Erik Erikson is a famous theorist; he is most well known for his psychosocial theory. This theory consists of 8 stages throughout a human’s life span, beginning from birth to old age (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). Each stage highlights a crisis that one may face due to a maladaptation and how this may impact one’s personality if not resolved. In this self-analysis I will be examining my life from stage one up to stage six of Erikson’s psychosocial theory. Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust Erikson’s first psychosocial crisis is trust vs. mistrust, which starts from birth to 18 months. This stage focuses primarily on the infant looking towards caregivers for stability and safekeeping (McLeod, 2008). The belief is that if the child receives consistent and reliable care from the guardian(s) they will develop a sense of trust. On the other hand, if a child receives …show more content…
Role Confusion According to Erikson from age twelve to eighteen a person may find themselves in a crisis of identity vs. role confusion. During this stage, many adolescents seek to re-evaluate the roles they fulfill and seek to find their own identity. If a person is not able to find a sense of identity they may begin to feel a sense of role confusion. On the other hand, once a person is able to be confident and content about his or hers identity they achieve the stage’s virtue of fidelity. My role as a Catholic came with intense internal strife, as I grew older, especially in my teenage years. I began to resist going to church with my family, which led to conflict with my parents. I had already completed my first communion and was baptized at a young age but I did not want to complete confirmation. I felt that I should not commit myself to a religion that I did not fully believe in and if I did I would be living a lie. It was a hard decision to make because it disappointed my parents, but I don’t regret my decision and have spent the last several years exploring other
During this stage, Erikson believes that the individual’s successful identity formation relies on social, cognitive and physical maturation (Pittman, Keiley, Kerpelman, & Vaughn, 2011). The individual tries out different roles for who they see in themselves and who they portray to others, eventually committing to their own personal role and occupational choice. Pittman et al. (2011) describe the identity formation as “consisting of decisions, investments, and commitments tied to current and future roles, goals, and relationships.” Additional considerations for identity formation include the context of the culture which is available to the adolescent during this time. After successful resolution of this stage during adolescence, individuals will typically progress into Erikson’s Intimacy versus Isolation stage during young
According to Erikson, a person will progress to the next stage of development regardless of the successful resolution of the prior conflict due to physical and biological development and the natural age and social progressions of humans (Sigelman & Rider, 2012). As a result, if a conflict has been unsuccessfully resolved, this will greatly influence how remaining conflicts are approached and identity formation develops. The fifth stage of psychosocial development brings the conflict of identity versus role confusion. This stage typically occurs during the years of 12 to 20 and is a time when adolescents begin to express who they are in their lives, careers, and personal relationships (Sigelman & Rider, 2012).
This period is marked by physical, social, moral and emotional development (Davies, Hartdegen, Haxell, Le Geyt & Mercier, 2012). It is a time when the adolescent’s sense of self or identity is becoming much more clear and they are beginning to understand their role in society, starting to question the morals of others and contemplating their own moral and ethical beliefs (Davies et al., 2012). During this time Erik Erikson believed that adolescents are faced with the psychosocial stage of identity versus role confusion (Berk, 2008). Adolescents explore their values and role in society, overcoming this conflict to better understand their own identity, however if they do not fully overcome this conflict, Erikson believed that the adolescent would be confused about their values and future adult roles (Berk, 2008). This conflict was clearly demonstrated in my own development during the late teenage years when I experienced both the results of failing to overcome and then overcoming Erikson’s fifth psychosocial stage. At age eighteen I finished secondary school and began my tertiary studies, I had been accepted into the degree I had wanted to study since middle childhood, however I quickly learnt that I was enjoying neither my studies nor my experience of life in halls of residence. I discontinued my studies after only
At the beginning of this paper I mentioned that there are eight stages in the psychosocial development theory starting with trust vs. mistrust. This stage begins at birth to one year of age. This is when I should have formed a trust with my primary caregiver or caregivers. My dad was absent most of this stage, so my mother was my primary caregiver. Since she never taught me good behavior, right from wrong, and was uncaring when I was born, I did not feel safe or secure around her. I was told through family members that she was unable to hold me without me screaming all the time, and that the doctor said I suffered from anxiety at infancy because I could feel the tension of my mother’s stress, anger, and anxiety towards me. The beginning of me learning to mistrust, and feeling
grew up in Europe and spent his young adult life under the direction of Freud. In 1933
The First stage in Erickson’s theory is trust vs. mistrust, this stage occurs during infancy, from birth to one years old. This stage is all about trust, it is the stage where you hopefully begin to trust not only yourself but others as well (Crandell and Crandell p. 36). An infant gains trust in infancy because they can not do anything for themselves, they depend on others to do everything for them therefore in this stage they develop trust in others, their caregivers, that they will do all that they can to take care of their well-being. Developing trust in infancy is crucial because this makes the individual grow up feeling safe and secure in the world. A positive outcome of an infant developing trust is that they grow up feeling safe in the world, a negative outcome would be that the individual grows up in fear of the world. There is no way to develop one hundred percent trust or one hundred percent doubt, Erikson believed that the best way to come out of this stage is with a balanc...
