ATS1261 Essay - 1261 PDF

Preview

Summary

1261...

Description

A critical analysis of Erikson's theory Personality is a unique psychological feature that everyone has, and different psychological features affect individual's different coping styles in the same situation. Therefore, the research on personality is getting more and more attention from sociologists and psychologists. In psychology, there are many different schools and related theories about personality theory and personality development. The individual's mental state is generally considered to be constantly developing in people's life, and therefore many development stages theories have been produced, such as Erickson's Psychosocial Development Stages and Piaget's cognitive development stages. These development theories laid the foundation for the study of the longitudinal development of human psychology. However, with the development of the times and the change of cultural background, Eriksson's theory of stages of personality development seems to have been impacted and questioned. This essay will introduce Eriksson's theoretical background and explain related issues in the eight developmental stages of personality. In addition, based on modern related research and questioning critical analysis of this theory in the current context of the impact and deficiencies.

Regarding personality, different scholars in history have given different definitions from different angles. But most of them are interpreted as the integration of various attributes within the individual (Corr & Matthews, 2009).

Humans have understood the concept of characteristics in the classical era. Theophrastus (371-287 BC) lists various typical human "features", and there are thousands of words in our language to describe people's typical behavior Way (Allport and Odbert 1936). These characteristics are part of our body and affect our behavior, and these are the areas that psychology has been studying. Corr and Matthews (2009) pointed out that throughout the history of scientific psychology, different methods of studying this field compete with each other. Each viewpoint has its own unique history, including psychodynamic

viewpoint,

idiosyncratic

viewpoint,

learning

viewpoint,

humanistic viewpoint, cognitive viewpoint and biological viewpoint. Each method is developed over time with the contributions of major theorists and researchers. Although these views sometimes influence each other, they adopt different strategies to form a global personality theory. , And guide the observation of researchers and interventions implemented by practitioners. Among them, Erickson's theory of development stages is one of the milestones.

Early scholars believed that development was completed before the end of childhood or adolescence. Eric Erickson is one of the first development theorists who proposed that personality develops and grows continuously throughout life. According to Kerpelman and Pittman (2018), Eriksson insists that “identity continues to develop throughout life” and is consolidated during

adolescence. The core of Erickson's theory is the concept of identity. For Eriksson, identity is multi-dimensional and must be viewed through a wideangle lens. Human development proceeds in sequence according to stages. If human life is a cycle, it can be divided into eight stages. Each stage presents a new whole, as if it evolved from the previous stage. In addition, there is a crisis at every stage of psychological development. The development status of each stage depends to some extent on the development results of the previous stage. The successful resolution of each self-crisis plays an important role in the healthy development of the individual. According to Erickson (1950), a person’s development of his or her identity defines the life cycle through a series of eight phases: (1) trust versus mistrust; (2) autonomy versus shame and doubt; (3) ) initiative versus guilt; (4) industry versus inferiority; (5) identity versus role confusion; (6) intimacy versus isolation; (7) generativity versus stagnation; and (8) ego integrity versus despair. At each stage, there is a psychosocial crisis, which is the product of the body (body), self (psychology) and society. At each stage, individuals will face new challenges and strive to overcome them, and each stage is built on the successful completion of the previous stages. However, this does not mean that the individual’s social and psychological development is linear. In fact, it is cyclic, because the challenges of the stages that are not successfully completed may reappear in the form of problems later in life (Zhang, 2015). The characteristic of each stage is the central conflict caused by the

interaction between personality, development and social processes.

These impose specific requirements on individuals, which are indispensable for growth and positive self-formation. Successful resolution at each stage will lead to the development of specific strengths and virtues, which in turn will affect future attributes. Eriksson proposed that all the components of personality existed in some form even before they appeared as "crisis" and remained systematically related to all other components. Therefore, the best development depends on the proper resolution of conflicts in the proper order and the integration of newly added identification elements with existing ones. Erickson also proposed that the ability of an individual to resolve each developmental conflict is related to the interaction with important individuals at different stages of development (Darling-Fisher,2019). This shows that the core of his theory is "self-identity". Furthermore, Erickson's these theories are groundbreaking in psychology, sociality and anthropology.

Erikson's Psychosocialm Stages theory, as a milestone in the field of psychological science, laid a theoretical foundation for future generations of research in this area. Cherry (2020) argues that Erikson's psychosocial development theory provides a broad framework for the study of human development in the entire human life. His social psychological theory not only focuses on early childhood events and people's educational development, but

also considers how education and social influences and interpersonal relationships affect people's lifelong personality. Erickson (1950) pointed out that the stages of development in life are arranged in order, and each stage has its main conflicting problems. Only by solving these problems can healthy development be achieved. Some studies have shown that Eriksson’s development stage theory is supported by evidence. In a recent longitudinal study of about 500 participants, the two age groups found that not only the relatively older group’s integrity score was significantly higher. For younger groups, studies have found that Eriksson stages are experienced sequentially, although for different individuals, these stages are often not at the same age, and surprisingly, these stages are in race and society. It is common among economically diverse people (Sadock et al., 2017). In addition, this theory also has important implications for careers. Maree (2020) believes that guidance, education and counseling based on Eriksson’s method enable people to improve their skills; develop and confirm their self-concept, self-awareness, identity and self-understanding; and take responsibility for their decisions responsibility. However, the questioning of Eriksson's theory has never stopped.

