Responses to:
Erik Erikson Psycho-social development Questions
David P
1) The first stage is the oral sensory stage. It goes from twelve to eighteen months and the most important event is that of feeding. It is important for the child to be fed when it is hungry and to be comforted when it needs comforting, so that it can gain the trust that it needs of all individuals and if the mistrust overcomes the trust, then, later in life the child will be withdrawn and will lack self confidence. This stage is mostly saying that a child needs trust and to be fed by their parents when they are young, but still have some mistrust so that they know who they should trust and who they should avoid. In the case of genie there wasn’t really any feeding going on or trust from her parents.
In the second stage (muscular-anal) from eighteen months to three years the main aspect is that of toilet training, and being able to control oneself. The child learns how to walk, grasp onto things and to control their sphincter. If they can not do this then it might lead to shame or doubt and not the feeling of autonomy (being on your own) and being able to control oneself. In the case of genie this wasn’t really ever established since when she was being rehabilitated would have really no control of her sphincter at all, but she had no shame or doubt since there was nobody to ridicule her.
The third stage is the locomotor stage from three to six years old. It mostly to do with the first year of school and having independence. The child also finds out what kind of person that they want to be and by doing that they get a sense of independence. If the kid is irresponsible with their actions it can lead to feelings of guilt that Erikson believed were easily able to be overtaken again by feelings of accomplishment. Genie didn’t really have a clue about this since she didn’t really have a chance to feel good about herself until she got out of her cell.
The fourth stage goes into the preteen years to twelve years old, and starts at about six years old when a child is starting school. There is a lot of exposure to new learning about all kinds of things like math, science, and English learning tools that are developed from school. Erikson says that the actual learning goes on when the children are interacting with each other, and that is where they get a sense of industry. They make new friendships, learn to play with other kids, and to share. If this doesn’t happen, then the child can feel inferior to other children in their lives. Again in the case of Genie, she didn’t really have a chance to interact with the kids around her and to get to know them (she was found at about the end of this stage).
Next there is the fifth stage which happens from about 12 to 18 years of age. During this part of life teenagers start to achieve a sense of what their role really is amongst all of their peers and they have to get the identity of occupation, sex roles, politics, and religion. If a child doesn’t get a real sense of who they are, then that can lead to a feeling of role confusion. This stage is the real climax of what the child wants to do, and to really place themselves into a community of people. It is where the identity concern “reaches a climax.”
There is the sixth stage that is called the young adulthood stage that goes from about 19 to 40 years of age. During this time the person really focuses more on real love relationships and find a sense of an intimate relationship with a person that they really like. If this doesn’t happen then that can lead to feelings of isolation since it would seem like everyone else is getting into a relationship except for you. But during this stage there isn’t a whole lot going on besides trying to find a real partner that you really want to be with and to get a sense of intimacy.
The next, and second to last stage, is the middle adulthood stage that happens between forty and sixty five years (according to Erikson), and it is the time that the mid-life crisis starts to happen. The person really starts to ask themselves how they are going to serve and support the next oncoming generation of their children and how they are parenting their children. They get a feeling of generativity, and if the person feels that they haven’t really done anything to help the next generation this leads to a feeling of stagnation since they feel that they have done nothing to have an imprint on the future generations.
The final stage is the stage of maturity. It is a stage that lasts from sixty-five years till death. The only thing that really happens during this time is a reflection and acceptance of one’s life and feeling fulfilled. If this doesn’t happen then it leads to a feeling of despair. If you really do feel that by the time you get to retirement or a little bit past retirement that you have accomplished a lot of good things then that leads to a feeling of ego integrity and a “super ego.” But if the person feels that they haven’t really done anything that can lead to despair of what they have really done with their life.
