Erickson's Developmental Stages: Transformation through Adulthood

Throughout the lifespan, individuals grow physically, emotionally, and mentally. Developmental changes are therefore one the salient mechanism that characterized the life of an individual. Previous research has suggested that social characteristics in adults comprised stages where individuals evolved socially (e.g., Carstensen, 1993; Fingerman & Lang, 2004; Gleason, Hohmann, & Gleason, 2005; Levy, 2008), which is one the factors that may provoke changes on their social interactions at different stages of the lifespan (Clark, Ouellette, Powell, & Milberg, 1987; Heckhausen, 2001; Windle, 1994). For instance, one of the most influential theories in human development is Erick Erickson’s developmental theory, in which he separated human development in stages. His stages of development encompassed about ambiguous developmental period that he characterized as the conflict of Intimacy vs. Isolation in young adult, Generativity vs Stagnation in middle adulthood and Integrity vs. Despair in late adulthood (Schwartz, 2001). Erickson’s developmental stages theory paves the way for in-depth research on social developmental changes that occurred from young adulthood (18-25), middle adulthood (26-39), to late adulthood (40-67). In his developmental research on social relationships, Berndt (2002) found that friendships vary in term of quality, stability,

The findings lead us to hypothesis that, early adults’ social interactions are more about quantity. On the other hand, social interactions in middle adulthood and older adulthood are more about quality. We also found drastic changes occurring in middle adulthood that were related to normal life events that possibly causes changes in middle adults. The experiment reported below aimed to deliberate on what the study has