Erik Erikson developed eight psychosocial stages that occur through life. These stages help parents of younger children understand what the child is thinking and why they are acting the way that they do. For a person to become a well-rounded adult they need to succeed in each level. This essay will discuss the first six stages into young adulthood.
Adolescence refers to the transition period experienced by children that occur between childhood and adulthood (Shefer, 2011). Identity is first confronted in adolescence between the ages 12 – 19 years old, because of physical and hormonal changes in the body. It is also due to the introduction of formal operations in cognitive development and societal expectation that this contributes to an individual’s identity to be explored and established (McAdams, 2009). The forces within and outside (family, community) the individual that promote identity development usually create a sense of tension. The basic task is, in Erikson’s terms, “fidelity or truthfulness and consistency to one’s core self or faith in one’s ideology” (Fleming, 2004: 9), in a nutshell: "Who am I and where am I
During the Babies documentary, the four babies are in their first year of life. This is Erikson’s stage, Trust vs. Mistrust. The question during this stage is, “Is the world a safe place or is it full of accidents and unpredictable events?” During this stage, the infant looks to their primary caregiver for care, whether stable or unstable. Infants try to find a send of predictability, consistency and trust. Erikson believes that all caregiving behavior will lead to this. If the infant receives stable care, then they will develop a sense of trust. If they don’t, they will develop a sense of mistrust for the
The first stage in Erikson’s psychosocial theory is the Trust vs. Mistrust stage. This stage is from birth to about one year of age. This is the time when an infant child learns to depend on another for affection, comfort, and nutrition eventually learning to blindly trust the primary caregivers to provide these things (Cooper, 1998). When the infants needs are met, then the infant develops a specific attachment with their caregiver, if the outcome is negative then the infant learns to mistrust the people around them and the environment that they are in. This brings us to the next stage in psychosocial
Erikson’s first stage was trust verses mistrust and it occurred from zero to 18 months of age. The point of this stage is to establish trust. Erikson believed this was the most important period in a person’s life. Since a baby depends entirely on his/her parents, the care giving plays an important role in the shaping of this stage (Cherry, 2011). If the child successfully develops trust then the child will feel safe and secure in the world, but the lack can lead to thoughts of an inconsistent and unpredictable world (Cherry, 2011). In the business world, the lack of trust can create a whole new problem. The lack of trust can lead to the “…unseen cost in life and business…” as said by Stephen Covey (2006). Lack of trust creates “…hidden agendas and a guarded communication, which slows the decision-making process” (Covey, 2006). When there isn’t trust in a situation, it hinders productivity, innovation (Covey, 2006).
It is the stage where an adolescent re-examines their identity. To be precise, the individual tries to find out exactly who they are. According to Erikson, there are two identities involved in this stage. They are; the occupational and the sexual (McLeod, 2017). The adolescent may be uncomfortable with their looks or body, but with time they adapt to the bodily changes. The experiences of this stage result in the virtue of fidelity. The meaning of fidelity is one’s ability to commit their self to others by accepting other people despite their ideologies being different (McLeod, 2017). In this stage, the person explores the possibilities and starts to form their own identity basing upon the outcomes from their explorations. However, a failure to determine a sense of identity in a society does lead to role confusion (Kroger & Marcia, 2011). The adolescent has not established what they want to be when they grow up. Specifically, role confusion entails a person, not sure about their place in society or even themselves. While responding to the role confusion, the adolescent starts to experiment with various lifestyles such as education, work, and other activities. Notably, pressuring someone with identity crisis can lead to a rebellion that can lead to he or she forming a negative identity. Additionally, the confusion and
In Erik Erikson’s theory of Trust versus Mistrust is infants learn to trust their caregivers will meet their basic needs, and infants learn to mistrust their caregivers when their basic
Erik Erickson has devised a theory of psychosocial development. It explains the impact of social experience throughout a life time. The first stage is infancy. This occurs between birth and the ages of 1, is called trust versus mistrust. This is the most fundamental stage in life. A baby during this time is completely dependent on its care takers. It needs food, love, and nourishment. If the baby is not given those things during this particular time it is not going to have trust in the adults in its life. While no child can have one hundred percent trust or one hundred percent distrust there can be balance. When this occurs, hope in the baby can be achieved. The second stage is early childhood. At this stage the child is starting to become
During this stage adolescents develop a better understanding of self and belonging or they face identity crisis and role confusion. During this stage in my life I felt that I was rebelling and doing things that were not age appropriate. I did not respect authority and thought it was ok to do what I wanted to do. Even though I was a young teenager I did not think of myself that way. I thought of myself more like an adult. Through my negative experiences in this stage I suffered identity crisis and role