Stage |
Title |
Question |
Time Frame |
1 |
Trust versus Mistrust |
Is my world predictable and supportive? |
First Year of Life |
2 |
Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt. |
Can I do things myself or must I always rely on others? |
Second and third years. |
3 |
Initiative versus Guilt |
Am I good or am I bad? |
Fourth through sixth years. |
4 |
Industry versus Inferiority |
Am I competent or am I worthless? |
Age 6 through puberty. |
5 |
Identity versus Role Confusion |
Who am I and where am I going? |
Adolescence |
6 |
Intimacy versus Isolation |
Shall I share my life with another or live along? |
Early Adulthood |
7 |
Generatively versus self-absorption |
Will I produce something of real value? |
Middle Adulthood |
8 |
Integrity versus Despair |
Have I lived a full life? |
Late Adulthood |
Bibliography
Erik Homburger Erikson, b. June 15, 1902, is a
German-American psychoanalyst who has had a major influence on the behavioral
and social sciences. He studied at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute, where he
was psychoanalyzed by Anna Freud in 1927. In 1933, Erikson came to the United
States, where he was associated with Harvard University (1934-35, 1960-70), Yale
University (1936-39), and the University of California at Berkeley and San
Francisco (1939-51). In his classic study, Childhood and Society (1950; 2d ed.,
1963), Erikson introduced his theories on identity, identity crisis (which term
he popularized), and psychosexual development. Erikson holds that people grow
through experiencing a series of crises. They must achieve trust, autonomy,
initiative, competence, their own identity, generativity (or productivity),
integrity, and acceptance.
Erikson's main contribution has been to bridge the gap
between the theories of PSYCHOANALYSIS on the problems of human development,
which emphasize private emotions, and the broader social influences that bear
upon the individual. He has been a strong proponent of the part played by
environment in the development of personality. Going beyond the study of a
child's early life, Erikson has concentrated on broader issues of peer culture,
school environment, and cultural values and ideals. This led him to study the
period of adolescence, in which he documents the interaction of a person's inner
feelings and impulses with the world that surrounds the person.
Erikson was among the first psychoanalysts to study the way
a healthy person functions. In later years he turned his attention to history,
writing some of the groundbreaking works of PSYCHOHISTORY. In Young Man Luther
(1958) he analyzes Martin Luther's coming to terms with his own identity crisis.
In Gandhi's Truth (1970), Erikson discusses Mahatma Gandhi's personal
development and speculates about its relation to Gandhi's leadership of the
Indian nonviolent movement.
Bibliography: Coles, Robert, Erik Erikson (1987); Evans,
Richard I., Dialogue With Erik Erikson (1967); Maier, Henry W., Three Theories
of Child Development, 2d ed. (1965); Roazen, Paul, Erik H. Erikson: The Power
and Limits of a Vision (1976); Stevens, R., Erik Erikson (1985); Wright, E.,
Jr., Erikson (1982)