2) An identity crisis that I have really struggled with during my life so far has been just now and also last fall, when I had the sense of being a brother, an employee at cub foods/ fareway, a son, a teammate, and a student. I found the inspiration from being able to do all of these things from seeing that other people at West High were doing the same thing that I was and I thought that if they could do it then I could too. I also got the support from all of my family and team mates to continue to do well in my sports, school, and work and their pride that I was able to do these things helped me continue on and to do well. I knew that they believed in me and that I believed in myself also. Some of the pressures that I felt as I was doing all of these things was that I was just doing so much that it was hard to say that I was just one thing as a person, but many different things. I didn’t really mind that since I am a fan of a good challenge and I am willing to finish things well no matter how many things that I am faced with. I feel that if other people have done things before that there is no reason that I shouldn’t be able to follow in their footsteps and do just as well.
3) In this stage of latency from six to twelve years the important event is school and the ideas of industry (being able to make new relationships and to learn all kinds of new things at school) and the sense of inferiority (that is the opposite of industry since you are not really making a lot of new friends and interacting with your peers). From these things and also from number one in my larger definition I think that his ideas about these things are very true in the way that children want to play and have fun with their peers. They want to play all kinds of games together but if this doesn’t happen (then children) might tend to think that they are inferior to the other children since nobody really wants to do what they are doing. I would have to say that this has happened to me before like when I was in elementary school everyone else wanted to play football and I didn’t really want to, but then I ended up not feeling too good about myself since nobody else really was on the same page as I was. Eventually I started to do what everyone else was doing and to get more peer relationships and to get more friends and then I felt the sense of industry. I think that the way that Erik Erikson describes this is very relevant to what children really feel during this time, and how getting along with your peers has more to do maybe than the feeling of learning a lot, even though you are learning many new things. I think that the feeling of being accepted is very fulfilling at this age from what Erikson said and in the way that I feel about this situation.
4) In the first stage of Erikson’s life stages (oral sensory) I believe that the main physical changes are that the child is able to have control of being able to eat things and to take in food a little bit easier than it when they had to be spoon fed everything. The main emotional changes are that the child is able to trust its parents or new people that it meets, or to not trust people that it meets. And that also goes hand in hand with the social changes that are happening, like how the baby is able to interact with the people around it and to get that trust and mistrust of people.
In the next stage, the muscular anal stage, I believe that the main physical development that is going on is the physical development of being able to walk, grasp, and to have sphincter control. It is mostly just the large muscle groups that are being developed like the muscles in the arms and legs. For the emotional development the child wants to have the sense of being on their own, being able to be by themselves, and to not have the shame or doubt about themselves if they were to loose control of their sphincter. The child really wants to be able to have self-control with out the feeling of self-control being a problem at this age.
In the locomotor stage, the main physical development is the ability to be confident and to have the full control of their muscles, and to be able to move around and walk on their own and not fall down. For the most part they are just trying to synchronize all of the muscles so that they can all be working together at once. The main emotional and social development part is the way that the child goes is able to have initiative, be more assertive, and to have a sense of responsibility. They don’t have to worry about the sense of irresponsibility and learn to not have the feeling of guilt.
In the next stage, latency, from six to twelve years I believe that there wouldn’t really be a whole lot of physical change until the child got to the point at which they started to have the effects of puberty. They get taller, stronger, and more mature in many different ways. Some of the emotional and social aspects would be that once the kid got to puberty they would start to get the feeling of self- consciousness. Before that there would be the need to learn new skills, learn about new things, and mathematical and scientific tools. If they don’t get a chance to do these things, then that might also lead to the social aspect of feeling self conscious.
In the next stage of adolescence that happens during the years of 12 and 18, I don’t really think that there would be as large of a change in physical development but there might still be some growth in height and weight from the aftershocks of puberty that carry on a little bit into the years of 12 to 18. I think that the emotional and social aspects would have a larger role since there is a need for an identity in the entire community of family, school, work, and friends. This can lead more so to the feeling of wanting to be a part of a certain group and having the want to belong.
