Erik Erikson's Third Stage Initiative vs Guilt

In this stage, children enter school, and their teacher becomes an important figure in their lives. During this stage, the child’s peer group, such as their classmates, becomes much more significant, and the child begins to feel the need to win approval by displaying typical abilities that society constructs. If the child is encouraged in their initiative attempts, they develop a stronger sense of confidence in their ability to achieve set goals, but if the child is unable to develop the set skill, they begin to feel inferior.

Guilt is a part of everyone’s life that will affect their future decisions and determine the way they live the rest of their lives.

Erikson’s third stage is Initiative vs Guilt and takes place during the ages of 3-5. For this stage I explained that children will display curiosity about the world. I reflected the question “Am I good or bad?” Since Chewbacca worked in a toy store there were a lot of things to keep in order showing individuality. His mom would always reward him when he did a great job in cleaning. Unfortunate Chewbacca would accidently knock things off the shelves and a sense of guilt is take Children at this stage feel a sense of guilt when they take a negative initiative and are punished. Children who are successful at this stage feel the capacity to initiate their actions confidently rather than with the guilt and self-doubt that develop a lack of initiative.

If you don’t have involvement with your child in this stage they can resolve problems such as struggles through social role identification. With this it can bring an individual frustrated over goals in life and also may feel guilt.

Guilt isn’t always negative but, it’s also not good either. Everyone thinks guilt is a bad thing honestly it depends on what you do to consider it a bad thing. The real meaning to guilt is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc. Whether it is real or imagined. Guilt can be a bad thing or worse thing depends on what you do and how you do it.

Erikson's third psychosocial stage is initiative versus guilt. After finding a solution to the problem of autonomy and being firmly convinced that he is a person, the child now wishes to find out what kind of person he is going to be (Erikson, 1959). As such, children become more intrusive and want to find out more about the world around them. As such, the main conflict that arises in this stage is whether their initiative is rewarded or whether they are punished to the point where they think it is wrong to be curious and will be less active. During this stage, children start thinking more about how the skills they have learned can help them with the goals they have started imagining. Because of this wish to improve and engage in activities,

Guilt is a helpful trait that makes people less likely to make bad decisions and fix those that have been made.

Unlike the first two stages, I have specific memories from my childhood in this stage. According to Swartwood (p. 84), “Children at [the initiative versus guilt] stage love to initiate activities and are constantly moving from one task to another.” While caregivers can have limited time and energy to dedicate to these tasks, they must be careful when denying or discouraging a request. They must be conscious of how the child perceives the situation, for they can be left feeling as if they are a burden to their caregivers and foster feelings of guilt (Swartwood, p. 84). Ultimately, caregivers “who are sensitive to a child’s need to initiate activities help [the child] understand the practical limitations of daily life”(Swartwood, p. 84).

Three types of guilt have been identified in literature: reactive guilt, anticipatory guilt, and existential guilt. Reactive guilt is response to amend something wrong that you may have theoretically done. Anticipatory guilt plays off the fear of future failure if you don’t buy a product.

The article titled “ Is guilt good” examines the idea of guilt functioning in both positive and negative ways to affect the development of morality. The article relies on experiments to support that people who have guilt feelings either deterrents against their bad behaviors or remedy their mistakes. In the face experiment, the feeling of guilt and inhibited appearing together is a key detail that proves guilt acts negatively and discourages people from repeating their bad behaviors. Another important idea from the article is that, in face experiment, people who feel guilter attend to be more interested in reducing racial prejudice. The results demonstrates guilt can also encourage people to fix their past mistakes; therefore, they can reduce

I observed several field trip groups from schools from various counties between the ages of four and six. The demographics of the students varied since they came from different counties. Parents along with teachers were present to watch the children, and it was apparent the children observed were in the third stage of their psychosocial development, initiative versus guilt. At this stage, children ages three to six are taking an exploratory initiative or are hesitant to explore due to parental discipline (Slavin,2012). I

The third psychosocial stage is the locomotor-genital stage. It involves a crises that encompasses either initiative, which is an awareness of acceptable behavior along with the ability to set realistic goals, or a sense of guilt that leads to low self-efficacy (Schultz & Schultz, 2009). At this stage, parents must foster feelings of initiative and avoid punishing

The first study, based on the hypothesis that guilt-prone individuals are likely to be perceived as having greater leadership ability, assessed 243 listserv-recruited participants’ reactions to the scores of others on the Test of Self-Consciousness Affect (TOSCA-3). The scores were simulated to display different shame or guilt-prone

Initiative versus guilt is the third stage of psychosocial development. It’s around three to six years of age when this role must be established. The goal is to establish purpose and its achieved through exploration and play (Cherry, 2011). Children begin to affirm their power over the world through interaction between people and play (Cherry, 2011). They assert control over their environment and they try to take control of their lives by planning activities, doing different assignments and taking on different challenges (Cherry, 2011). Imagination plays an important role because it encourages the freedom to do what they want and take the initiative of their lives (Cherry, 2011). When the child is not given the chance to play or explore, or is stopped

“For young children, there is no distinction between play and learning; they are one and the same. Playing is a priority in early childhood, yet not all play is the same” (Butler, 2008, p. 1). Since the beginning of mankind children have imitated adults and learned to survive through play. Evidence of this includes toys and board games from 6,000 years ago that have been found in Egypt and Asia (Dollinger, 2000). In the last two centuries, child’s play has been observed and studied by theorists and recognized as an important tool for adult life. Three theorists that studied children and spent their lives researching how children develop were Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. These theorists agreed that from the time a child is