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Erikson’s theory of Personality

PSY 330: Theories of Personality
Instructor Dr. Anderson
09 June, 2014

For my paper I’ve chosen to discuss Erikson’s epigenetic principle theory which is developed into eight stages and based on how one encounters their culture. I chose Erikson mainly because when I first read about him some time ago I was really intrigued with his stages of development and thought that they blew Feud out of the water. I’m no longer as fascinated with it as I was but still find it rather interesting. What I like is that Erikson uses the idea of a pendulum for his stages of development. Take his first stage trust vs. mistrust (which we will get into more of later). If one develops too much trust they become naïve and gullible while too much mistrust and the individual will not trust anyone which would cause them to have abnormal relationships since neither extreme is an acceptable outcome, what is desired is a middle state with aspects of both extremes. Erik Erikson ideas were greatly influenced by Freud, he went along with Freud’s ideas about the structure of personality. However, Erikson emphasized the role of culture and society and the conflicts that took place within the ego itself, whereas Freud emphasized the conflict between the id and the superego. According to Erikson,”… the ego develops as it successfully resolves crises that are distinctly social in nature”(Engler 2008). Erikson developed stages which involved establishing a sense of trust in others, developing a sense of identity in society. “Erikson extends on Freudian thoughts by focusing on the adaptive and creative characteristic of the ego, and expanding the notion of the stages of personality development to include the entire lifespan.” (Enger 2008) Erikson proposed a model of development, which has five child stages which takes an individual to age 18

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