In the stage of young adulthood from 14 to 40 years I don’t think that there would really be a large change in the physical aspects unless it was gaining muscle mass in the first part and then loosing muscle mass and gaining fat weight in the later parts. The main social and emotional aspects would play a larger role since during this stage a maturing adult has the want for an intimate relationship. According to Erikson, if this doesn’t happen, then a person might get a feeling of social inferiority since they would feel that they were different from everyone else.
In the next stage, middle adulthood, again I don’t really think that there would be much of a physical change unless again the person was gaining a little bit of weight or getting a little bit of gray hair that would lead to a feeling of a mid life crisis. The adult would get the sense or feeling that they really want to do something to help the future people of their society. They might have emotional feelings of thinking, “what have I really done with my life, and do I really like what I am doing as a career, as being a father, and a husband, or just an active member of society,” and then choose to either do something to help the future generations or to just not really do anything.
In the last stage of maturity, I think that again there wouldn’t be as much of a physical change like there would have been in the muscular anal stage of life besides that in the time of maturity the person would probably start to develop a larger head of gray hair. I think that the person a this age would either start to have the feeling of being a good active member of society, or that they really haven’t done anything in these past sixty or seventy years. This person might have a feeling of happiness when they see their grandchildren and know that there would be a little part of them in that child, and that they are happy with what they have chosen to do over the past years.
5) The three other questions that I decided to add to the other seven were 1) how did/ do your parents treat you when you were a young child and how did or didn’t they support you in your actions? 2) Who have been some of the most influential people in your life and for what reason? 3) What type of person do you remember yourself as being when you were a child? I put the answers to the questions on a different sheet of paper that is attached to the back of this paper.
6) For my first person that I interviewed she had been not treated as well when she was younger since her dad was a farmer and her mom was “mentally incapable” or maybe not willing enough to take very good care of her six children. Although all of these events happened this person still came out to be a very good parent for her children. She also told me that some of her most fun times in life and important moments were when she got to have the chance to play with her children and now her family is the most important thing to her. She said that she learned from one of her other good life long friends how to become a really good parent that she is today. Then as she progressed through the rest of her life into adolescence and then into early adulthood she never really had any real problems, and never really had any mishaps about not really being able to fit into a community, society, or just being around other people. Although she did say that one of the things that she did that she thought was probably a bad idea was to get married so early (at the age of 21) but that she doesn’t really regret marrying her husband. And today she also sees her father as one of her role models.
My next person that I interviewed never seemed to really have any “bad mishaps” during her entire life that she has been living for about eighty years, since she said that when she was young her parents were always very supportive of all of her actions. She said that her teachers were also very supportive for the education that she was capable of receiving at that time in her life, but she said today that some of her most fun parts of her life have been when she was a child and how she had so much fun with all of her friends playing around in the streets. And then to the remainder of her life until now she has never really had any maladaptions to the events that might of happened earlier in life, and she has always just been a very strong confident person. She learned how to be that way from her parents that always supported her. She also says that along with her family one of the most important things to her is her little dog.
The next person that I interviewed is much younger than the last person that I interviewed. She said that some of her most enjoyable parts of her life have come from the time when she was young and was able to do whatever she wanted. She said that some of her favorite things were when she had her first pet (a lovebird), and now today when she has her dog that is very full of energy and enjoyable to be around. She is a very successful person to this day in that has graduated from high school, college, and is now teaching and studying at the University of Iowa. She says that she has come to be a very confident and decisive person today because of how her parents treated her when she was younger, and she said that her parents were always willing to support her. When she was wrong she said that her parents would always suggest something that was better to do, and to continue to support her actions. She too hasn’t really had any maladaptations to her environment and to this day she is a very confident and happy person, since up to this point she has always been a very good well-rounded, happy individual that she is today.
