


He argued that social experience was valuable throughout life, with each stage recognizable by the specific conflict we encounter between our psychological needs and the surrounding social environment. Relevant ResourcesĮrik Erikson’s (1958, 1963) psychosocial development theory proposes that our personality develops through eight stages, from infancy to old age.Stage 7: Generativity Versus Stagnation.Stage 5: Identity Versus Role Confusion.

Stage 2: Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt.These science-based exercises explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology, including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.
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This article explores the eight stages that make up Erikson’s developmental theory before discussing subsequent criticisms and our own resources for supporting growth and building strengths.īefore you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free. Perhaps most importantly, each stage – influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors – was sequential, from birth to infancy, childhood into adulthood, middle age into, finally, old age.Īnd, unlike other theories, the personality transformation did not end with adolescence but, arising from conflict, continued through to finality. His model – including eight stages of psychosocial growth – replaced Freud’s controversial theory centered on psychosexual development. In Childhood and Society, Erikson (1950) examined and mapped the personal development of humans throughout their lifetime.Įrikson, a psychoanalyst and professor at Harvard, produced what was to become psychology’s most popular and influential theory of human development. Three hundred years later, the psychologist Erik Erikson offered a more modern, and less sexually biased (equality was very much an issue in Tudor England), take on psychological transformation. In 1623, William Shakespeare wrote, “ one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages,” from screaming infant to the finality of oblivion.
