Psychosocial Development

• The process by which a person’s sense of self emerges as the result of interactions between his or her social and personal side

Epigenetic Principle

• Erik Erikson proposed that the stages of development follow the Epigenetic Principle

• Biological plan for growth that allows each function to emerge systematically until the fully functioning organism has developed

  • Although one can anticipate challenges that will occur at a later stage, one passes through the stages in an orderly pattern of growth

  • There is no going back to an earlier stage because experience makes retreat impossible

  • One can review and reinterpret previous stages in the light of new insights and experiences

  • Themes of earlier stages may reemerge

• Do not think of stages as pigeonholes

  • Just because a person is described as being at a given stage does not mean that he or she cannot function at other levels

  • At every successive developmental stage, the individual is also increasingly engaged in the anticipation of tensions that have yet to become focal and in re-experiencing those tensions that were inadequately integrated when they were focal

Preschool Years

• Infancy

  • Birth to 2 years

  • Maturation of sensory, perpetual, and motor functions

  • Attachment

  • Sensorimotor intelligence and early causal schemes

  • Understanding the nature of objects and creating categories

  • Emotional development

  • Psychosocial Crisis: Trust vs Mistrust

  • Feeding

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis: mutuality with caregivers

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: Hope

    • An essential belief that one can attain one’s deep and essential wishes

  • Core Pathology: Withdrawal

    • Social and emotional detachment

  • The infant must …

    • Form a first loving, trusting relationship with the caregiver or develop a sense of mistrust

    • Trust the aspects of their world that are beyond their control

  • The infant will develop a sense of trust if its needs for food and and care are met with comforting regularity and responsiveness from caregivers

  • Infants must trust aspects of their world that are beyond their control

• Toddlerhood

  • 2 to 3 years

  • Elaboration of locomotion

  • Language development

  • Fantasy play

  • Self-play

  • Psychosocial Crisis: autonomy vs Shame and Doubt

  • Toilet training

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis: imitation

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: will

    • Determination to exercise free choice and self-control

  • Core Pathology: compulsion

    • Repetitive behaviors motivated by impulses or restrictions against the expression of impulse

  • The child’s energies are directed toward the development of physical skills, including walking, grasping, controlling the sphincter

  • The child learns control but may develop shame and doubt if not handled well

  • Beginning of self-control and self-confidence

  • Assume important responsibilities for self-care such as feeding, toileting, and dressing

  • Parents need to be protective but not too overprotective

  • If parents do not reinforce the child’s efforts to master basic motor and cognitive skills, children may begin to feel shame

  • They may learn to doubt their abilities to manage the world on their own terms

  • Children who experience too  much doubt at this stage will lack confidence in their own abilities

• Early School Age

  • 4 to 6 years

  • Gender identification

  • Early moral development

  • Peer play

  • Psychosocial Crisis: Initiative vs Guilt

  • Independence

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis: identification

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: purpose

    • The courage to imagine and pursue valued goals

  • Core Pathology: inhibition

    • A psychological restraint that prevents freedom of thought, expression, and activity

  • The child continues to become more assertive and to take more initiative but may be too forceful, which can lead to guilt feelings

  • The challenge for this period is to maintain a zest for activity and at the same time understand that not every impulse can be acted on

  • Adults need to provide supervision without interference

  • If children are not allowed to do things on their own, a sense of guilt may develop, they may come to believe that what they want to do is always wrong

Elementary Years

• Middle Childhood

  • 6 to 12 years

  • Friendship

  • Concrete operations

  • Skill learning

  • Self-evaluation

  • Team play

  • Psychosocial Crisis: Industry vs Inferiority

  • School

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis:  education

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: competence

    • The free exercise of skill and intelligence in the completion of tasks

  • Core Pathology: inertia

    • A paralysis of action and thought that prevents productive work

  • Students are beginning to see the relationship between perseverance and the pleasure of a job completed

  • Children’s ability to move between the worlds of home and neighborhood, and school, and to cope with academics, group activities, and friends will lead to a growing sense of competence

  • Difficulty with these challenges can result in feelings of inferiority

    • Have you decided on a career? What alternatives did you consider? Who or what was influential in shaping your decision?

Adolescence

• Early Adolescence

  • 12 to 18 years

  • Physical maturation

  • Formal operations

  • Emotional development

  • Membership in the peer group

  • Romantic and sexual relationships

  • Psychosocial Crisis: Group Identity vs Alienation

  • Peer relationships

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis: peer pressure

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: fidelity to others

    • The ability to freely pledge and sustain loyalty to others

  • Core Pathology: dissociation

    • An inability to connect with others

  • Young adolescents must confront the central issue of constructing an identity that will provide a firm bias for adulthood

  • Answer the question, “Who am I?”

