Measurements in Positive Adult Development
Assessment of positive adult development can measure quantitative or qualitative change (Robinson, 2012). Measurements of quantitative change assess change on a defined continuous variable, such as IQ, reaction time or indicators of personality maturity such as authenticity or self-actualization. Quantitative change can be discontinuous, if there is a sudden step-change in value, or can be continuous, when changes occur gradually and incrementally.
Qualitative change is evidenced by a change in kind, rather than a change in amount, as exemplified by the switch from caterpillar to butterfly. Assessments of qualitative change in adulthood involve assigning written or numerical data to a stage within a defined stage model, according to defined assessment criteria. Researchers have developed a number of such instruments and methods to measure adult development stages, such as the moral judgment interview of Kohlberg, the Berlin Wisdom Interview, the Washington Sentence Completion test of ego development, the Subject-Object Interview (Lahey et al., 2011), and the Model of Hierarchical Complexity.
Read more about this topic: Positive Adult Development
Famous quotes containing the words positive, adult and/or development:
“The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“I’ve always been impressed by the different paths babies take in their physical development on the way to walking. It’s rare to see a behavior that starts out with such wide natural variation, yet becomes so uniform after only a few months.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)