The next person that I interviewed was different from the other people that I have interviewed thus far, He is in the adolescent stage and he, unlike the other three people that I have interviewed so far, said that right now the most important thing in his life is his spirituality. He cares most about that, but the most important people in his life are “first my friend Paul, and then pretty much my entire family.” He also said that some of his goals were to travel the world and to become fluent in Spanish. He also plans to stop his education at the end of second trimester this year (he is a senior) and I believe that the reason for his wanting to be so independent has come from his parents. When he was younger, his parents always encouraged him when he was doing something “right” and that he should be independent and to think for himself. He also said that when he was younger he was always a very energetic child that did whatever he wanted to and I believe that that was from his parents supporting those types of actions, since then he has always wanted to be very independent and what, I would say, away from the normal train of thought of most people our age.
7) I feel that the way in which Erikson determined the main stages of a person’s life were more accurate that those of Sigmund Freud. I believe that this is true because although Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson had fairly similar ideas about what things were like as a young child, that what happens later in life can really dictate who you are as a person. I also say this because of my own experiences like when I was a young child I don’t really remember what happened when I was between the ages of one and five. I don’t really think that if I can’t remember how I felt that it can have a large impact on who I am as a person today. What I do remember from being in school since first grade through where I am now in 12th grade, this would have a larger impact on who I am as a person today and not so much for how I was when I was between the ages of zero and five. During that time I probably didn’t really have a large group of people that I related to or were actually friends with. Although Erikson had large jumps for some of his stages like the middle adulthood from forty to sixty-five, it is more important that he had the thought that during those times something more did happen, and that you as a person did change. Your perspective on life and how you choose to shape your life was still being changed during that time period. Finally, I believe that a person is like a big ball of clay that can really be changed at any time, as long as you are willing to go on with life and not be confined to a little room with no intervention with any of your peers. The time between the ages of zero and five is too little of a time to only be shaped in a certain way for how you will act as a person later in life. There is more than just five years when you are, determining who you are and the ideas that Erik Erikson teaches in his developmental theory are something that I agree with for the most part.
Erik Erikson Psycho-social development Questions
David P
1) The first stage is the oral sensory stage. It goes from twelve to eighteen months and the most important event is that of feeding. It is important for the child to be fed when it is hungry and to be comforted when it needs comforting, so that it can gain the trust that it needs of all individuals and if the mistrust overcomes the trust, then, later in life the child will be withdrawn and will lack self confidence. This stage is mostly saying that a child needs trust and to be fed by their parents when they are young, but still have some mistrust so that they know who they should trust and who they should avoid. In the case of genie there wasn’t really any feeding going on or trust from her parents.
In the second stage (muscular-anal) from eighteen months to three years the main aspect is that of toilet training, and being able to control oneself. The child learns how to walk, grasp onto things and to control their sphincter. If they can not do this then it might lead to shame or doubt and not the feeling of autonomy (being on your own) and being able to control oneself. In the case of genie this wasn’t really ever established since when she was being rehabilitated would have really no control of her sphincter at all, but she had no shame or doubt since there was nobody to ridicule her.
The third stage is the locomotor stage from three to six years old. It mostly to do with the first year of school and having independence. The child also finds out what kind of person that they want to be and by doing that they get a sense of independence. If the kid is irresponsible with their actions it can lead to feelings of guilt that Erikson believed were easily able to be overtaken again by feelings of accomplishment. Genie didn’t really have a clue about this since she didn’t really have a chance to feel good about herself until she got out of her cell.
The fourth stage goes into the preteen years to twelve years old, and starts at about six years old when a child is starting school. There is a lot of exposure to new learning about all kinds of things like math, science, and English learning tools that are developed from school. Erikson says that the actual learning goes on when the children are interacting with each other, and that is where they get a sense of industry. They make new friendships, learn to play with other kids, and to share. If this doesn’t happen, then the child can feel inferior to other children in their lives. Again in the case of Genie, she didn’t really have a chance to interact with the kids around her and to get to know them (she was found at about the end of this stage).
