Maturation

Principles of Development

Gesell sought to unite the basic principles of underlying structural growth with behavioral growth in showing how “psychological growth, like somatic growth, is a morphogenetic process.” He described five basic principles of development because they represent developmental principles that occur on a psychological level as well as on a structural one.

• 1.
  The Principle of Developmental Direction. The principle of developmental direction assumes that development is not random but proceeds in an ordered fashion. The fact that development systematically proceeds from the head to the toes is a good example of how at any point a developmental trend will be more advanced in the head area than in the foot area.
• 2.
  The Principle of Reciprocal Interweaving. This second general principle is modeled after the physiological principle that inhibition and excitation of different muscles operate in a complementary fashion to produce efficient movement.
• 3.
  The Principle of Functional Asymmetry. This principle assumes that a behavior goes through a period of asymmetric or unbalanced development to enable the organism to achieve a measure of maturity at a later stage.
• 4.
  The Principle of Individuating Maturation. Gesell believed that development is viewed as a process of sequential patterning wherein the patterning is [Page 640]predetermined and revealed as the organism matures. The principle of individuating maturation stresses the importance of a growth matrix as an internal mechanism that establishes the direction and pattern of development of the individual.
• 5.
  The Principle of Self-Regulatory Fluctuation. Finally, the principle of self-regulatory fluctuation proposed that developmental progress is like a seesaw that fluctuates between periods of stability and instability, active growth and consolidation. These progressive fluctuations, as part of a give-and-take much like the principle of reciprocal interweaving, culminate in a set of stable responses.

Individual Differences

Each of these five principles is considered to be characteristic of every child's growth pattern, yet Gesell emphasizes the importance of wide and stable individual differences as well. One of Gesell's unique contributions to the field of developmental psychology was the development of a new method of studying development using moving pictures. Gesell and his colleagues first studied five infants during the first year of life, and each child was rated on 15 behavior traits, such as energy output, social responsiveness, and self-dependence, and then each child was rank-ordered within the group of five on each trait. The same process was repeated 5 years later. A comparison of ranks between the first year and the fifth year showed a remarkable similarity between the two observations on traits such as laterality (handedness), self-dependence, sense of humor, and emotional maladjustment. These findings indicate a certain degree of stability in the development of individual differences, a characteristic that Gesell believed has its source in some kind of biological mechanism.

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