Karla Lara
EDCI 6304
Assignment #6
#1
1
Initiative vs. Guilt
Children go out and initiate relationships independently, influencing others by being kind to
them, a form or transparent bribe. It takes a form of initiative and independence. A child’s
identity includes being a self starter, deciding to do things independently, tied to peer
relationships in a way that wasn’t there before.
#2
Industry vs. Inferiority
A child acts in an independent way adding many domains of skills and knowledge. It coincides
with children going to elementary school which focuses on academic learning and mastery. This
development occurs because of cultural input where children are learning facts. They are
learning how to systematically classify the world. This is a stage where mastery is important,
where identity is tied to what is learned. It is also related to social relationships, how the child
fits it. With mastery a child also has a chance to experience failure; there he/she develops a
sense of inferiority. They tend to start developing a sense of social comparison with their peers.
It seems more prominent for children who experience failure more often than not, reinforcing
their sense of inferiority. Identity comes with what you can do.
#3
Identity vs. Role Confusion
Attributes of identity crisis:

Brought about physical and hormonal changes undergone during puberty

Changes are accompanied by confusion that leads to a sense of disequilibrium
Karla Lara
EDCI 6304
Assignment #6

2
The person, in terms of physical and social competence, in terms of who he was, has
developed a good view and comfort with himself, is thrown into a tailspin. Having to
start over in some ways with his development.

Confusion is exasperated by the rights of development that he sees in his peers, there are
changes all around him.

Also, exasperated by the fact that most adolescents switch schools at this time period.

As teenagers they start seeing their end of childhood and their life as a student. It causes
an emotional reaction and strong need which is a crisis.

Crisis of identity motivates a person to attempt to find out who they really are.
Resolution of the identity happens for a person to evaluate the various connections between
skills, values, and roles in their lives. We need to take the following into account when
working with adolescents: their beliefs, values, skills in different domains, preferences and
likes, their passions, their friends, their looks, their different roles, and their ethnicity. There
is no one singe part. Adolescents need to coordinate all these pieces and put them together.
They have the cognitive skills to coordinate all these pieces and extract some kind of
personality and identity. Erikson thought adolescents needed to find some unity and
consistency across all the changes that occurred, because there are various facets to the
personality.
#4 Intimacy vs. Isolation
In this stage, Erikson argues that a person needs a strong foundation, sense of self, identity,
and independence in order to be able to commit to staying with another person and abide by
those commitments.
Karla Lara
EDCI 6304
Assignment #6
3
Intimacy entails placing one’s future and happiness in the hands of another person. Marriage
is a close prototype of this. A person gets to know so much of another person they have the
capability to hurt one another if allowed.
A person who has not achieved a healthy identity will have a hard time making a
commitment to someone else. When designing instructional systems for the workplace we
need to gauge the sense of identity for the people involved. Identity and intimacy are
intertwined. We need to understand how comfortable they feel with their peers and make
sure they feel at ease with each other and not isolated.
#5
Generativity vs. Stagnation
Erikson recommends the following:

That people be able to take care of other people, a parent role

Can a person make complex commitments to others in order to nurture and
educate them?

Be a generative person by teaching other children, take care of laws and policies,
protect the environment for the good of others

A generative person is a productive member of society

Giving up part of your independence to become committed to other people

A shift occurs in who you care to be, who you care to be with, who you can take
care of

The other side of generativity is stagnation.
Karla Lara
EDCI 6304
Assignment #6
#6
4
Integrity vs. Despair

Ego identity

Integrity: the integrated life, one that unifies all previous identities now can come
together; (second meaning) honesty in accepting what one was and what one has been
given in life and feeling that if having to do over again choose to live the same life that
you did, personal accomplishments; (third meaning) the need to be connected to others
but also be independent.
Each reinforces the other (identity and honesty). The relation of adult integrity and infantile trust
is understood by saying that healthy children will not fear life if their elders had the integrity
enough not to fear death.

People’s high level of wisdom

If this development goes awry there would be a sense of despair that would set in and
cause depression, a desperation to grasp much at the end, to change things or enjoy as
much as possible.

Two types of older people:
o Kind and optimistic
o Grouchy and depressed
If we are able to understand these aspects of this stage of development we would teach
caregivers to be sensitive to elders in assisted living center.
Karla Lara
EDCI 6304
Assignment #6
5