  • Identity: organization of an individual’s drives, abilities, beliefs, and history

  • Involves deliberate choices and decisions, particularly about work, values, ideology, and commitments to people and ideas

  • Identity Statuses

    • Identity Diffusion

      • Do not explore options and made commitments

      • These individuals reach no conclusions about who they are or what they want to do with their lives

      • Apathetic, withdrawn, with little hope for the future, or they may be openly rebellious

    • Identity Foreclosure

      • Commitment without exploration

      • Foreclosed adolescents have not experimented with different identities or explored a range of options, but simply have committed themselves to the goals, values, and lifestyles of others (usually their parents)

      • Foreclosed adolescents tend to be rigid, intolerant, dogmatic, and defensive

    • Moratorium

      • Expiration with a delay in commitment to personal and occupational choices

      • Common and healthy for modern adolescents

      • The period is no longer referred to as a crisis because, for most, the experience is a gradual exploration rather than a traumatic upheaval

    • Identity Achievement

      • Strong sense of commitment to life choices after free consideration of alternatives

      • Few students achieve this status by the end of high school

      • Students who attend college may take a bit longer to decide

      • It is not uncommon for the explorations moratorium to continue until the early 20s

      • Some adults may achieve a firm identity at one period in their lives, only to reject that identity and achieve a new one later

      • Moratorium and identity achieved statuses

  • Adolescent Egocentrism

    • Adolescents become very focused on their own ideas

    • Everyone else shares one’s thoughts, feelings, and concerns

  • Imaginary Audience

    • The feeling that everyone is watching

    • Adolescents believe that others are analyzing them

ADOLESCENT EGOCENTRISM >> IMAGINARY AUDIENCE

• Personal Fable

  • Self-generated, often romanticized story of one’s own personal identity

  • So unique that you’re misunderstood by others

• Later Adolescence

  • 18 to 24 years

  • Autonomy from parents

  • Gender identity

  • Internalized morality

  • Career choice

  • Psychosocial Crisis: Individual Identity vs Identity Confusion

  • Peer relationships

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis: role experimentation

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: fidelity to values

    • The ability to freely pledge and sustain loyalty to values and ideology

  • Core Pathology: repudiation

    • Rejection of roles and values that are viewed as alien to oneself

Beyond School Years

• Early Adulthood

  • 24 to 34 years

  • Exploring intimate relationships

  • Childbearing

  • Work

  • Lifestyle

  • Psychosocial Crisis: Intimacy vs Isolation

  • Love relationships

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis: Mutuality among peers

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: Love

    • A capacity for mutuality that transcends childhood dependency

  • Core Pathology: Exclusivity

    • An enlist shutting out of others

  • Intimacy refers to a willingness to relate to a person on a deep level, to have a relationship based on more than mutual need

  • Someone who has not achieved a sufficiently strong sense of identity tends to fear being overwhelmed or swallowed up by another person and may retreat into isolation

• Middle Adulthood

  • 34 to 60 years

  • Managing a career

  • Nurturing intimate relationships

  • Expanding caring relationships

  • Managing the household

  • Psychosocial Crisis:  Generativity vs Stagnation

  • Parenting or mentoring

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis: Person-environment fit and creativity

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: care

    • A commitment to concern about what has been generated

  • Core Pathology: rejectivity

    • Unwillingness to include certain others or groups of others in one’s generative concern

  • Generativity extends the ability to care for another person and involves care and guidance for the next and future generations

  • A person’s concern and energies must broaden to include the welfare of others and society as a whole

  • Stagnation happens when an individual is concerned with one’s own needs and comforts

  • Life loses meaning and the person feels better, dreary, and trapped

• Later Adulthood

  • 60 to 75 years

  • Accepting one’s life

  • Redirecting energy toward new roles and activities

  • Promoting intellectual vigor

  • Developing a point of view about death

  • Psychosocial Crisis: Integrity vs Despair

  • Reflection on and acceptance of one’s life

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis: introspection

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: wisdom

    • A detached yet achieve concern with life itself in the face of death

  • Core Pathology: disdain

    • A feeling of scorn for the weakness and frailty of others

  • Coming to terms with death

  • Achieving integrity means consolidating your sense of self and fully accepting its unique and unalterable history

  • People who have lived richly and responsibly develop a sense of integrity

  • If previous life events are viewed with regret, the elderly person experiences despair (heartache and remorse)

• Very Old Age

  • 75 years until death

  • Coping with physical changes of aging

  • Developing a psycho-historical perspective

  • Psychosocial Crisis: Immortality vs Extinction

  • Central Process for Resolving Crisis:  social support

  • Virtue Developed if Crisis is Resolved: confidence

    • A conscious trust in oneself and assurance about the meaningfulness of life

  • Core Pathology: diffedence

    • An inability to act because of overwhelming self-doubt

Strengths

• The theory provides a broad, integrative framework within which to study the lifespan

• The theory provides insight into the directions of healthy development across the lifespan

• Many of the basic ideas of the theory have been operationalized using traditional and novel approaches to assessment

• Longitudinal studies support the general direction of development hypothesized by the theory

• The concept of psychosocial crisis identifies predictable tensions between socialization and maturation

Weaknesses

• Explanations for the mechanisms of crisis resolution and process of moving from one stage to the next need to be more fully developed

• The idea of a specific number of stages of life and their link to a genetic plan for development is disputed

• The specific ways that culture encourages or inhibits development at each stage of life are not clearly elaborated

• The theory and much of its supporting research have been dominated by a male, Eurocentric perspective that gives too much emphasis to individuality and not enough attention to connection and social relatedness

Moral Development

• The mechanism by which children and adolescents learn the difference between right and wrong

Moral Reasoning

• Their thinking about right and wrong and their active construction of moral judgments