Erik Erikson life stages
Stage
Basic
Conflict
Important
Events
Outcome
Infancy (birth
to 18 months)
Trust vs.
Mistrust
Feeding
Children develop a sense of trust when
caregivers provide reliabilty, care, and
affection. A lack of this will lead to mistrust.
Early
Childhood (2
to 3 years)
Children need to develop a sense of
Autonomy vs.
personal control over physical skills and a
Shame and
Toilet Training sense of independence. Success leads to
Doubt
feelings of autonomy, failure results in
feelings of shame and doubt.
Preschool (3 to Initiative vs.
5 years)
Guilt
School Age (6
to 11 years)
Industry vs.
Inferiority
Adolescence
(12 to 18
years)
Identity vs.
Role
Confusion
Young
Adulthood (19
to 40 years)
Intimacy vs.
Isolation
Middle
Adulthood (40
to 65 years)
Maturity(65 to
death)
Generativity
vs.
Stagnation
Ego Integrity
vs. Despair
Exploration
Children need to begin asserting control
and power over the environment. Success
in this stage leads to a sense of purpose.
Children who try to exert too much power
experience disapproval, resulting in a
sense of guilt.
School
Children need to cope with new social and
academic demands. Success leads to a
sense of competence, while failure results
in feelings of inferiority.
Social
Relationships
Teens needs to develop a sense of self
and personal identity. Success leads to an
ability to stay true to yourself, while failure
leads to role confusion and a weak sense
of self.
Relationships
Young adults need to form intimate, loving
relationships with other people. Success
leads to strong relationships, while failure
results in loneliness and isolation.
Work and
Parenthood
Adults need to create or nurture things that
will outlast them, often by having children
or creating a positive change that benefits
other people. Success leads to feelings of
usefulness and accomplishment, while
failure results in shallow involvement in the
world.
Reflection on
Life
Older adults need to look back on life and
feel a sense of fulfillment. Success at this
stage leads to feelings of wisdom, while
failure results in regret, bitterness, and
despair.
http://psychology.about.com/library/bl_psychosocial_summary.htm
Jean Piaget's Key Ideas
Adaptation
What it says: adapting to the world through assimilation and
accommodation
Assimilation
The process by which a person takes material into their mind from the
environment, which may mean changing the evidence of their senses to
make it fit.
Accommodation
The difference made to one's mind or concepts by the process of
assimilation.
Note that assimilation and accommodation go together: you can't have
one without the other.
Classification
The ability to group objects together on the basis of common features.
Class Inclusion
The understanding, more advanced than simple classification, that
some classes or sets of objects are also sub-sets of a larger class. (E.g.
there is a class of objects called dogs. There is also a class called
animals. But all dogs are also animals, so the class of animals includes
that of dogs)
Conservation
The realisation that objects or sets of objects stay the same even when
they are changed about or made to look different.
Decentration
The ability to move away from one system of classification to another
one as appropriate.
Egocentrism
The belief that you are the centre of the universe and everything
revolves around you: the corresponding inability to see the world as
someone else does and adapt to it. Not moral "selfishness", just an
early stage of psychological development.
Operation
The process of working something out in your head. Young children (in
the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages) have to act, and try things
out in the real world, to work things out (like count on fingers): older
children and adults can do more in their heads.
Schema (or
scheme)
The representation in the mind of a set of perceptions, ideas, and/or
actions, which go together.
Stage
A period in a child's development in which he or she is capable of
understanding some things but not others
Stages of Cognitive Development
Stage
Sensori-motor
(Birth-2 yrs)
Characterised by
Differentiates self from objects
Recognises self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally:
e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to
make a noise
Achieves object permanence: realises that things continue to exist
even when no longer present to the sense (pace Bishop
Berkeley)
Pre-operational
(2-7 years)
Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and
words
Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of
others
Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the
red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless
of colour
Concrete operational
(7-11 years)
Can think logically about objects and events
Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and
weight (age 9)
Classifies objects according to several features and can order
them in series along a single dimension such as size.
Formal operational
(11 years and up)
Can think logically about abstract propositions and test
hypotheses systematically
Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and
ideological problems
http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm
Marcia’s Identity Statuses
Based on Erik Erikson’s groundbreaking work on identity and
psychosocial development in the 1960s, Canadian developmental
psychologist James Marcia refined and extended Erikson’s model,
primarily focusing on adolescent development. Addressing Erikson’s
notion of identity crisis, Marcia posited that the adolescent stage
consists neither of identity resolution nor identity confusion, but rather
the degree to which one has explored and committed to an identity in a
variety of life domains from vocation, religion, relational choices, gender
roles, and so on. Marcia’s theory of identity achievement argues that two
distinct parts form an adolescent’s identity: crisis (i. e. a time when one’s
values and choices are being reevaluated) and commitment. He defined
a crisis as a time of upheaval where old values or choices are being
reexamined. The end outcome of a crisis leads to a commitment made
to a certain role or value.
Upon developing a semi-structured interview for identity research,
Marcia proposed Identity Status of psychological identity development:




Identity Diffusion – the status in which the adolescent does no
have a sense of having choices; he or she has not yet made (nor
is attempting/willing to make) a commitment
Identity Foreclosure – the status in which the adolescent seems
willing to commit to some relevant roles, values, or gaols for the
future. Adolescents in this stage have not experienced an identity
crisis. They tend to conform to the expectations of others regarding
their future (e. g. allowing a parent to determine a career direction)
As such, these individuals have not explored a range of options.
Identity Moratorium – the status in which the adolescent is
currently in a crisis, exploring various commitments and is ready to
make choices, but has not made a commitment to these choices
yet.
Identity Achievement - the status in which adolescent has gone
through a identity crisis and has made a commitment to a sense of
identity (i.e. certain role or value) that he or she has chosen
Note that the above status are not stages and should not viewed as a
sequential process.
http://www.learning-theories.com/identity-status-theory-marcia.html