Home / Composition 2 / Developmental Psych

Level 6

Erik Erikson's 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development

General Guidelines

• You must PASS this paper BEFORE being able to turn in the next papers.
• See the rubric for Theory papers
• Be careful of Plagiarism; there is NOT ever an excuse for plagiarizing.

Amended from Erikson's Stages of Development: A Closer Look at the Eight Psychosocial Stages

What is Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial of Development

• Erikson believed that social influences contribute to the creation of our personality throughout our entire life
• There are eight stages that personality develops through, from infancy to full maturity. During each stage, the person experiences a psychosocial crisis which could have a positive or negative outcome for personality development.
• These crises occur when the psychological needs of the individual person conflict with the expectations of society.
• According to the theory, successful completion of each stage results in a healthy personality traits and retaining basic virtues. Having these virtues make the person more adept in completing future stages and having strong relationships.
• Failure to successfully complete a stage has the opposite effect. Failure causes the development can result in unhealthy personality traits and the hindrance of success in future stages.
• Though failure of these stages can be resolved successfully later in life (article)

What Are the Stages?

1. Trust vs. mistrust Age: infancy-18 months years / virtue: hope failure: withdrawal
2. Autonomy vs. Shame age 18 months-3 / virtue: will failure: discouragement
3. Initiative vs. Guilt age 3-5 / virtue: purpose failure: reservation
4. Industry vs. Inferiority age 5-12 / virtue: competency failure: self-doubt
5. Identity vs. Identity confusion age 12-18 / virtue: fidelity failure: identity crisis
6. Intimacy vs. Isolation age 18-40 / virtue: love failure: loneliness
7. Generativity vs. Stagnation age 40-65 /virtue: care failure: indifference
8. Ego Integrity vs. Despair 65-onward / virtue: wisdom failure: regret

Example 1

• Teens Katniss and Peter Parker deal with identity crisis during the fifth stage
• Peter didn't think he was strong enough to be Spiderman
• Katniss didn't want the attention of being the Mockingjay
• These characters struggle with their identities because they do not feel they are competent enough to be heroes

Example 2

• Pixar uses the stages in most of their films (video)

Example 3

• Tony Stark, following the events of Iron Man 3, does not want to stay stagnant. He struggles with the seventh stage (Generativity vs. Stagnation) until he returns to the Avengers to fight Thanos in Infinity War

Writing About Psychosocial Development

• Pick a character in your film that is going through one of the eight stages and analyze them
• State what stage they are in and their struggles within that stage
• State whether or not they failed or succeeded in the stage and what virtue or disadvantage they gained
• When you write your paper, only write about the stage you are talking about in your analysis, in the theory paragraph

OR

• How is this film/tv show helping you through your own personal stage?
• Write how you are able to successfully complete or realize your failure in other stages