Similarities and Differences in Stages of Human Development

Similarities and Differences in Stages of Human Development
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Part A
Infancy is a stage of growth and development attributed to children below 18 months of age. From the time a baby is born until they get to 18 months, they are mostly reliant on their caregivers for most things. On the other hand, the preschool stage begins when an individual is between 3 and 5 years old. The main similarity is that both the infant and the preschooler learn about new things in their environment because they are both under five (Thompson, 2021). However, there are a lot of differences in personality and social development. To begin with, infants experience various changes as they grow since they rely on caregivers to eat, get cleaned up, and even move around. According to Erikson, an infant's intellectual development is centered on trust and mistrust (Moheghi, 2020). Thus, individuals at this stage learn who to trust and who not to trust in infancy. When a child is born, they have to learn about the new environment. Thus, when they cry and the caregivers hold them and feed them, they learn who to trust and who not to trust, depending on how they are treated. When infants feel that their needs are being neglected, they mistrust an individual. Thus, the infant stage is a critical stage of trust development (Sanghvi, 2020). At this stage, individuals also learn about what is wrong and right, although they have not yet developed a sense of morality. Individuals lack a sense of morality at this stage, but they can tell that doing a given activity is wrong.
On the other hand, at the preschool stage of development, individuals start developing a sense of what is moral and what is not. At this stage, individuals are good at following the rules given to them by their caregivers. Most of them will behave in a given manner as demanded by an adult around them to avoid punishment. Also, when encouraged through praise and gifts, they tend to behave in a given manner (Thompson, 2021). Socially, a child also learns how to associate with other people and, through rules, they know what to do and not to do others. The other difference is that, psychosocially, children at this stage experience conflict between their initiative and guilt. Thus, through the caregivers' encouragement to engage in various activities, they feel the need to lead. However, when discouraged by those around them from acting or engaging in a given activity, a sense of guilt is developed. The other difference is in social development. The preschooler at this stage starts to learn how they should behave around other people. They are aware that a given behavior is accepted and appreciated while another is not, hence punished.
Furthermore, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2022) discovery depicts those infants use saliva to determine the level of trust an individual has. Infants expect that individuals that share saliva will come to each other's aid in times of crisis. Also, when individuals share a spoon when eating or kissing, the infant record in their brain that the two individuals have a close relationship, and they can easily come to each other's aid. Infants exemplify individuals who share saliva ...