Erik Erikson's Stages of personality Development

By Khan

Key words; Multiple Theories in Psychology, Role of Heredity in personality development , Role of Environment in personality development,  Role of Situations in personality development , Erik Erikson's Stages of personality Development

Erik Erikson's Stages of personality Development

Definition personality

Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One is understanding individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other is understanding how the various parts of a person come together as a whole (APA).

Description

Personality is combination of behaviors and attitudes that make a person a distinctive and unique person from others, and a behavior, attitudes of a person Personality is recognizable soon after the birth. A person personality has composed of several components: environment, behavior and character.

Multiple Theories in Psychology

There are multiple theories that exist on the personality development in psychology. But the three main theories that influence personality development are heredity, environment, and situation.

Role of Heredity in personality development

 Heredity refers to the influences on a personality that person born with it. It is in the genes of a person and no one can bring much change to these traits. They could be included in the temperament, which determine how a person reacts to situations. In child it may affect how well they get along with others children. Genetics also determines someone looks.

Role of Environment in personality development

 Environment is the most influential and nurturing aspect of a person life. It is the type of environment which determined most of the personality traits. Environment of a person include home, school, playgrounds, community, work, or other places that he spend his time. Environmental factors also include languages, religion, etc.

Role of Situations in personality development

The experiences that an individual person faces in his life. The various experiences that person confront will leave imprints on his personality and helps him in the development of his personality.  The "situations" includes everything from happiness, sorrow, divorce, and trauma fits into the categories shaping one's personality.

People are the "product of their environment." means that their personality has been greatly influenced by the environment in which they live, born with particular traits and situation they.

Erik Erikson's Stages of personality

Erik Erikson's Stages of personality Development

Erik Erikson a popular psychologist in the field psychology, His stages of personality development focused on the theory of social development of individual. Erik Erikson was greatly influenced by the theory of Sigmund Freud. But Erikson's stages of development did not stop at the age of. He believed that the development of personality of person continued till the death.  The work he contributed to the stages of development of personality is considered great contribution into the field of psychology, his work included:

Infancy stage

This is the stage of trust versus mistrust of a child. The outcome of this stage is hope, in this stage the child learns to trust or mistrust his caregivers and caretakers.

18 months to 3 years stage

 This is the stage of autonomy versus shame stage; the virtues gained through this stage are self-control and courage. This is the stage in which the child learns to talk, eat, walk, and gain some motor control, e.g. learning toilet training. This is a very vulnerable stage for child personality. If parents or caretakers are harsh during this stage, it may lead a child toward low self-esteem.

3 to 5 years stage

 This is the stage of development of initiative versus guilt stage in a child, in which the child copies the adults around them. In this stage they also take the initiative to play games on their own. In this stage Children learn to do things on their own e.g. get dressed by their self. If the children feel guilty about doing these things in this stage, eventually they will have difficulties at later stages.

6 to 12 years stage

 This is the stage of industry versus inferiority stage, and the virtues they gained through this stage are method and competence. Children in this stage compare their self with those around them and they may feel inferior if they do not measure their worth.

12 to 18 years stage

This is the stage of Identity versus role confusion and the outcome of this stage is, the virtues being devotion and fidelity. At this stage, the children learn to establish peer relationships which are the most important for the proper development of personality and at this stage teens question themselves. At this stage they are trying to know about their self and what will be their plans in future, this is the stage of experiencing the role of confusion, their parents are imposing their own dreams while they have different version of dream or life for themselves than their parent’s ones.

18 to 35 years stage

 It is the stage of development intimacy and solidarity, the outcome of this stage is intimacy and solidarity versus isolation. The basic strengths of this stage are love and affiliation. It is the stage where a person seeks out a satisfying relationship with others and starts his own family. If a person or someone is not successful in this stage, he may turn to isolation zone.

35 to 55 years stage

At this stage the people often feel that they have a "mid-life crisis." in life. It is the generatively versus self-absorption or stagnation stage of personality development. This is the stage where most of the people look at their fast and try to sum up what they have and what could they do have. This is the stage to feel they have accomplished enough.

55 or so until death stage

The basic strength of this stage is wisdom, and the major outcome of this stage is integrity versus despair. At this stage, most of the people when they look back upon their lives and experiences, they are pleased of themselves; they feel integrity, while those people who do not feel integrity, they feel despair.

To sum up, there are many stages of personality development that are believed to go and help into personality development of people. A person with knowledge may even be able to identify some new experiences in the stages of personality development.

Resources

AACAP and David Pruitt. Your Child: Emotional, Behavioral, and Cognitive Development from Infancy through Pre-Adolescence. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.

Allen, Bem P. Personality Theories: Development, Growth, and Diversity. Harlow, UK: Allyn & Bacon, 2002.

Erikson, Erik. Childhood and Society. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993.

Erikson, Erik. The Erik Erikson Reader. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.

Shaffer, David R. Social and Personality Development. Independence, KT: Wadsworth Publishing, 1999.

"Social, Emotional, and Personality Development." Handbook of Child Psychology , edited by William Damon and Nancy Eisenberg. 5th ed. New York: Wiley, 2000.