Early Childhood Psychosocial Development

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Recommended: Reflection on Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Stages of Development

Introduction

Developmental psychology is the scientific study of changes that occur in human throughout the life span. The development starts from infant until old age. Childhood is a time of tremendous change, but people also continue to grow slowly and develop during adulthood. It is a continuous process with a predictable sequence. These developmental changes may be influenced by genetic factor, environment factor and maturation factor.

There are three types of human development changes: physical development, cognitive development and psychosocial development. Our group member’s choice is psychosocial development in early childhood. Early childhood is the children that range at the aged 3 to 5 years. Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development is one of the best known theories of personality in psychology. Erik Erikson reinterpreted Freud’s psychosexual theory by incorporating the social aspect. One of the main elements of Erikson’s theory is the development of ego identity. He came up with eight stages, each of which has two crises (a positive and a negative). In each stage, he believed human experience a conflict.

According to Erik Erikson’s eight life-span stages, the third stage is initiative versus guilt in early childhood. It means that early childhood has abilities to assert their power and control over the world and have initiative through directing play and communication with other children. Children who are successful at this stage feel capable and able to lead others. Those who fail to acquire these skills are left with a sense of guilt, doubt and lack of initiative. When an ideal balance of individual initiative and a willingness to work with others is achieved, the ego quality known as purpose emerge.
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...e. If they are built in a way so they will grow up negative behaviours and negative thinking and vice versa. The saying goes; children are like white cloth, mother father that will shape it.

Works Cited

1. Kendra Cherry. Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development. Psychosocial Development in Early Childhood. Retrieved from :

http://psychology.about.com/od/psychosocialtheories/a/psychosocial.htm

2. Doug Davis & Alan Clifton (1995) . Psychosocial Theory : Erikson . Psychosocial

stage. Retrieved from :

http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/erikson.stages.html

3. Suchitra Ramkumar (2002). Erik Erikson’s theory of development : Teacher’s observations article. Journal of the krishnamurti schools. Issue 6.

4. Erikson, E. H., Paul, I. H., Heider, F., & Gardner, R. W. (1959). Psychological issues (Vol. 1). International Universities Press.

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