The Eight Stages Of Personality Growth

Describe Erikson stage briefly Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, as articulated by Erik Erikson, in collaboration with Joan Erikson, is a comprehensive psychoanalytic theory that identifies a series of eight stages, in which a healthy developing individual should pass through from infancy to late adulthood. ...

Erik Erikson describes in his research eight psychosocial developmental stages. Although the first five are based on Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, he also added three adult stages. Erikson’s theories vary from Freud’s in that he believes genes and biological impulses, along with family and culture have the strongest consequence on human development.

Erikson was a psychologist who was greatly influenced by Freud. Although influenced by Freud there are some differences in there developmental stages. Erikson believed that development in an individual was molded by society, culture, and environment. While Freud’s belief was that development is in some way is influenced by the fixation of sexual interest of different areas of the body. The stages in Erikson’s development theory outline how important social experiences can shape us. While Freud’s theory is mainly based on ones sexuality. Additionally the other significant difference between Erikson’s and Freud’s theories is the outcome of a particular stage. Erikson believed that the outcome of a certain stage was not permanent and that it could be changed later on in life. While Freud presumed that if an individual became fixated on a stage problems associated with that stage would be carried on through life.

Trust versus mistrust typically is from birth to 2 years old. You have to be able to balance trust and mistrust to judge good and bad situations as told by (Erickson & Kivnick in1986) this stage builds hope. Trust as defined in psychological development is truthfulness of people surrounding you and to sense how much you can trust that person. If a child is exposed to love and affection, a feeling of safety and stability he/she will develop trust. But if you replace love with hate, you don’t attend to a child’s needs, or you’re just careless or your always yelling at him/her the child will develop mistrust. (www.saylor.org)

The second theory examined is Erik Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development. Each stage in Erikson’s theory involves a conflict/crisis that a person must work through to evolve their personality. Rosenthal (1981) explains that, “Each stage arises because a new dimension of social interaction

Trust vs. Mistrust: This stage lasts from birth to 12 months of age. In this stage, infants must learn that adults can be trusted. All the Infants are dependent on their caregivers, so caregivers who are responsive and sensitive to their infant’s needs help their baby to develop a sense of trust. In this way their baby will see the world as a

Erik Erikson is known for his psychoanalytic theory of psychosocial development comprising eight stages from infancy to adulthood. Psychologist Erik Erikson, is a major contributor to developmental psychology, who proposed a comprehensive theory of the ways that individuals develop their identity, a sense of who they are, and society's influence on that development. Erikson stated that people go through crisis at each stage of their lives. The stages each had a developmental task to be mastered. As an individual resolved these various crises an individual would have a better harmony with their social environment that they live in. If an individual could not successfully resolve a crisis, they would be” out of step”, and the individual would have a greater difficulty in their dealing with a crisis in the future. Erikson did however recognize that an individual can develop through a stage negatively and still go on with their life. Erikson stated that each of the psychological stages have a basic conflict and important event leading to growth. The theory was developed from his hundreds of clinical observations in children.

The first stage of Erikson's psychosocial stage is trust vs. mistrust, which is experienced, in the first year of life. Infants learn to trust in order to satisfy their needs thus developing a feeling of self-worth. When infants receive inconsistent care they

Freud's perspective though focuses on the inner person and believes that unconscious forces act to determine personality behavior. Freud explains that everyone's personality has three aspects to it which are; id, ego and superego. Freud aso had stages of psychosexual development, unlike Erikson’s psychosocial development. Freud’s psychosexual development consisted of five parts; oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. As for Erikson's psychosocial theory it is mainly based on social and environmental factors and expands into adulthood, but Freud's psychosexual theory is based on the importance of basic needs and biological forces and his theory end at an early period of life compared to Erikson's. A similarity Erikson and Freud share together is that they both are theorists that have separated development into stages and they do use the similar age

Stage one of Erikson’s theory is described as “trust vs. mistrust.” This stage occurs from birth to year one of a child’s life (Erickson H., 1964). It is obvious that overcoming this developmental crisis is out of the hands of the child at this point in their lives. If there is stable and consistent care, the child will gain a feeling of trust that carries on in relationships later on in life. On the other hand, inconsistency and neglect will instill in the infant a sense of mistrust that carries on in future relationships (Erickson H., 1964).

Erikson’s views on development made an addition to some aspects of Freud and deviated from some of his other emphases. Erikson proposed that we develop more “Psychosocially” than “Pyschosexually” (Freud’s framework), which crosses the entire life span. His view is deterministic in the sense that adults are effected by their childhood, but he is not reductionistic in suggesting that the entire mold of adult personality is formed only in the early years; rather there is ongoing development throughout life.

Trust versus mistrust. This is the first stage which comes in the first year after a child’s birth. In this stage, children depend entirely on adults for basic needs such as warmth, comfort and food. If the caretakers provide these needs in a reliable manner, the children become attached to them and develop a sense of security (Scheck, 2014). Otherwise, the babies may develop insecure attitude or mistrust. This theory affirms the response received from the interviewee regarding her childhood years. She explained that she used to feel more secure and trusted her father more than her mother. This can be associated with the fact that

The best-known neo-Freudian was Erik Erikson. He formulated his own theory of personality development. He projected that everyone goes through psychosocial stages rather than psychosexual stages as Freud proposed. Erikson has identified eight stages of psychosocial development that each person goes through during their entire life span. In Erikson's theory, the stages of development process unfold as we go through life. Each of these stages has tasks that have to be mastered in order to build toward a satisfying and healthy developed life. Those who do not master the task will have a hard time dealing with crises.

Other psychoanalytical theorist – Erikson – contradicted Freud's idea based on biological stages by introducing child development in the context of social and cultural influences (Cunningham, 1993). Therefore we would talk about the psychosocial development as staged - the changes occur rapidly and each stage would be different from the previous one.

Erikson’s theory followed Freud´s and it was based on many of Freud´s ideas. He had studied at Anna Freud, Freud’s daughter in Vienna. Erikson´s and Freud´s theories have similarities. Both theories admit the importance of the unconscious on development. They also both separates development into stages of a person´s life and handle similar age spans for these developmental stages. However, there are also differences that exist between names of the stages and the developmental subjects that are assumed during each stage. Part of the reason for that is that each psychologist has his own exclusive view of what causes a person’s development.