Erickson's age periodization is a doctrine of the psychosocial development of personality, developed by a German-American psychologist. In it, he describes 8 stages, making the main emphasis on the development of the "I-individual." In his theory, he paid great attention to the concept of ego. When Freud's theory of development was limited only to childhood, Erickson believed that the personality continues to develop throughout his life. Moreover, each stage of this development is marked by a specific conflict, only with a favorable resolution of which there is a transition to a new stage.
Erickson table
Erickson reduces the age periodization to a table in which it indicates the stages, the age at which they begin, virtues, a favorable and unfavorable way out of the crisis, basic antipathies, and a list of significant relationships.
Separately, the psychologist notes that any personality traits cannot be interpreted as good or bad. At the same time, the strengths in the age periodization according to Erickson are highlighted, by which he calls the qualities that help a person to solve the tasks assigned to him. The weak ones include those that interfere with him. When a person acquires weak qualities following the results of the next development period, it becomes much more difficult for him to make the next choice, but it is still possible.
Stages | Age | Strengths | Weaknesses | Significant Relationships |
Infancy | up to 1 year | Basic trust | Basic distrust | Mother's personality |
Childhood | 1-3 years | Autonomy | Doubt, shame | Parents |
Preschool age | 3-6 years old | Enterprise, initiative | Guilt | A family |
School | 6-12 years old | Industriousness | Inferiority | School, neighbors |
Youth | 12-20 years old | Identity | Role disorder | Different leadership models, peer group |
Youth, early maturity | 20-25 years | Intimacy | Insulation | Sex partners, friends, collaboration, competition |
Maturity | 26-64 years old | Performance | Stagnation | Housekeeping and the division of labor |
Old age | after 65 years | Integration, Integrity | Hopelessness, despair | "Your circle", humanity |
Biography of a scientist
Eric Homburger Erickson was born in Germany in 1902. In childhood, he received a classical Jewish upbringing: his family ate only kosher food, regularly attended the synagogue, celebrated all religious holidays. The problem of identity crisis that interested him was directly related to his life experience. Mother hid the secret of origin from him (he grew up in a family with his stepfather). He appeared due to the extramarital affair of his mother with a Danes of Jewish origin, about whom there is practically no information. It is only known that his last name was Erickson. She was officially married to Waldemar Salomonsen, who worked as a stockbroker.
He was constantly teased at a Jewish school for his Nordic appearance, as his biological father was a Dane. In a public school, he got it for the Jewish faith.
In 1930, he married the dancer from Canada Joan Serson, with whom he emigrated to the United States three years later. In his works in America, he contrasted Freud’s theory, in which the psychological development of a person was divided into only five stages, his own eight-stage scheme, adding three stages of an adult state.
It is also Erickson who owns the concept of ego psychology. According to the scientist, it is our Ego that is responsible for organizing life, healthy personal growth, harmony with the social and physical environment, becoming the source of our own identity.
In the United States in the 1950s, he became a victim of McCarthyism, as he was suspected of having connections with the Communists. He left the University of Berkeley when he was required to sign an oath of loyalty. After that, he worked at Harvard and a clinic in Massachusetts. In 1970, he received the Pulitzer Prize in the field of non-fiction for the book "The Truth of Gandhi."
The scientist died in Massachusetts in 1994 at the age of 91.
Infancy
The very first stage in the age periodization of E. Erickson is infancy. It continues from the birth of a person to the first year of his life. It is on it that the foundations of a healthy personality appear, a sincere sense of trust appears.
In the age periodization of Erickson, it is noted that if a baby develops this fundamental sense of basic trust, then he begins to perceive his environment as predictable and reliable, which is very important. Moreover, he is able to endure the absence of the mother without excessive anxiety and suffering about separation of herself from her. The main ritual at this stage of its development in the age periodization of E. Erickson is mutual recognition. It remains for life, determining relationships with others.
It is noteworthy that the methods of teaching suspicion and trust vary by culture. At the same time, the method remains universal, as a result of which a person trusts others, depending on how he treated his mother. A feeling of fear, mistrust and suspicion arises if the mother is suspicious, rejects the child, showing its failure.
During this period of age periodization of Erickson, an initial positive quality is formed for the development of our ego. It is a belief in the best based on cultural attitudes. It is acquired in the event of a successful resolution of a conflict based on trust or mistrust.
Early childhood
Early childhood is the second stage of the periodization of the age development of Erickson, which develops from one to three years. It can be precisely correlated with the anal phase in Freud's theory. The ongoing biological maturation provides the basis for the manifestation of the independence of the child in various fields - movement, food, dressing. In his periodization of age development, E. Erickson noted that a clash with the norms and requirements of society occurs not only at the stage of accustoming to the pot. Parents should expand and encourage the independence of the baby, develop a sense of self-control in him. Reasonable permissibility contributes to the formation of its autonomy.
Critical ritualization becomes important at this stage, which is based on concrete examples of evil and good, bad and good, forbidden and permitted, ugly and beautiful. With the successful development of the situation, a person develops self-control, will, and with a negative outcome - weak will.
Preschool age
The next stage in the periodization of the age development of Erickson is preschool age, which he also calls the age of the game. From three to six years, kids are actively interested in all kinds of labor activities, try something new, make contact with their peers. The social world at this time insists that the child behave actively, the acquisition of skills for solving certain problems becomes important. There is a fundamentally new responsibility for domestic animals, younger children in the family, and himself.
