘’developmental psychology is the scientific study of progressive psychological changes that occur in human beings as they age and are concerned with infants and children and later other periods of great change such as adolescence and aging as it encompasses the entire lifespan. Developmental psychology relates between generic or the innateness that is, specified by the organism's genes. and environmental influence in regard to the aspect of development as the process are aquired in interaction with the environment.

Recently, developmental psychologists rarely take such positions with regards to the detailed aspect of the development; rather they investigate the relationship between innate and environmental influences and the innateness was portrayed in research in terms of language acquisition – the human language, the input from language to acquire the structure of language that applies to human languages that led to the idea that there is a special cognitive is widely considered among developmental psychologists to have sparked the decline in influence of behaviorism and signaled the start of cognitive revolution in psychology.

Young Adulthood or Adolescence is the period of psychological and social transition between childhood and adulthood as a transitional stage of human development during which a juvenile matures into adulthood and its endpoints are not easily tied to physical milestones with dramatic changes in the body, along with developments in a person's psychology and academic career. Some scholars have theorized a new stage of development, post-adolescence and pre-adulthood. calls this stage as the ‘’emerging adulthood and argues that it is characterized by relative independence from social roles and from normative expectations of life when many different directions remain possible, when the scope of independent exploration of life's possibilities is greater for most people than it will be at any other period of the life course’’

The adult behavior comprises the following:

Ø      Self-control

Ø      Stability

Ø      Independence

Ø      Seriousness

Ø      Responsibility

Ø      Endurance

Ø      Experience.

Ø      Objectivity

Thus, young adults and adult people are also influenced by languages that are not restricted to the properties shared by natural human languages. Hence, engaging into the principles along with distinction between one language and another is usually impossible such as the boundaries between named language groups are due to blending between populations as there are a few dialects of similar to some dialects to make a better distinction between one species to the other amicably.

In humans, one of the difficulty may stem from the interactions between languages and human behavior ways that has focused on social norms that influence a person's perception of his age that is not an evocative predictor of social and psychological behavior in which the simultaneous interaction influence the development of younger adults as well as adults as the picture of adulthood may continue to live under circumstances of dependence on others and cling to some false illusions of protection and do not trust the personal assessment of reality of individual life structures that were appropriate for their roles in the family.

The interest in the development in adult development and the old age experience is relatively the study of human development within the growing awareness of the growth in the older population. In 2000 adults between twenty and forty-four years of age comprised 36.9 percent of the U.S. population; adults between forty-five and sixty-four made up 22 percent; and those over the age of sixty-five represented 12.8 percent. Today, life expectancy at birth in the United States has risen to 72.5 years for men and 79.3 years for women.

For instance, proposes emerging adulthood as a new conception of development for the period from the late teenage years through the twenties in industrialized societies that allow young people a prolonged period of independent role exploration as it draws parallelism in the concept of emerging adulthood to Erik Erikson's concept of prolonged adolescence in industrialized society in which "young adults through role experimentation may find a niche in some section of his society", argues that emerging adulthood is distinct demographically. It is the "only period of life in which nothing is normative demographically".

Furthermore, young adulthood can be marked by the transition from young adult to middle-aged adult and changes of behavior and use of language are better indicators of developmental change for both men and women as there is evidence of a decrease in negative emotions and an increase in positive mood in the middle adult years. Development involves the process of change from one state to another but it is not change of any kind.  Thus, developmental psychology often refers to growth involves a progression through certain stages that is linked to an unfolding terms of human development and the notion of 'maturity'.

Furthermore, 'maturity' is something that is presumably demonstrated in action - and what may be appropriate behaviour in one setting or situation is not in another. Arguably, with the development of genetic research, the focus is rather more on gene-environment interaction. This involves looking for the various ways in which genetic influences may orient and open up people in different ways to environmental influences and how environmental elements may become part of a genetic inheritance. The attractive way of handling the idea of development has been through the idea that people pass through various stages. People are seen as making systematic progress through a series of phases as they move closer to some form of adult status. This movement can be seen as involving changes in intellectual and physical powers and the impact of life events and experiences.

Psychology Theories

Levinson argues that the life cycle comprises a sequence of four eras, each lasting for approximately twenty-five years.  He also identifies a number of developmental periods within these eras, concentrating on early and middle adulthood as follows:

Ø      Childhood and adolescence

Ø      Early adulthood

Ø      Middle adulthood

Ø      Late adulthood

According to Levinson, each era has its distinct and unifying character of living and requires a basic change in the character of one's life, which may take between three and six years to complete. It has the quality of a vision, an imagined possibility that generates excitement and vitality.  It is our projection of the ideal life.  Levinson views middle life as a period where one needs to redress the dominance of attachment to the external world: to find a better, balance between the needs of the self and the needs of society a greater integration of separateness and attachment: "greater individuation allows him to be more separate from the world, to be more independent and self generating and also gives him the confidence and understanding to have more intense attachments in the world and to feel more fully a part of it".