Next there is the fifth stage which happens from about 12 to 18 years of age. During this part of life teenagers start to achieve a sense of what their role really is amongst all of their peers and they have to get the identity of occupation, sex roles, politics, and religion. If a child doesn’t get a real sense of who they are, then that can lead to a feeling of role confusion. This stage is the real climax of what the child wants to do, and to really place themselves into a community of people. It is where the identity concern “reaches a climax.”
There is the sixth stage that is called the young adulthood stage that goes from about 19 to 40 years of age. During this time the person really focuses more on real love relationships and find a sense of an intimate relationship with a person that they really like. If this doesn’t happen then that can lead to feelings of isolation since it would seem like everyone else is getting into a relationship except for you. But during this stage there isn’t a whole lot going on besides trying to find a real partner that you really want to be with and to get a sense of intimacy.
The next, and second to last stage, is the middle adulthood stage that happens between forty and sixty five years (according to Erikson), and it is the time that the mid-life crisis starts to happen. The person really starts to ask themselves how they are going to serve and support the next oncoming generation of their children and how they are parenting their children. They get a feeling of generativity, and if the person feels that they haven’t really done anything to help the next generation this leads to a feeling of stagnation since they feel that they have done nothing to have an imprint on the future generations.
The final stage is the stage of maturity. It is a stage that lasts from sixty-five years till death. The only thing that really happens during this time is a reflection and acceptance of one’s life and feeling fulfilled. If this doesn’t happen then it leads to a feeling of despair. If you really do feel that by the time you get to retirement or a little bit past retirement that you have accomplished a lot of good things then that leads to a feeling of ego integrity and a “super ego.” But if the person feels that they haven’t really done anything that can lead to despair of what they have really done with their life.
2) An identity crisis that I have really struggled with during my life so far has been just now and also last fall, when I had the sense of being a brother, an employee at cub foods/ fareway, a son, a teammate, and a student. I found the inspiration from being able to do all of these things from seeing that other people at West High were doing the same thing that I was and I thought that if they could do it then I could too. I also got the support from all of my family and team mates to continue to do well in my sports, school, and work and their pride that I was able to do these things helped me continue on and to do well. I knew that they believed in me and that I believed in myself also. Some of the pressures that I felt as I was doing all of these things was that I was just doing so much that it was hard to say that I was just one thing as a person, but many different things. I didn’t really mind that since I am a fan of a good challenge and I am willing to finish things well no matter how many things that I am faced with. I feel that if other people have done things before that there is no reason that I shouldn’t be able to follow in their footsteps and do just as well.
3) In this stage of latency from six to twelve years the important event is school and the ideas of industry (being able to make new relationships and to learn all kinds of new things at school) and the sense of inferiority (that is the opposite of industry since you are not really making a lot of new friends and interacting with your peers). From these things and also from number one in my larger definition I think that his ideas about these things are very true in the way that children want to play and have fun with their peers. They want to play all kinds of games together but if this doesn’t happen (then children) might tend to think that they are inferior to the other children since nobody really wants to do what they are doing. I would have to say that this has happened to me before like when I was in elementary school everyone else wanted to play football and I didn’t really want to, but then I ended up not feeling too good about myself since nobody else really was on the same page as I was. Eventually I started to do what everyone else was doing and to get more peer relationships and to get more friends and then I felt the sense of industry. I think that the way that Erik Erikson describes this is very relevant to what children really feel during this time, and how getting along with your peers has more to do maybe than the feeling of learning a lot, even though you are learning many new things. I think that the feeling of being accepted is very fulfilling at this age from what Erikson said and in the way that I feel about this situation.
4) In the first stage of Erikson’s life stages (oral sensory) I believe that the main physical changes are that the child is able to have control of being able to eat things and to take in food a little bit easier than it when they had to be spoon fed everything. The main emotional changes are that the child is able to trust its parents or new people that it meets, or to not trust people that it meets. And that also goes hand in hand with the social changes that are happening, like how the baby is able to interact with the people around it and to get that trust and mistrust of people.
