Sunday, July 13, 2014
Saturday, July 12, 2014
ERIK ERIKSON’S THEORY OF PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Erik Erikson (1902-1994) was a well-known psychologist, who
accepted and expanded the Freud’s idea about the psychoanalytic theory and
about his own life experience. Erikson’s
theory mainly talks about the development across the entire lifespan of a
person (Baron, 2001). Erikson’s theory is based on specific stages of
development a person come across in his entire life. There are eight stages in
Erikson's psychosocial development theory and “each stage of development shows
its own unique challenges, which Erikson called as crises” (Fleming, 2004). The
first four stages of development are occurring during the childhood and one
take place in adolescence and other three occur during adulthood. According to
Baron (2001), Erikson believed that each stage of life is marked by a specific
crisis or conflict between competing tendencies. These stages of development
affects the person’s learning and education and these theories can be applied
in a classroom. Erikson’s eight stages development mainly focus on the
development of a person within the social context.
1. Development of trust versus mistrust – (0 to 18 months):
The first developmental stage in Erikson’s theory occurs during
birth to until child is 18 months old (in some articles says it is between
birth to one year old (Cavanaugh & kail, 2010)). During this stage of
development the basic strength of a child is hope. The child has full hope
that, he or she will get anything the whenever they wants. The main interaction
of a child during this stage is with his or her mother and family members.
Through these interactions the child learns both trust and mistrust but should
be in right proportion (Fleming, 2004). According to Passer & Smith (2007),
this phase is depends on how well the needs are met and how much love and
attention are receiving and develop a basic trust and mistrust of the World.
Source: http://soulandspiritmusings.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/image-3-for-musings-from-the-soul.jpg
2. Autonomy versus shame and doubt – (18 months to 3 years):
According to Fleming (2004), toddlers learns lot of basic things
during this stage of life, such as, how to hold a bowl, how to drink and
walking and talking and so on. The basic strength of this period is will. During
this phase of development, the child wants do everything by their own without
the help of parents. Although, the child wants to do, parents interrupt by
helping them as they do not know do the things by their own and sometimes
parents may show anger or shout at them unintentionally. This leads them to be
shame and doubt instead of autonomy. So,
in later they lose their courage to be independent (Passer & Smith, 2007).
Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZmbKPlImzdzwwOZA-YrYyNc9L47qjDsHV97IFKDvjxKx0g4oLEzhaEudXInE1Pv2C2JYLYdpmx8eEQ0AiEpPYd0TkgCFVzzUoyievHn0FXcnzgOHpOYdu_zAS7Rbeq64rUUxHHW_e-lg/s1600/preschool.jpg
3. Initiative versus guilt – (3 years to 6 years):
In this phase of development, children’s strength is sense of
purpose and their weakness is inhibition (Fleming, 20014). They acquire new
physical and mental skills. They are very active, mobile and talkative and
learn through imaginative play as they are preschoolers. Children have
curiosity about the World and they need freedom and want to explore in this period
of development. They have lot of questions about the things happening around
them, so they need answers for those questions. If they are given chance to explore and finds
the answers to their questions, they develop sense of initiative, but they develop
sense of guilt about their desires if they are punished or not given answers to
their questions (Passer & Smith, 2007).
4. Industry versus inferiority – ( 6 years to 12 years):
Children at this stage of development, spends their life in school
and they learn most of the things from school and peers. The basic strength of
child at this phase is competence. Child who gets praise and encouragement for
the things they do develop the industry and those who repeats and lack the
praise develops the inferiority (Passer & Smith, 2007). According to Fleming (2004), if the ill child
preparing to go school or the tools he or she needs is lack will be despair.
Source: http://cdn.dipity.com/uploads/events/1a19872c91255af7ae5a1b178e8cef17_1M.png
5. Identity versus role confusion – (12 years to 20 years):
According to Fleming (2004), at this stage of development, they do
not know “who they are?” and search for their identity. Adolescence is the time
great change; they are in between childhood and adulthood. They sometime
confuse whether they are children or adults. In this stage their life can be
very stressful. Erikson states as cites in Fleming (2004), the teens are “a
turning point of increased vulnerability and heightened potential”. In this
stage of development truthfulness is very important. In this phase, children
must have given freedom but should be controlled and observe their activity.
According to Marcia as cited in Passer & Smith (2007), there are “identity
status” for each person; identity diffusion: these teens and adults had not
gone through identity crisis, foreclosure: commit to an identity and set values
before experiencing crisis, moratorium: want to establish a clear identity but
had not yet resolve it and identity achievement: these individuals have gone
through identity crisis and successfully resolved it.
Source: http://wibha.com/images/adl.jpg
6. Intimacy versus isolation – (20 years to 40 years):
According Fleming (2004), Erikson believed that the strength of
this stage of development is intimacy and weakness is isolation. According to
Erikson as cited in Fleming (2004), intimacy or closeness between two people is
only possible when they have developed a strong identity separately. So, then
only they can be able to spend their whole life together and develop an
identity as a couple. Otherwise they will divorce or separate.
7. Generativity versus stagnation – (40years to 60years):
In this stage of life people spend their life doing things for
others. They raise their children; do things for community and gain
generativity by doing these kinds of activities. “generativity in its broadest
sense refers to creative and productive activity through work” (Fleming, 2004).