Moreover, The theory of Sigmund Freud emphasize the psychosexual development stages, oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. As Piaget, has focused on cognitive mechanisms in the progression from the sensorimotor stage of infancy through the pre-operational and the adolescence stage. Kohlberg extended the approach to moral development, with stages representing different levels of moral maturity. ‘’Erikson saw development as a progress through stages, but differs from his emphasis on the importance of interactions with society and in the extension of development into and through adult life and has focus on psycho-social transitions, with stages characterized by age defined social tasks and crises involving features such as identity, intimacy and generativity’’. Thus, Baltes recognize three influences on development which together account for substantial individual variation. A core assumption of developmental psychology is that development is not completed at adulthood but that it extends across the entire life course and that from conception onward lifelong adaptive processes of transformation and attrition in psychological structures and functions are involved and exemplifies the view of lifespan psychologists that the language of the human mind and behavior is dynamic, multidimensional and nonlinear. The holistic loom proceeds from consideration of the person as a system and attempts to generate a knowledge base about lifespan development by describing and connecting states of development into the pattern of lifetime individual development. An good illustration would be Erikson's (1959) theory of eight lifespan stages that is identified with lifespan psychology. The functional way to construct development theory is to focus on a category of behavior and to describe the changes in the mechanisms in order incorporate such approaches in the concept of developmental psychology with the primary substantive focus the structure and dynamics in a changing society.

Effectiveness of the Lifespan Development to Nursing Practice

Nurses believes that  each individual has unique and complex physiological, psychological, sociological and spiritual dimensions. It is said that young adults and adult individuals have diverse  languages, values and behavior processes and inherent the right to assume responsibility for the development of their own potential. Individuals develop in identifiable stages throughout their lifespan. All persons possess the right to be involved in reaching decisions regarding their health and to self-determination to the level of their ability. Moreover, nurses believe the environment consists of essential factors that may affect from within individuals and from their external surroundings as the individual affects the environment and the environment affects the individual.

Furthermore, nursing is an applied science that includes both a theory base and the practical application of knowledge within the focus of caring for people. In providing care, nurses utilize knowledge from the biological, behavioral, physical and psychological sciences. Nursing promotes and maintains health, prevents disease and disability, cares for and rehabilitates the sick and supports the dying. Nurses use cognitive, psychomotor and affective skills within the parameters of the nursing process to assist patients in order to maintain and or restore a state of maximum wellness.

Nursing practice involves the skillful application of communication, health teaching and development in languages and behaviors as critically applied through the process of nursing that will provide better collaboration with other health care providers that requires the use of decision-making based on behavior judgment and such vital thinking abilities and evaluation of real or potential problems that exist in the patient’s generic and environment influences through the appropriate and consistent use of the nursing process and documenting care. In addition, nurses demonstrate honesty and maintain confidentiality in interactions with patients as it is critical that all nursing care occur within the boundaries of the nurse’s legal scope of practice as lifespan development incorporates both the age and stages of the individual’s growth and development. The concept of lifespan addresses the changes that occur from the beginning to the end of life. Basically, I agree that each stages of life has his own distinct characteristics for example, young adults as well as the elders have this fear of being left alone and be separated to his family and nurses should learn to identify this certain fear because it can be useful to how they will attend to their patients like this case for example, since they have this fear, the nurses should allow useful activities with the young adults and adults to stay in the room so that they will not get bored and lonely. The patient’s health, environment and unique individuality determine their response to developmental changes. Nursing care is most effective when the patient’s developmental status is considered in the plan of care.

CONCLUSION

As of today’s epoch, people have witnessed rigorous and varied efforts to understand human development from a lifespan. In conclusion, it can be concluded that the work on developmental psychology has evinces much union and represents language and behavioral ways of human beings within the  progress in lifespan psychology from transdisciplinary dialogue with modern developmental psychologists in demonstrating the building of human development which is complete regarding the influence pathways and possible endpoints as needed for application of theories in lieu to the effectiveness of nursing practice The future of developmental theory will depend on the extent to which the psychological perspectives has turn out to be useful in signifying the usefulness of the lifespan approach that reflects the uniqueness of the individual person as he grows and mature throughout his development years as a rational being.