Erik Erickson’s Psychosocial Theory

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Research suggests parenting styles and the quality of a parent and adolescent relationship may have a impact on the psychosocial development among adolescents. Psychosocial development can be referred to as how an individual’s emotions, mind, and maturity level can develop throughout life (CITE). Erik Erickson’s psychosocial theory describes adolescence development through a series of eight stages based on the impact of social experience. Erickson’s theory also involves each stage building upon one another based on the completion of previous stages. Other factors involving the psychosocial development of adolescents include varying parenting dimensions that could affect these developmental outcomes such as: demandingness (control) versus responsiveness (acceptance) and structure versus non-structure. Parenting styles and the role of parenting are all aspects in helping achieve optimal psychosocial development. The purpose of this paper is to examine how parenting styles influence psychosocial behavior in adolescents.

Parenting Styles

Diana Baumrind (1968) explains how parenting revolves around the idea of one parenting function: control. She describes three types of parenting typologies: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive (Baumrind, 1968). Authoritative parenting refers to a balance of control and nurturance in a rationale and issue oriented manner. This style of parenting encourages verbal “give and take” and shares reasoning behind policy. The authoritative parent affirms the child’s present qualities, while setting standards. The authoritarian parent attempts to shape, control, and evaluate the attitudes and behaviors with a set standard of conduct. This type of parenting seeks high control with low nurturance and ...

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