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Freud's stages
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Theories of Development
There are many types of developmental theories. First being the Psychoanalytic Theory, and the Cognitive Theory. Within these two types of theories there are several psychologists that have their own theory of development. After exploring these different theories I will then share my opinion on which theory I believe to be more accurate.
By definition the Psychoanalytic Theory describes development as a primarily unconscious and heavily colored by emotion. Behavior is merely a surface characteristic, and the symbolic workings of the mind have to be analyzed to understand behavior (Santrock).
Sigmund Freud took the psychoanalytic approach with his Psychosexual Theory, Freud believed that a person’s primary source of motivation is sexual in nature, and that a person’s experiences early in life, as opposed to later, had a greater effect on a person as an adult. Stage one takes place from birth to about 1.5 years of age, this would be known as the Oral Stage, this is where as an infant’s pleasure centers on the mouth. Stage two is the Anal Stage which takes place from around 1.5 years of age to three years. Stage three being the Phallic Stage, this is where the child’s pleasures focuses on the genitals, and takes place from three to six years of age. The fourth stage is the Latency stage taking place from six to puberty, according to Freud this is where a child represses sexual interest and develops social and intellectual skills. Finally stage five is the Genital Stage, this is when the source of sexual pleasures becomes someone outside the family, and occurs for puberty onward. Freud believed that people develop in these five psychosexual stages, and that if any one st...
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...o believe in Bronfenbrenners Ecological theory. A person learns and develops within the culture they are raised. For instance if you are brought up in a culture where human affection is kept at a minimum it is not necessarily true that a person will grow to have physiological problems as an adult, versus if you are brought up in a culture where human affection is welcomed and a child with in this culture never receives it, the child may grow to be insecure, or suffer a physiological defect.
Works Cited
Cherry, K. (n.d.). Freud's Stage of Psychosexual Development. Retrieved from about.com: http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/ss/psychosexualdev.htm
Children's Health Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from Cognitive Devlopment: http://www.answers.com/topic/cognitive-development
Santrock, J. Life-Span Development (12 ed.). McGraw Hill.
Sigmund Freud is credited with the establishment of the psychoanalytic theory. At the foundation of Freud's personality theory is that people are basically an energy system through which energy is directed and released through a means of expression that faces the lease resistance. Another aspect of Freud's theory is that the majority of one's development occurs in the early years of life, up until the age of five. There are three main stages: oral, anal and phallic. These may eventually become exemplified as types of adult personalities. Additionally, people's actions are ...
The oral stage takes place from birth until age 1, which involves the infant’s mouth as the focus of gratification derived from the pleasure of oral exploration of his or her environment and receiving primary nourishment from one’s mother’s breast. In addition to this, the anal phase takes place from age 1 until age 3, which involves the infant’s more erotic zone changing from the mouth to the anus. Finally, the phallic stage takes place from age 3 until age 6, which involves the child’s genitalia becoming his or her primary aphrodisiacal zone. It is in this third infantile development stage that children become aware of their bodies and the bodies of others. They gratify physical curiosity by undressing and exploring each other and their genitals, and so learn the physical and sexual differences between genders. These stages reflect base levels of desire, but they also involve fear of loss and mistreatment. To keep all of this conflict buried in one’s unconscious, Freud argued that one develops defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among
Well as we all know Jean Piaget was an very important person in our history. Piaget was born August, 9th 1896 Piaget died of unknown causes in September , 16 1986 they would like to think he died of old age. He was born to Arthur Piaget and Rebecca Jackson in Neuchatel, Switzerland. His mother was a very kind and energetic woman but she did have small temper problems and it made family life very hard in the household of Piaget’s family. His mother’s mental disorder is one of the main things used to inspire Piaget’s desire for the cognitive thinking of the mind. He also became interested in pathological psychology during this time. His father was a very well dedicated man with his writings of medieval literature. At just the age of 11 Piaget was already starting his career as a researcher, because he had recently wrote a short paper on an albino sparrow. Shortly after that he continued to study natural sciences and also received his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Neuchatel in 1918.
Through case study, the psychodynamic approach was developed by Sigmund Freud. Freud visited Charcot’s, a laboratory in Paris investigating people suffering from hysteria. There, Freud began patient case studies (Crain, p. 254). Freud developed 5 stages of human development known as the Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital stages. The Oral stage is from the ages of birth to 18 months. This stage engages in oral activities such as sucking. Next the Anal stage begins around age 18 months to 3 years of age. Freud suggests that during the Anal stage a child focuses on the pleasure of purging from the rectal area. The Phallic stages, none as the masturbation stage, when a child get’s pleasure from focusing on his genital areas usually happens during ages 3 years to 6 years of age. After the Phallic stage come the Latency stages. Latency is when children at the ages of 6 to 12 years old work to develop cognitive and interpersonal skills suppressing sexual interests but those 12 years and older fall into the Genital stages. During the Genital stage those suppressed sexual interests re-occur and the need to find gratification dependent on finding a partner (Craig & Dunn, p 12)
Freud believed that one’s sex instinct was the most determining factor of his or her personality; however, instead of relating sex to the mature class of humanity, he instead targeted infants and children (4). He generated a process of psychosexual stages in which each stage focuses in on a sensual body part and a corresponding time period in life (4). The stages are as followed, starting from birth: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital (4). Furthermore, each stage comes with its own conflict that arises when one is in this stage. He correlates that if this conflict is not solved during the set period of time, it can cause a fixation, thus bringing on personality traits in their adulthood relating back to that certain stage (4). For example, for one who is in the Anal stage (1 to 3 years) the conflict is toilet training. If the child remains too long or too briefly in this stage, later on in the future they could be more excessively cleanly or even destructive and rebellious (4). Perhaps the stage that was targeted with the most criticism, was the Phallic Stage or the Genitals stage occurring from 3 to 5 or 6 years (4). This stage mainly declared that young boys are more drawn to their mother and become more hostile towards their fathers, hinting to the underlying ideas that the young boys are sexually drawn to their mother. In a vice versa scenario,
There are many types of development theories, Psychoanalytic theories, Cognitive theories, Behavioral and social cognitive theories, ethological theories and ecological theories. Development is how a person changes throughout their life, from the time they are conceived to the time they die. Everyone processes and interprets things and information differently. After researching these various developmental theories ecological theories best describe development. Urie Bronfenbrenner is the researcher that created the ecological theory. Psychoanalytic theories least describe development. Both Ecological and Psychoanalytic theories have certain aspects that I personally believe to make a valid point and certain aspects that do not make a valid point when it comes to development. Eclectic theoretical orientation takes pieces of each theory that makes the most sense when it comes to lifespan development and follows that system. Ecological theories are everyone and everything having an impact on a child’s development, even if those people and events have no direct contact with the child.
