Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Psychosocial Stages of
Development
Submitted by:
Lorraine Claire Uy
Lou Janssen Calotes
Maria Kathryna Denaga
Mariz Galang
Mervin Cabriana
Mika Ella Plaza
Newson Shann Uy
PSYCH 1
TTh 12:00-1:30
Submitted to:
Ms. Sherryl Muli Abellanosa
Erik Erikson
Biography
His young Jewish mother, Karla Abrahamsen, raised Erik by herself for a time before
marrying a physician, Dr. Theodor Homberger. The fact that Homberger was not in fact his
biological father was concealed from him for many years. When he finally did learn the truth,
Erikson was left with a feeling of confusion about who he really was.
This early experience helped spark his interest in the formation of identity. He would
later explain that as a child he often felt confused about who he was and how he fit into to his
community.
Erikson never received a formal degree in medicine or psychology since he never liked
formal schooling, so he decided against going to college. He decided to travel Europe but he had
to sleep under bridges. After he travelled around Europe for a year, he made the decision to
enroll in an art school back in Germany. After several years, Erikson began to teach art and other
subjects to children of Americans who had come to Vienna for Freudian training. He was then
admitted into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. Anna soon noticed Erikson’s rapport with
children and encouraged him to formally study psychoanalysis.
In 1933 he came to the U.S. and became Boston's first child analyst and obtained a
position at the Harvard Medical School. Later on, he also held positions at institutions including
Yale, Berkeley, and the Menninger Foundation. Erikson then returned to California to the Center
for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Palo Alto and later the Mount Zion Hospital in
San Francisco, where he was a clinician and psychiatric consultant.
Erikson passed away in 1994 at the age of 92.
Developmental Theory
According to well-known psychologist Erik Erikson, a child will encounter kinds of
problems very different from the psychosexual ones proposed by Freud. Unlike Freud’s
emphasis on psychosexual issues, Erikson focused on psychosocial issues and said that each
individual undergoes eight psychosocial stages.
The psychosocial stages are eight developmental periods during which an individual’s
primary goal is to satisfy desires associated with social needs. Four are childhood stages, and
three adult stages bridged together by one stage in adolescents. The eight periods are associated,
respectively, with issues of trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity,
and ego integrity.
Erikson hypothesized that from infancy through adulthood we proceed through these
stages, each of which is related to a different problem that needs to be resolved. If we
successfully deal with the potential problem of each psychosocial stage, we develop positive
personality traits that are better able to solve the problem at the next stage. However, if we do not
successfully handle the psychosocial problems, we may become anxious, worried, or troubled
and develop social or personality problems.
Unlike Freud, Erikson believed that psychosocial needs deserve the greatest emphasis
and that social development continues throughout one’s lifetime. Thus Erikson would emphasize
a child’s psychosocial needs and downplay the importance of sexuality in the first five years.
Conclusions
Erikson believed that achieving a personally satisfying identity was the very heart and
soul of an adolescent’s development. As adolescents developed into adults and reached middle
adulthood (stage 7), Erikson described a shift from concerns about identity to concerns about
being productive, creative, and nurturing (R. Coles, 2000).
Researchers have found evidence that we do go through a sequence of psychosocial
stages and that how we handle conflicts at earlier stages affects our personality and social
development at later stages (Van Manen & Whitbourne, 1997).
Sources:
Plotnik, Rod. “Psychology.” 497-498,527-528. Pasig City: Cengage Learning Asia Pte Ltd,
2012.
McLeod, Saul. “Erik Erikson.” Simply Psychology. http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-
Erikson.html (accessed July 29, 2015).
Baran, Evrim. “Psychosocial Development (Erik Erikson).”
http://www.slideshare.net/evrimb/week-6-psychosocial-development-erik-erikson
(accessed July 29, 2015).
Cherry, Kendra. “Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development.” About Education.
http://psychology.about.com/od/psychosocialtheories/a/psychosocial.htm (accessed on
July 29, 2015).
Group Ratings
Lorraine Claire Uy…… … …____
Lou Janssen Calotes… … … ____
Maria Kathryna Denaga … …____
Mariz Galang … … … … … ____
Mervin Cabriana … … … … .____
Mika Ella Plaza… … … … .. ____
1 Identity Status Theory (Marcia). In Learning Theories. Retrieved from URL: http://www.learning-
theories.com/identity-status-theory-marcia.html (accessed Aug. 3, 2015).