Questions about Erickson's development stages theory mainly focus on several aspects: the sequence of stages, gender differences, cultural and ethnic differences. Other researchers studying female adult development

found (Sadock et al., 2017) that women do not fit the ordering aspect of the Erickson stage model because in Western society, women tend to be relationship-oriented. Therefore, intimacy may become the dominant theme in the early stages of development. In addition, identity and intimacy are conceptualized as a simultaneous process of men and women. The unfolding of one person leads to the further delineation of another, and affects the relative polarity of self and others, male and female, agency and communion. In addition, Darling-Fisher (2019) also reported that in the results measured by The Modified Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (MEPSI), women have higher intimacy scores than men, and men and women are different in social, psychological and physical performance. On the other hand, Jordan and Tseris (2018) pointed out that the "universal" children (or adults) in this theory are more accurately understood as white, middle-class, and barrier-free men from western industrialized countries. There is no disability experience in the stage theory, which reflects that women, racial and ethnic minorities, and individuals with lower socioeconomic status are excluded from the traditional development paradigm. At the same time, Zhang (2015) points out that the limitations of Eric's theory first involve the narrow range of populations studied in almost all surveys. Secondly, the existing research seriously lacks methodological rigor, the most obvious manifestation is the lack of adequate control of confounding factors. The final limitation is that few studies report the size of the effect of their findings.

In conclusion, Erickson's development stage theory is groundbreaking, but it also has many limitations, such as the one-sidedness of the research objects and the lack of samples involving different cultures and races. In addition, there are insufficient explanations for gender differences and lack of reliability and validity reports. Future empirical research should overcome the abovementioned limitations of existing research as much as possible. In order to confirm various theoretical claims, a comprehensive, systematic and wellcontrolled experimental longitudinal survey must be widely carried out internationally. However, this theory still has more far-reaching positive effects. Erickson is a theorist without an advanced degree. In fact, Eriksson has not received formal education above high school, but he did his best to successfully climb the academic ladder and obtain a professorship at Harvard University. Due to lack of formal training, he was not committed to the conventional academic tradition of psychology. His views are largely interdisciplinary, and he uniquely blends Freud's views with the language of anthropology. Some commentators may think that his research is more about philosophy than science. However, he did not want Fromm and other researchers who turned to philosophy from psychological science. Some of Eriksson's concepts have been scientifically confirmed. Although Eriksson is loyal to Freud, his basic concepts are highly original, derived more from common sense language than from the obscure technical terms of

psychoanalysis. This tendency is that his views are not better connected with most concepts of other theorists. His most creative point of view is the "crisis of identity", which is his medium for entering various fields that have hardly been explored. Alport indeed once discussed "mature personality", but only Erickson promoted the idea that personality development does not end and puberty. Although Allport paid attention to adult life, he did not design the stages of development, while Erickson elaborated on the three stages of adult development. It is precisely because he expands the development prospects of personality psychology that he will broaden the horizons of people's life development after adulthood. (Words 1679)

Reference

Allport, G., & Odbert, H. (1936). Trait-names: A psycho-lexical study. Psychological

Monographs,

47(1),

i-171.

https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093360

Cherry, K. (2020). Biography of Erik Erikson (1902-1994). Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/erik-erikson-biography-1902-1994-2795538

Corr, P. J., & Matthews, G. (Eds.). (2009). The cambridge handbook of personality

psychology.

ProQuest

Ebook

Central

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Darling-Fisher, C. S. (2019). Application of the Modified Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory: 25 Years in Review. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 41(3), 431–458. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193945918770457

Erikson, E. H. (1950) Growth and crises of the healthy personality. In: Seen, M. J. E. (ed.) Symposium on the healthy personality, New York, NY: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, pp. 91–146.

Jordan, K., & Tseris, E. (2018). Locating, understanding and celebrating disability: Revisiting Erikson’s “stages.” Feminism & Psychology, 28(3), 427–444. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517705400

Maree, J. (2020). The psychosocial development theory of Erik Erikson: critical

overview.

Early

Child

Development

And

Care ,

1-15.

https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2020.1845163

Sadock, Benjamin J, Sadock, Virginia A, & Ruiz, Pedro. (2017). Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry. Wolters Kluwer.

Kerpelman, J. , & Pittman, J. (2018). Erikson and the relational context of identity: Strengthening connections with attachment theory. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research , 18 (4), 306–314. doi:10.1080/15283488.2018.1523726

Zhang, LF. (2015). Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Vol. 7, pp. 938–946)....