Freud emphasized that early childhood experiences are important to the development of the adult personality, proposing that childhood development took place over five stages; oral, anal. Phallic, latent and genital. The phallic stage is the most important stage which contains the Oedipus complex. This is where the child (age 4 - 6 yrs) posses the opposite sex parent and wants rid of the same sex parent. Freud argued that if the conflict is not resolved in childhood then it could cau...
When comparing the work of Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget two things come to mind, they both had a lasting and profound impact on the field of psychology and both received a great amount of criticism regarding their theories. Freud is considered the founder of psychoanalysis, which is based on childhood development and psychosexual stages. Piaget was the top developmentalist of the 1960s and 1970s. His theory of cognitive development was as well studied as Freud's theory of psychosexual development was a generation before. While they both had many criticisms of their work, both Freud and Piaget influenced their respective fields of psychology so much that today their thoughts and concepts are still studied and referenced everyday. Freud’s theories have revolutionized how we think. The impact Piaget has had on developmental psychology has guided social norms of human development and education. This essay will compare and contrast the theories of Freud and Piaget.
One of Freud’s major research accomplishments was his findings on infant sexuality also known as the Psychosexual Stages. The first stage is the oral stage which is 0-1 years of age. This is the stage where sensual/sexual life begins, in the form of sucking the thumb, biting, and breast suck...
A theory is a set of statements that describes, explains and predicts human behavior. Development of behavior starts during the prenatal stage up to late adulthood. Three theories that help describe behavior are the perspective of Freud, Erikson and Paget’s. All three theories have several similarities as well as differences. By comparing I hope to gain a better understanding of all three theories.
Freud believed that humans develop through stages based on particular erogenous zones. Freud theorized that to gain a healthy personality as an adult, a person would have to successfully complete a certain sequence of five stages. Within the five stages of Freud’s psychosexual development theory, Freud assumed there would be major consequences if any stage was not completed successfully. The stages, in order, were the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latency stage, and the genital stage. In general, Freud believed that an unsuccessful completion of any stage would make a person become fixated on that particular stage. The outcome would lead the person to either over indulge or under indulge the failed stage during adulthood. Freud truly believed that the outcomes of the psychosexual stages played a major part in the development of the human personality. Eventually, these outcomes would become different driving forces in every human being’s personality. The driving forces would determine how a person would interact with the world around them. The results from Freud’s theory about the stages of psychosexual development led Freud to create the concept of the human psyche; Freud’s biggest contribution to
Sigmund Freud developed the psychosexual stages of development to describe the chronological process of development that took place from birth through later adulthood. The stages of psychosexual are oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. Freud developed that as children grow they progress from self-pleasing sexual activity to reproductive activity. Through this developmental process one will develop adult personality. Freud put much emphasis on sexual context of how ones libido, which is one sexual desires played a role in each stage of development. Freud emphasizes that individuals will strive to obtain pleasures in each stage of development, which becomes the basis of ones personality.
Developmental psychology is an area of research dedicated to the understanding of child-development. Throughout history many theories have been used to attempt to explain the complex process. Two of those theorists, Freud and Erikson, were instrumental in creating a foundation for child-psychology to build on. From a Freudian perspective, human development is centered on psychosexual theory. Psychosexual theory indicates that maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development. Alternatively, Erikson is considered a neo-freudian scholar who developed psychosocial theory. In Erikson models there are eight major conflicts that occur during the course of an individual’s life.
Sigmund Freud proposed a theory of psychoanalytic development; he stated that early childhood experiences and practices affect later development in adulthood. Freud’s stages of psychosexual development comprised of five stages: the oral stage (0 – 1 year), the anal stage (1 – 3 years), the phallic stage (3 – 6 years), the latency period (6 – puberty) and the genital stage (puberty –
The theory does a good job at delineating the stages of psychosexual development; our childhood has a great influence on our personalities. Referring to Freud’s ‘psychosexual stages’, it is very clear that parents’ role in an infant’s life is the foremost step to structure the personality. Not to forget, the oral and anal stages are focal fundamental to character traits in a person’s behavior. The inner ‘instincts’ of sexuality and aggression meeting with the socially acceptable norms creates a conflict zone, wherein it is decided what we are to do and what we would become.