Eric Erikson's Pychosocial Development And Social Development

Some people having trouble in choosing their career path whereas their peers have already made their decisions before or some people also having anxieties being in a crowd and public places where they prefer to be alone. These conflicts and problems arise as human develop their psychological construct. According to Ryckman (2008), psychological construct includes individual genetic background, learning history and the way these issues influence their responses to different environments or situation. Psychologists are people who work in the field of personality psychology. There are a lot of theories have been design by them to explains the varieties of human behavior. One of the theories is human psychosocial stages according to Eric Erikson.

Adolescence is the period of transition from childhood to adulthood which occurs from the ages 13 to 19. During this stage, puberty begins where a rapid physical growth and sexual maturations take place (Berger, 2001). According to Feist & Feist (2009), psychosocial development during this stage can be simply described as the quest for self-understanding to find their own identity which they will experience identity versus identity confusion crisis. Identity can be defined as the uniqueness of an individual in terms of roles, attitudes, beliefs and aspirations. Adolescents set their own identities by considering the goals and values set by their parents, culture then accepting or rejecting others (Berger, 2001). “Identity confusion is a syndrome of problems that includes a divided self-image, an inability to establish intimacy, a sense of time urgency, a lack of concentration on required tasks, and a rejection of family or community standards” (Feist & Feist, 2009). To develop a stable identity, adolescents must confront some doubt and confusion about who they are. For instance, they may run away from home, having experiments with drugs and sex or joining religious group in search for their own identity. As adolescents successfully finding their identity they will evolve a sense of fidelity, which Erikson defined as the ability to sustain loyalties freely (as cited in Ryckman, 2008). While, for

Adulthood consists of three phases of human life which are young, middle and late adulthood. Every human life will continue their journey of life in young adulthood. The range of the age of young adulthood is from 19 to 40 years old. During this period of time they will faced with love as their main event other than planning for their future life or get a stable position in an organization. According to Erikson as cited in Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of Psychosocial Development, young adulthood must develop their intimate relationships or suffer feelings of isolation. Adults try to find someone with whom to share their lives with, in an enduring and self-sacrificing (Berger, 2001). Young adulthood tend to harm their own personality when the relationships with family, friends or the loved one does not went well. Middle adulthood is a person from the range age of 40 to 65 years. At this range, adults work hard to stable their position and preparing for retirement. They also involve in generativity versus stagnation crisis (Jeong & Cooney, 2006). According to Pratt (2008) (as cited in Santrock), they tend to guide the next generation by parenting, teaching, leading and doing things that will give advantages to the community or the organization as well. Stagnation develops when individuals sense that they have done little contribution to the family, community or to the next generation. They also faced with health problem during