In the next stage, the muscular anal stage, I believe that the main physical development that is going on is the physical development of being able to walk, grasp, and to have sphincter control. It is mostly just the large muscle groups that are being developed like the muscles in the arms and legs. For the emotional development the child wants to have the sense of being on their own, being able to be by themselves, and to not have the shame or doubt about themselves if they were to loose control of their sphincter. The child really wants to be able to have self-control with out the feeling of self-control being a problem at this age.
In the locomotor stage, the main physical development is the ability to be confident and to have the full control of their muscles, and to be able to move around and walk on their own and not fall down. For the most part they are just trying to synchronize all of the muscles so that they can all be working together at once. The main emotional and social development part is the way that the child goes is able to have initiative, be more assertive, and to have a sense of responsibility. They don’t have to worry about the sense of irresponsibility and learn to not have the feeling of guilt.
In the next stage, latency, from six to twelve years I believe that there wouldn’t really be a whole lot of physical change until the child got to the point at which they started to have the effects of puberty. They get taller, stronger, and more mature in many different ways. Some of the emotional and social aspects would be that once the kid got to puberty they would start to get the feeling of self- consciousness. Before that there would be the need to learn new skills, learn about new things, and mathematical and scientific tools. If they don’t get a chance to do these things, then that might also lead to the social aspect of feeling self conscious.
In the next stage of adolescence that happens during the years of 12 and 18, I don’t really think that there would be as large of a change in physical development but there might still be some growth in height and weight from the aftershocks of puberty that carry on a little bit into the years of 12 to 18. I think that the emotional and social aspects would have a larger role since there is a need for an identity in the entire community of family, school, work, and friends. This can lead more so to the feeling of wanting to be a part of a certain group and having the want to belong.
In the stage of young adulthood from 14 to 40 years I don’t think that there would really be a large change in the physical aspects unless it was gaining muscle mass in the first part and then loosing muscle mass and gaining fat weight in the later parts. The main social and emotional aspects would play a larger role since during this stage a maturing adult has the want for an intimate relationship. According to Erikson, if this doesn’t happen, then a person might get a feeling of social inferiority since they would feel that they were different from everyone else.
In the next stage, middle adulthood, again I don’t really think that there would be much of a physical change unless again the person was gaining a little bit of weight or getting a little bit of gray hair that would lead to a feeling of a mid life crisis. The adult would get the sense or feeling that they really want to do something to help the future people of their society. They might have emotional feelings of thinking, “what have I really done with my life, and do I really like what I am doing as a career, as being a father, and a husband, or just an active member of society,” and then choose to either do something to help the future generations or to just not really do anything.
In the last stage of maturity, I think that again there wouldn’t be as much of a physical change like there would have been in the muscular anal stage of life besides that in the time of maturity the person would probably start to develop a larger head of gray hair. I think that the person a this age would either start to have the feeling of being a good active member of society, or that they really haven’t done anything in these past sixty or seventy years. This person might have a feeling of happiness when they see their grandchildren and know that there would be a little part of them in that child, and that they are happy with what they have chosen to do over the past years.
5) The three other questions that I decided to add to the other seven were 1) how did/ do your parents treat you when you were a young child and how did or didn’t they support you in your actions? 2) Who have been some of the most influential people in your life and for what reason? 3) What type of person do you remember yourself as being when you were a child? I put the answers to the questions on a different sheet of paper that is attached to the back of this paper.
