Question

Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment by Zastrow.

Life Structure and Environmental Interactions

Levinson developed the concept of life structure which is important to the field of human services. This premise indicates that a person is shaped by personal interactions and one’s environment. For this week’s Discussion, review the information in Chapter 11 about Levinson’s theories and consider where you are according to the life structures defined.

Please respond to the following:

• Identify life structure and explain some of the passages which you have experienced during Preadulthood (birth to age 22) (is the formative time from conception to the end of adolescence) and Early adulthood (age 17 to age 45) (is the era in which people make choices that significantly influence their lives and the era in which people display the greatest energy and experience the most stress).
  • Early adult transition (ages 17 to 22). During this transition (which may take three to five years), men move from pre-adulthood into adulthood. A person moves out of his or her parents' home and becomes more financially and emotionally independent. Going to college or joining the military service serves as a transitional institutional situation between being a child in a family and reaching full adult status.

  • At the heart of Levinson's theory is the concept of life structure. This term is defined as “the underlying pattern or design of a person's life at a given time” (Levinson, 1986, p. 6). A person's life structure shapes and is shaped by the person's interactions with the environment. Components of the life structure include the people, institutions, things, places, and causes that a person decides are most important, as well as the dreams, values, and emotions that make them so. Most people build their life structures around their work and their families. Other important aspects of one's life structure may include religion, racial identification, ethnic heritage, societal events (such as wars and economic depressions), and hobbies.

    According to Levinson, life involves a number of passages: from the freedom of childhood to entering school; from school to the work world; from not dating to dating; from dating to breaking up or marrying; from marrying to divorce; and so on. Levinson sees some structure to these series of life passages.

• Include how personality was influenced by interactions and the environment.

Answer 1

Levinson's theory is also known as the "seasons of life" theory. In this theory he says that comprehensive changes take place in adult stage of life. He talks about various stages of life. He says that period of 0 to 22 years is known as pre-adulthood stage. Early adulthood stage is from 17 years and lasts up to 45 years.

Period of 40 to 65 years is known as middle adulthood stage. He says that 60 to 85 years is the age group of late adulthood stage. His theory revolves around adult stage of life. Beyond 80 years, he calls it as a stage of late late adulthood.

He calls these five stage as the five seasons of life. His theory is different from another developmental theories because he claims that learning and development process keep on going throughout life. He says that we keep on learning and developing from infancy to old age.

We keep on noticing each and everything in our surroundings. We keep on noticing various events taking place in our surroundings. We also observe the actions and reactions of people in our surroundings. We learn from their gestures.

Person's own experiences and beliefs also play important role in his/her personality development. When a person come across different different cultures and traditions then he/she realizes uniqueness of life. Killing a person in normal days becomes a crime but it remains a matter of pride when a soldier kills another soldier of enemy country during war.

Definition of morality changes according to the situations. Eating non veg food is a sin in some cultures while it is normal in other cultures. Our own senses and critical thinking abilities decides the direction of our beliefs and our personality's aspects.

We keep on learning different different things at different stage of life and this process of learning and development remains continued throughout our lives.