Although Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg are three separate people with three separate ideas of development, they all pretty much cover the same ground. With different time spans, these three theorists touch base on how a person develops successfully. Piaget used four stages to define his Cognitive Development theory, Erikson used eight stages to uphold his theory that Psychosocial Development occurred through an entire lifetime and not just childhood, and Kohlberg used 3 levels (two stages in each level) to prove his theory that people progressed through stages of moral development.

Jean Piaget had a lifetime plant sedum interest and studied the snail Limnaea Stagnalis for years. Piaget had a strong belief that adaptations were continuous through life. "In which a heredity structure of the organism interacts with the environment in such a way as to reconstitute itself for better survival," (Pulaski, 1980). An adaptation in an environment that is led by an intellectual process is an explanation of Piaget's theory of how human intelligence develops. Piaget believed in something called Social Transmission. This was based on the idea that humans matured throug

The first of these stages is called the Sensory Motor Stage, taking place when human is/was an infant. During this stage, infants are discovering relationships between their bodies and their environment. The infant focuses on seeing, touching, sucking, feeling, and using all their senses to learn things about themselves and their surrounding environment. At this time, the infant realizes that the external world is not an extension of them. Infants at this time may not understand but are introduced to Object Permanence. To a young infant, if a toy that he/she was playing with is suddenly hid under a piece of cloth, then the toy no longer exists and the child will automatically lose interest. In older infants, if a toy is taken away and hidden then there is an ongoing battle to recover it. Once this is established into an infants mind then Direct Groping begins to take place. During direct groping, a child will vary his/her movements and see how the results will differ. The infant discovers that with the aid of a stick or string, they can pull objects to themselves.

Lawrence Kohlberg, a professor at Harvard University, became famous for his work as a developmental psychologist. Kohlberg moved to the field of moral education and became well known for his development theory, which he popularized through research studies. He built his theory off of those theorists such as Jean Piaget, John Dewey, and James Mark Baldwin who all shared the same idea that humans begin to grow philosophically and psychologically in a progressive manner. Kohlberg believed that people progressed in their moral reasoning through a series of six stages classified into three levels. Kohlberg believed that individuals could only progress through these stages of Moral Thinking one at a time and that a person could not jump any stages.

Trust vs. Mistrust (Oral-Sensory) occurs between birth and 12-18 months. The most important event to take place at this stage is feeding which helps the infant to form his/her first loving, trusting relationship w/the caregiver. Elements for a positive outcome would be consistency and responsiveness to an infant's needs. Negative Outcomes, such as less cooperation and more aggression in reactions with a child's mother, would've been a result of little to no secure attachment to the child's mother. An example of a positive learning experience for the infant would be that they would begin to understand that objects and people indeed exist when you cannot see them.

The second level of Moral Thinking is generally found out in society. The third stage of the Conventional Level, "Good Boy or Girl", focuses on a view which seeks to do what will gain the approval of others. The fourth stage Law and Order is one that abides by the law and responds to the obligations of duty.

h stages of cognitive development and that children gain information transmitted by parents, teachers, and books. Piaget figured that all children go through the same stages of intellectual development in the same order but not necessarily at the same pace.

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