ABSTRACT
MOST PEOPLE TODAY would easily accept the concept of the stages ofhuman development. These stages are readily identifiable in the biological life cycle: we are born, then grow from infancy to early childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood, and then to our senior years. This seems obvious enough. However, stage theories, along with describing biological growth and aging, also imply a sense of progress and development that could be described as a maturation process on more levels than the strictly biological.
