Freud’s psychosexual theory and Erikson’s psychosocial theory are two very renowned developmental concepts. Erikson was persuaded by Freud’s ideas but he elaborated on the theory differently. Erikson’s theory emphasized how both earlier and later experiences are proportionately important in the person’s development and how personality develops beyond puberty. But, Freud would argue that most development occurs during the earlier period of an individual’s life. Freud’s psychosexual stages comprised of five stages that ends in puberty. Erikson’s first few psychosocial stages are somewhat similar to that of Freud’s stages one to three but Erikson further expands his developmental stages to eight, covering old age. Similarly to Freud, Erikson …show more content…
Superego develops by the end of the phallic stage. Erikson agreed with this theory and thought ego as the most important. Erikson’s developmental theory was very detailed as compared to Freud. His theory describes the influence of social experiences in one’s life; however Freud described development based on sexuality. Another major difference between Freud and Erikson’s developmental theory is the end result of the stages. Freud believed that when fixation occurs in one stage, the problems occur associated with that stage would be permanent. However Erikson claims that the outcome of a particular stage is temporary and can be altered by experiences in later years. Sigmund Freud proposed a theory of psychoanalytic development; he stated that early childhood experiences and practices affect later development in adulthood. Freud’s stages of psychosexual development comprised of five stages: the oral stage (0 – 1 year), the anal stage (1 – 3 years), the phallic stage (3 – 6 years), the latency period (6 – puberty) and the genital stage (puberty – …show more content…
However, Freud’s theory was centered on psychosexual stages, Erikson’s theory elaborates on the effects of social experiences across an individual’s life span. Erikson’s psychosocial stages is divided into eight stages: Stage 1 – Trust vs. mistrust, Stage 2 – Autonomy vs. shame and doubt, Stage 3 – Initiative vs. guilt, Stage 4 – Industry vs. inferiority, Stage 5 – Identity vs. role confusion, Stage 6 – Intimacy vs. isolation, Stage 7 – Generativity vs. stagnation and Stage 8 – Integrity vs.
One of Freud's followers, Erik Erikson, developed his own theory called the psychosocial theory. Similar to Freud's theory, psychosocial theory also has a series of developmental stages. For example, in adolescence where Frued deems it to be the genital stage, Erikson calls this stage Identity vs. Role Confusion. The psychosocial theory focuses more on a series of choices an individual has to make throughout their life, each choice leads them to develop differently.
In short, both approaches showed different stages and their own missions in the life cycle of human development. Freud’s approach is more on sexual behavior and the characteristics that we born with, while Erikson’s theory is based on what we are nurtured and taught to be. They both help us to understand the basic idea of identity formation. However, there is weakness of the theory, there is no standardized conditions that can prove whether people has succeeded in a particular stage, it is really depending on personal levels of self-understanding.
“ By the late 1930s, he had outlined four developmental stages-infancy (oral, anal, genital), latency, puberty, and adult heterosexual adjustment.”(Capps, 2004) Erikson wanted to build on Freud's early psychosexual stages by adding psychosocial stages that covered the full life cycle. In Erikson's opinion Shakespeare had risen above Freud in developmental matters because Shakespeare had covered development from infancy till death and he also believed that Shakespeare's stages were represented in social-ethical terms rather than sexual. Erikson wanted to go beyond Freud and Shakespeare in the developmental process. Although without Freuds model of psychosexual stages Erik Erikson believed that he would never have been able to create his own life cycle schema. With the addition of the eighth stage Erik Eriksons original life cycle work was taking on creative new dimensions. Erikson himself thought that he was only beginning to get a sense of the vast complexity of human life and it upset him when people attempted to describe human life in general limited terms. In Eriksons opinion human life was complex and had no limits. In Eriksons life cycle schema he insisted that all stages of development are present from birth and remain thoughout an individuals life time. It was not very clear
In the 1950s, after studying Freud’s work, Erik Erikson developed his theories. Instead of Freud’s psychosexual stages, Erikson developed psychosocial stages. Erikson expanded on Freud’s work, and added that not only were the first years of development important, but that development continued through to early adulthood and
Freud believed that one’s sex instinct was the most determining factor of his or her personality; however, instead of relating sex to the mature class of humanity, he instead targeted infants and children (4). He generated a process of psychosexual stages in which each stage focuses in on a sensual body part and a corresponding time period in life (4). The stages are as followed, starting from birth: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital (4). Furthermore, each stage comes with its own conflict that arises when one is in this stage. He correlates that if this conflict is not solved during the set period of time, it can cause a fixation, thus bringing on personality traits in their adulthood relating back to that certain stage (4). For example, for one who is in the Anal stage (1 to 3 years) the conflict is toilet training. If the child remains too long or too briefly in this stage, later on in the future they could be more excessively cleanly or even destructive and rebellious (4). Perhaps the stage that was targeted with the most criticism, was the Phallic Stage or the Genitals stage occurring from 3 to 5 or 6 years (4). This stage mainly declared that young boys are more drawn to their mother and become more hostile towards their fathers, hinting to the underlying ideas that the young boys are sexually drawn to their mother. In a vice versa scenario,
Erik Erikson’s eight Stages of man; politically known as the eight stages of psychosocial development. He promotes social interactions as a motivation to personality development. Erickson studied stages from the beginning of the life cycle to the later stages of life. Erickson was trained under the famous Sigmund Freud. His belief was that it wasn’t only sex that motivated personality development. Social interaction and a growing sense of competence is the key to it all. Because his beliefs differed from the beliefs of Freud, Erikson quickly began to work on his own. Erickson has focused on many different eras of psychological development.
