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Stages of Development

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Synonyms

Developmental stage; Life cycle

Definition

Phases that all individuals pass through in a normal lifetime.

Introduction

The fact that humans progress through a set of distinctive stages over the life course is readily observed in others and subjectively experienced. However, the number and definition of those stages have shifted over the course of the Western tradition from 3 to as many as 12 distinct stages, making it clear that the classification of life stages is in part a cultural representation (Mintz 1993). Erik Erikson (Erikson and Erikson 1987) proposed seven life stages, including infancy, toddlerhood, middle childhood, adolescence, and young, middle, and old age, based on psychosocial identity, representing the most widely known cultural model of the life course for the late twenty-first century.

Yet, Erikson leaves out fetal development, a stage only visible to the casual observer from the outside, emphasizing Erikson’s life stages as based on subjective experience....

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    Benjamin Campbell

Authors
  1. Benjamin Campbell
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Correspondence to Benjamin Campbell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  2. Rochester, MI, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

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Campbell, B. (2019). Stages of Development. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_762-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_762-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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