Half a century ago R.J.Havighurst published a book on developmental tasks. Are they still valid? What do we have to learn as humans during certain stages of development? Do the stages differ in lasting now? Which are shorter, which are longer? What we do not have to learn any more? Is there something new we should learn?
Are developmental tasks still valid? (I am sorry for the spelling mistakes in the original title)
Dear Agnieszka Kolodziej-Durnas
Most of the developmental tasks developed by Jean Piaget and his countless collaborators are still valid, that is, they assess what they intend to access. As is amply known, they developed tasks to access infants', children's, adolescents' and even adults' cognitive competences. To administer these tasks to these individuals requires from interviews/experimenters to be well acquainted with J.Piaget' theory.
I have worked in children´s narrative, discourse development, metacognition development and, shortly, in executive functions in children from different ages.
Given that, my answers are these:
(Developmental tasks) Are they still valid?
Yes. But more in specific domains and task, where you can limit the scope and expected change, evolution or development in some psychological processes.
What do we have to learn as humans during certain stages of development?
I believe that we must learn is more concentrated in early childhood, along some so-called “normative” influences and processes, like language, social interaction, world perception, and ways to organize our action in the world. In other more culturally dependent knowledge fields, levels of expertise and performance vary enormously among different people.
Do the stages differ in lasting now?
I am not sure that we can talk about “stages” in a strong sense (like in Jean Piaget's work, for example), but certainly we can talk about periods or phases, because many performances have gains compared with the previous ones, but in the same specific domains.
Which are shorter, which are longer?
It depends on what is found through research in different fields, domains, and processes, like in the previous answer.
What do we not have to learn anymore?
Maybe we have some nonsensible periods and aspects that tend to permanence instead of change (like, for example, some of them related to personality), but learning continues all life along, mostly in “non-normative” processes and influences.
Is there something new we should learn?
I don’t understand the question. We must study learning also, because it has some aspects like purpose-driven and instruction activities, which are important processes as well.
Dear Nicolas,
Thank you for your comprehensive answers!
As I explained in the description of my discussion to be started I mainly mean 'developmental tasks' by Havighurst presented in his book published 50 years ago. There are some taksks associated with cognitive processes and structures but I am more interested in the ones inlcuding the processes of acquiring/accepting/learning social roles including the gender, parental and professional ones - are they still in force? Are they to be acquires at the same stages e.g. adolescence and are the stages the same in the sense of the time range, etc?
They are still valid today but they may not be acquired at the same stage or range due to individual differences.
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