6) For my first person that I interviewed she had been not treated as well when she was younger since her dad was a farmer and her mom was “mentally incapable” or maybe not willing enough to take very good care of her six children. Although all of these events happened this person still came out to be a very good parent for her children. She also told me that some of her most fun times in life and important moments were when she got to have the chance to play with her children and now her family is the most important thing to her. She said that she learned from one of her other good life long friends how to become a really good parent that she is today. Then as she progressed through the rest of her life into adolescence and then into early adulthood she never really had any real problems, and never really had any mishaps about not really being able to fit into a community, society, or just being around other people. Although she did say that one of the things that she did that she thought was probably a bad idea was to get married so early (at the age of 21) but that she doesn’t really regret marrying her husband. And today she also sees her father as one of her role models.
My next person that I interviewed never seemed to really have any “bad mishaps” during her entire life that she has been living for about eighty years, since she said that when she was young her parents were always very supportive of all of her actions. She said that her teachers were also very supportive for the education that she was capable of receiving at that time in her life, but she said today that some of her most fun parts of her life have been when she was a child and how she had so much fun with all of her friends playing around in the streets. And then to the remainder of her life until now she has never really had any maladaptions to the events that might of happened earlier in life, and she has always just been a very strong confident person. She learned how to be that way from her parents that always supported her. She also says that along with her family one of the most important things to her is her little dog.
The next person that I interviewed is much younger than the last person that I interviewed. She said that some of her most enjoyable parts of her life have come from the time when she was young and was able to do whatever she wanted. She said that some of her favorite things were when she had her first pet (a lovebird), and now today when she has her dog that is very full of energy and enjoyable to be around. She is a very successful person to this day in that has graduated from high school, college, and is now teaching and studying at the University of Iowa. She says that she has come to be a very confident and decisive person today because of how her parents treated her when she was younger, and she said that her parents were always willing to support her. When she was wrong she said that her parents would always suggest something that was better to do, and to continue to support her actions. She too hasn’t really had any maladaptations to her environment and to this day she is a very confident and happy person, since up to this point she has always been a very good well-rounded, happy individual that she is today.
The next person that I interviewed was different from the other people that I have interviewed thus far, He is in the adolescent stage and he, unlike the other three people that I have interviewed so far, said that right now the most important thing in his life is his spirituality. He cares most about that, but the most important people in his life are “first my friend Paul, and then pretty much my entire family.” He also said that some of his goals were to travel the world and to become fluent in Spanish. He also plans to stop his education at the end of second trimester this year (he is a senior) and I believe that the reason for his wanting to be so independent has come from his parents. When he was younger, his parents always encouraged him when he was doing something “right” and that he should be independent and to think for himself. He also said that when he was younger he was always a very energetic child that did whatever he wanted to and I believe that that was from his parents supporting those types of actions, since then he has always wanted to be very independent and what, I would say, away from the normal train of thought of most people our age.
7) I feel that the way in which Erikson determined the main stages of a person’s life were more accurate that those of Sigmund Freud. I believe that this is true because although Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson had fairly similar ideas about what things were like as a young child, that what happens later in life can really dictate who you are as a person. I also say this because of my own experiences like when I was a young child I don’t really remember what happened when I was between the ages of one and five. I don’t really think that if I can’t remember how I felt that it can have a large impact on who I am as a person today. What I do remember from being in school since first grade through where I am now in 12th grade, this would have a larger impact on who I am as a person today and not so much for how I was when I was between the ages of zero and five. During that time I probably didn’t really have a large group of people that I related to or were actually friends with. Although Erikson had large jumps for some of his stages like the middle adulthood from forty to sixty-five, it is more important that he had the thought that during those times something more did happen, and that you as a person did change. Your perspective on life and how you choose to shape your life was still being changed during that time period. Finally, I believe that a person is like a big ball of clay that can really be changed at any time, as long as you are willing to go on with life and not be confined to a little room with no intervention with any of your peers. The time between the ages of zero and five is too little of a time to only be shaped in a certain way for how you will act as a person later in life. There is more than just five years when you are, determining who you are and the ideas that Erik Erikson teaches in his developmental theory are something that I agree with for the most part.
posted by Alan at 10:14 PM
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