Life-Span Development : Frameworks, Accounts and Strategies

265 Pages·2001·1.664 MB·English

by  Leonie Sugarman

Life-Span Development
This thorough revision of the highly successful first edition of Life-Span Development,
offers the reader a wide-ranging and thought provoking account of human development
throughout the life-span. The life-span perspective emphasises that development does not
stop when we cease to be adolescents but goes on throughout adulthood and into old age.
In initial chapters Léonie Sugarman outlines the issues surrounding the notion of
development and how it can be studied, including reviews of the work of key theorists
Erikson, Levinson and Gould. She goes on to consider the different ways in which the
life course can be construed; as a series of age-related stages; as a cumulative sequence;
as a series of developmental tasks; as a series of key life events and transitions or as a
narrative construction which creates a sense of dynamic continuity. A final chapter looks
at how people cope, the resources that are available and the theoretical and practical
issues regarding interventions to assist them in the process.
New to the book is increased coverage of the topical issue of successful ageing and a
new chapter on the increasingly popular narrative approach to life-span development.
This edition is also more student-friendly with exercises in self-reflection that encourage
the reader to look at the development of their own lives or those of their current or future
clients. Boxed material highlighting major theories and clarifying concepts is also
included. This book will be invaluable for students of developmental and occupational
psychology and professionals in the fields of health management, education and social
work.
Léonie Sugarman is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, specialising in the area of
adult development. She is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at St Martin’s College,
Lancaster, where she teaches aspects of life-span development, stress management and
individual change to students and practitioners in a range of professions.

Life-Span Development
Frameworks, accounts and strategies
Second edition
Léonie Sugarman
First edition published 1986
by Methuen & Co Ltd.
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy copy of this or any of taylor & Francis or
Routledge's collection of thousands of ebooks please go to
www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
This edition first published 2001 by Psychology Press Ltd,
27 Church Rd, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
http://www.psypress.co.uk
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Taylor & Francis Inc.,
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Psychology Press is a part of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2001 Léonie Sugarman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sugarman, Leonie, 1950–
Life-span development: frameworks, accounts, and strategies/
Leonie Sugarman–2nd ed.
p. cm.
Previous ed. published under title: Life-span development.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-19264-1–ISBN 0-145-19265-X
1. Developmental psychology. I. Sugarman, Leonie, 1950–
Life-span development. II. Title.
BF713. S84 2001
155–dc210 2001031826
ISBN 0-203-62694-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-63080-7 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-19264-1 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-19265-X (pbk)
Contents

List of tables vi
List of figures vii
List of boxes viii
List of activities x
Preface to second edition xi

1 Life-span developmental psychology 1
2 Collecting data about lives 31
3 Age stages and lifelines 54
4 Cumulative sequences 77
5 Developmental tasks 103
6 Life events and transitions 127
7 Dynamic continuity through narrative 156
8 Intervention 183

References 219
Tables

The contribution of different disciplines to the study of human development 24
Freud’s stages of psychosexual development 79
Piaget’s stages of cognitive development 81
Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development 89
The emergence of key structural elements of a life story 96
Life stages and associated developmental tasks 106
False assumptions challenged during adulthood 120
Life-event dimensions 131
Life-event taxonomy based on probability of occurrence, correlation with age and 133

numbers affected
Life-event contexts 134
Life events ordered for stressfulness 135
Corollaries for helping and coping of attributions of responsibility for causing and 187

solving problems
Developmental tasks, programme responses and desired outcomes for the post- 217

retirement years
Figures

1.1 Super’s life-career rainbow 16
1.2 Rapoport and Rapoport’s triple helix model 18
1.3 Diagrammatic representation of Bronfenbrenner’s nested model of the 21

environment
2.1 Longitudinal, cross-sectional and time-lag research designs 38
2.2 Sequential research designs 41
3.1 Different narrative pathways through adolescence 75
5.1 Developmental periods in early and middle adulthood 110
6.1 Prototypical profiles of relative impact of influences on development across the 129

life course
6.2 Seven-phase model of stages accompanying transition 137
8.1 An example of a social support convoy 195
8.2 Four-fold grid of intervention strategies 208
8.3 Steps in the process of problem management and opportunity development 210
8.4 Basic life skills 215
Boxes

1.1 Defining development 4
1.2 The fully functioning person 6
1.3 Non-chronological age variables 9
1.4 Tenets of a lifespan perspective 12
1.5 Dimensions of human development 14
1.6 The life-career rainbow 15
1.7 The interaction of different development domains 17
1.8 Bronfenbrenner’s nested model of the environment 20
2.1 Levinson et al.’s (1978) biographical interviewing 34
2.2 Selecting a sample—pragmatics and theoretical rationale 43
2.3 Strategies for promoting and checking the credibility of data 48
2.4 Ethical guidelines for research with human participants 51
4.1 Imagoes in people’s life stories 101
5.1 Havighurst’s (1972) developmental tasks of middle age 105
5.2 The case of the moving tasks 108
6.1 “Situation” factors influencing capacity to cope with transitions 142
6.2 “Self” factors—or personal resources—influencing capacity to cope with 144

transitions

6.3 Values and priorities 146
6.4 Functions of social support 148
6.5 Stability zones 149
7.1 Occupational choice as a process of person-environment fit 158
7.2 Generic plots in Gould’s account of adult development 181
8.1 Intervention typology based on attributions of responsibility for causing and 185

solving problems
8.2 Alcohol abuse viewed from the perspective of Brickman et al.’s model of 190

helping
8.3 Social support convoys 194
8.4 Types of mutual-help group 197
8.5 Gottlieb’s (1988) typology of support interventions 204
8.6 Typology of intervention approaches 207