Both Freud and Erikson theories are based on the psychoanalytic theory which according to Kathleen Berger is “a grand theory of human development that holds that irrational, unconsicious drives and motives, often originating in childhood, underlie human behavior.
Erikson believed that people develop in psychosocial stages. He emphasized developmental change throughout the human life span. In Erikson's theory, eight stages of development result as we go through the life span. Each stage consists of a crisis that must be faced. According to Erikson, this crisis is not a catastrophe but a turning point. The more an individual resolves the crises successfully, the healthier development will be.
This approach has become the stimulus for a number of similar theories which share the same assumptions on psychological development, yet differ in detail. (Gross, R, 2007) Erik Erikson, a neo-freudian himself accepted Freud’s theory but whereas the psychodynamic approach focuses on five main stages of development until adulthood, Erikson theorised that development is lifelong and continues throughout life until death. (Psychology for A Level 2000)
Freud emphasizes on the life history of individuals. As a result, he created 3 parts of human personalities. The first one being Id which is the largest portion of the mind. This portion is unconscious which results in being present at birth. The next one is ego; this portion is conscious and begins to emerge in early infancy. Lastly is superego which is the conscience. This part begins to develop from ages three to six. Freud also explains the five psychosexual stages which are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. “Psychoanalytic theory suggested that personality is mostly established by the age of five.” (Cherry, n.d.). All five psychosexual stages help establish a personality at a young age.
Sigmund Freud developed the psychosexual stages of development to describe the chronological process of development that took place from birth through later adulthood. The stages of psychosexual are oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. Freud developed that as children grow they progress from self-pleasing sexual activity to reproductive activity. Through this developmental process one will develop adult personality. Freud put much emphasis on sexual context of how ones libido, which is one sexual desires played a role in each stage of development. Freud emphasizes that individuals will strive to obtain pleasures in each stage of development, which becomes the basis of ones personality.
Erikson’s theory is a psychoanalytic theory and Piaget’s theory is a cognitive theory. Erikson thought that human behavior is based on the social part of life and on how people interact with other people. He also thought that a human's lifestyle changes throughout their lifetime. Piaget’s thought that life development was based on organization and adaptation. He also thought that human development occurred more during younger ages than older ages. Erikson’s theory had eight different stages to what he thought was life development. Piaget's theory went through four stages. Parts of both of their theories fit together but each stage had a different aspect
Developmental psychology is an area of research dedicated to the understanding of child-development. Throughout history many theories have been used to attempt to explain the complex process. Two of those theorists, Freud and Erikson, were instrumental in creating a foundation for child-psychology to build on. From a Freudian perspective, human development is centered on psychosexual theory. Psychosexual theory indicates that maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development. Alternatively, Erikson is considered a neo-freudian scholar who developed psychosocial theory. In Erikson models there are eight major conflicts that occur during the course of an individual’s life.
Freud believed that humans develop through stages based on particular erogenous zones. Freud theorized that to gain a healthy personality as an adult, a person would have to successfully complete a certain sequence of five stages. Within the five stages of Freud’s psychosexual development theory, Freud assumed there would be major consequences if any stage was not completed successfully. The stages, in order, were the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latency stage, and the genital stage. In general, Freud believed that an unsuccessful completion of any stage would make a person become fixated on that particular stage. The outcome would lead the person to either over indulge or under indulge the failed stage during adulthood. Freud truly believed that the outcomes of the psychosexual stages played a major part in the development of the human personality. Eventually, these outcomes would become different driving forces in every human being’s personality. The driving forces would determine how a person would interact with the world around them. The results from Freud’s theory about the stages of psychosexual development led Freud to create the concept of the human psyche; Freud’s biggest contribution to
The theory does a good job at delineating the stages of psychosexual development; our childhood has a great influence on our personalities. Referring to Freud’s ‘psychosexual stages’, it is very clear that parents’ role in an infant’s life is the foremost step to structure the personality. Not to forget, the oral and anal stages are focal fundamental to character traits in a person’s behavior. The inner ‘instincts’ of sexuality and aggression meeting with the socially acceptable norms creates a conflict zone, wherein it is decided what we are to do and what we would become.