ERIKSON STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

Erikson stages of development

Erikson stages of development

Introduction

Our personality traits arrive in opposites. We believe of ourselves as optimistic or pessimistic, independent or dependent, emotional or unemotional, adventurous or cautious, leader or follower, aggressive or passive. Many of these are inborn temperament traits, but other characteristics, such as feeling either competent or inferior, appear to be learned, based on the challenges and support we obtain in growing up.

Discussion

The man who did a great deal to discover this concept is Erik Erikson. Although he was leveraged by Freud, he accepted that the ego exists from birth and that behavior is not totally defensive. Based in part on his study of Sioux Indians on a reservation, Erikson became aware of the massive leverage of heritage on behavior and placed more emphasis on the external world, such as depression and wars. He sensed the course of development is very resolute by the interaction of the body (genetic biological programming), brain (psychological), and cultural (ethos) influences.(Erikson, 1950)

He organized life into eight stages that continue from birth to death (many developmental theories only cover childhood). Since adulthood covers a span of many years, Erikson split up the stages of adulthood into the experiences of juvenile adults, middle aged adults and older adults. While the actual ages may vary considerably from one stage to another, the ages seem to be appropriate for the majority of people.

Physical And Psychological Abuse

Erikson's basic philosophy might be said to rest on two major themes: (1) the world gets larger as we proceed along and (2) failure is cumulative. While the first issue is fairly obvious, we might take exclusion to the last. True, in many cases an individual who has to deal with horrendous circumstances as a progeny may be unable to negotiate later stages as easily as someone ...