The opposite of generativity is
stagnation or the loss of self in self-absorption. According to Passer &
Smith (2007), many young adults make such contribution, but generativity typically
becomes a more central issue later in adulthood.
8. Ego integrity verses despair – (60 years and above):
In this phase of development, adults look back their life and
evaluate its meaning. They may think “whether their life was fulfilling?” or
“did they have spends their life in the way they wanted it to be?” according to
Fleming (2004), life gives lot of choices, however no one be able to choose all
the choices. They have to be chose some of them they thinks it will be best. As
“no one is perfect”, human tends to do mistakes and learn from those. “To be
fulfilled does not mean the one has led a perfect life” Fleming (2004). However,
if the person spends his life meaningfully, then he have experienced integrity,
a sense of completeness and fulfillment but those who have not achieved
positive outcomes from their life may experience despair in this stage of life
(Passer & Smith, 2007).
Relationship of developmental theory and learning:
The eight stages of development of Erikson’s theory have great
impact on learning. During child infancy, they learn to trust and mistrust
others. They acquire the knowledge of when to trust a person and in what
situation a person can be a trustable one. According to Fleming (2004), at this
stage when the child is feeding in bottle instead of breast feeding, child
learns to accept his mother’s absence without undo anxiety.
During next stage of their life child acquire knowledge of talking,
walking, feeding oneself and learn to do these things. As well as child learns
to control bowel (Fleming, 2004). They have to be given chances to experience
these things in their own; otherwise it will lead them to be shame and doubt
and will lose their confident. During this phase, if the parents are educated
children learn lot of things. Most of the children learn basic education during
this age. The educated parent’s and uneducated parent’s child will be very
different when they move to another stage of life. As a result it will affect
their later life.
In the age of 3 to 6 years old, children will be in preschools and
they learn through imaginative play. In this stage of development, children
learn to be friendly and how to behave in different context. “When children enter
schools, some brings a strong set of skills, motivations and self-perception
that will facilitate learning and relationship and others bring behavior or
self-regulation problems and negative expectation for self or others that will
hinder learning and friendship” (Coatsworth & Masten, 1998). These
behavioral actions they learn will be used in their later life.
Adolescence is the most
critical age, where they learn most of the things for their future life. They
learn to be good person or bad person during this phase of their life. Children
who acquire confidence, are mostly those who participate in co-curricular
activities, through that they learn lot of skills for their later life. They
search for their own identity and experience and learn lot of things during the
process of findings. A person whole lifetime takes to acquire psychosocial
strengths. People learn from the mistakes they do in their life. So, learning
and lifespan development have a great relationship.
How Erikson’s theory can be applied in a classroom:
Teachers can apply these developmental stages in the classroom.
Firstly, in preschool stage, students must give chance to explore and
experience new things relative to their age. Children will have curiosity in
learning new things in this stage. There must be enough resources for children.
Also, teachers must control them when they behave negatively and should teach
them why it is wrong and right.
In addition to this, when children are in school, teachers must
focus not to discourage them. Especially, in front of other students but
encouraging them and giving positive comments about their work and other things
will lead to build self-confidence. In addition to this, a child may come to
school without completing a task given to them, in this situation, instead of
shouting at the child; teacher must handle the situation in some other way,
such as, separately asking the child why he could not complete the work and
after the class talking the parent separately about the incident.
Adolescence is the most critical age that teachers should focus on.
They should be modified to being a successful person in life. They have to be
trained well to face the situation they come across in their entire life. They
must have basic knowledge to face the situation. Most of the people do not know
to decide on the field they wanted to join and what kind of job will be
suitable for them. So, teachers can conduct awareness, programs for them, so
they could be able to choose a field they want. For example, teachers can give
information about the different fields students can join. Teachers can tell
them, what are the opportunities they have in the different fields and on what
area they must study or be educated in order to get a job from a certain field.
So, confusion they come across will be less and they will have some kind of
knowledge about what they actually needed to be.
Moreover, as giving guidance to choose a career, they must be given
the information about the adulthood life. When they start a life they must have
knowledge about, marriage life. So, during higher secondary or college days, they
must be given the information about successful marriage life and what are the
circumstances they have to focus when they start a life.
Conclusion:
Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development is well-known theory
that talks about the entire lifespan of a person. In Erikson’s theory, there
are eight stages of development which Erikson believes to be develop when moves
to one stage to another. These developmental stages have great impact on one
stage to another. As psychosocial development is based on the social and
emotional development, it has major relationship between learning. Throughout
the process, children learn different things by interacting others. Teachers,
can apply this theory to the classroom in order to build a successful person.
Bibliography:
1.
Baron, R. A (2001). Psychology (5th
Ed.). Pearson education: Dorling Kindersley publishing.
2.
Cavanaugh, J. C
& Kail, R.V. (2010). Human development: A life-span view (5th
Ed.). Canada: Engage learning.
3.
Coatsworth, J.
D. & Masten, A.S. (1998). The development of competence in favorable and unfavorable
environments: lessons from research on successful children. American
psychologist association,53(2), 205-220.
4.
Fleming, J. S.
(2004). Erikson’s psychosocial developmental stage. 9-24.
5.
Jantan, R.,
Razali, M. & Yunus, K. R. M (2011). Educational psychology.
Malaysia: Open university Malaysia.
6.
Passer, M. H.
& Smith, R. E. (2007). Psychology: The science of mind and behavior
(3rd Ed.). New york: McGraw-Hill companies.
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