Initiative that appears at this age is associated with enterprise, the child begins to experience joy from independent actions and movements. It is easy to educate and learn, willingly makes contact with other people, focuses on a specific goal.
In the age periodization of Eric Erickson at this stage, a superego is formed in a person, a new form of self-restriction appears. Parents are encouraged to recognize his rights to fantasy and curiosity, independent undertakings. This should develop his creative abilities, the boundaries of independence.
If instead children are guilty, they will not be capable of productive activities in the future.
School age
Giving a description of the brief age-related periodization of Erickson, let us dwell on each of the stages. The 4th stage develops at the age of six to twelve years. There is already a confrontation with father or mother (depending on gender), the child goes beyond the family, joining the technological side of culture.
The main terms of this stage of the theory of age periodization of E. Erickson are "taste for work", "hard work". Children are absorbed in the knowledge of the world. The ego-identity of a person is expressed in the formula "I am what I learned." At school, they join the discipline, develop diligence, desire for achievement. At this stage, the child has to learn everything that he can prepare for a productive adult life.
A sense of competence begins to form in him, if he is praised for the results achieved, he has confidence that he will be able to learn something new, and talents for technical creativity appear. When adults see in his desire for activity only pampering, there is a likelihood of developing a sense of inferiority, doubts about their own abilities.
Youth
No less important in the age periodization of E. Erickson is the stage of development of youth. It lasts from 12 to 20 years, considered the main period in the psychosocial development of a person.
This is the second attempt to develop autonomy. A teenager defies social and parental norms, learns about the existence of previously unfamiliar social roles, reflects on religion, an ideal family, and the structure of the world. All these questions often cause him a sense of concern. Ideology seems too simplistic. His main task at this stage in Erickson’s theory of age periodization is to collect all the knowledge of himself available at that time, to embody himself in an image by forming an ego identity. It should include a conscious past and an anticipated future.
Emerging changes are manifested in the form of a struggle between the desire to remain dependent on the care of loved ones and the desire for their own independence. Faced with such confusion, a young man or girl seeks to become like his peers, he develops stereotypical ideals and patterns of behavior. Perhaps the destruction of strict standards in behavior and clothing, infatuation with informal movements.
Dissatisfaction with social values, sharp social changes, the scientist sees as a factor that impedes the development of identity, the emergence of a sense of uncertainty and inability to continue education, choose a career.
A negative way out of the crisis can be expressed in poor self-identity, a feeling of being unnecessary, aimless. Teenagers rush towards delinquent behavior. Due to excessive identification with representatives of the counterculture and stereotypical heroes, the development of their identity is suppressed.
Youth
In the periodization of the developmental psychology of Erickson, the sixth stage is youth. At the age of 20 to 25, the actual start of a real adult life is indicated. A person receives a profession, an independent life begins, early marriage is possible.
The ability to engage in a love relationship includes most of the previous stages of development. Not trusting others, it will be difficult for a person to trust himself, because of uncertainty and doubt, it will be difficult for him to let others cross his borders. Feeling inadequate, it will become difficult to get closer to others, to take the initiative himself. And in the absence of industriousness, inertia will arise in relations, emotional disorder can cause problems with determining a place in society.
The capacity for intimacy becomes perfect when a person manages to build partnerships, even if this requires significant compromises and sacrifices.
A positive solution to this crisis is love. Among the basic principles of age periodization according to Erickson at this stage is the erotic, romantic and sexual component. Intimacy and love can be seen as an opportunity to start believing in another person, to remain faithful in relationships, even if for the sake of this you have to make self-denial and concessions. This type of love is manifested in mutual respect, care, responsibility for another person.
To strive to avoid intimacy, a person may, for fear of losing independence. This threatens with self-isolation. Inability to build trusting and calm personal relationships leads to a feeling of social vacuum, loneliness and isolation.
Maturity
Seventh stage, the longest. It develops from 26 to 64 years. The main problem is the choice between inertia and productivity. An important point is creative self-realization.
This stage includes an intensive working life, a formally new style of parenthood. This creates the ability to show interest in universal problems, the fate of others, to think about the structure of the world, future generations. Productivity can manifest itself as the next generation's concern for young people, wanting to help find a place in life and choose the right direction.
Difficulties at the stage of productivity can lead to an obsessive desire for pseudo-intimacy, a desire to protest, to resist letting one's own children go into adulthood. Adult people who do not manage to become productive become isolated in themselves. The main subject of care are personal amenities and needs. They concentrate on their own desires. With the loss of productivity, the development of the individual as an activity of a member of society ends, interpersonal relationships become poorer, and the satisfaction of one’s own needs ends.
Old age
After 65 years, the final stage begins - old age. It is characterized by a conflict of hopelessness and integrity. This may mean acceptance of oneself and one's own role in the world, recognition of human dignity. By this time, the main work in life is behind, the time comes for fun with grandchildren and reflection.
At the same time, a person begins to imagine his own life as too short to achieve everything that was planned. Because of this, a feeling of dissatisfaction and hopelessness may appear, despair of the fact that life did not turn out the way I wanted, but it is too late to start anything at first. There is a fear of death.
Psychologists in reviews of the theory of psychosocial development of Eric Erickson constantly compare his work with the classification of Sigmund Freud, which includes only five stages. At all stages of the development of modern science, Erickson's ideas were treated with increased attention, since the scheme he proposed made it possible to study in more detail the development of the human personality. The main claims were related to the fact that human development continues in adulthood, and not only in childhood, as Freud claimed. Related to this are the main doubts expressed by critics of Erickson's works.