On Golden Pond

The movie On Golden Pond, is a representation of the different psychosocial stages society goes through as people age. In the movie, various characters face distinctive crises as they reach a psychosocial stage, which bring tension in the movie. During the movie each character goes through different life challenges such as cognitive and psychosocial developments, which will lead to more appreciation each character’s lives.
Eric Erikson developed eight different psychosocial stages which emphasize the lifespan development during the major periods in life. The first psychosocial stage is infancy and it embraces the age of birth to one year old. The infancy crisis is trust versus mistrust which emphasizes that if children are taken care of; they will be able to gain confidence as well as trust. In the other hand, if they developed mistrust they will develop a sense of insecurity. Erickson’s second stage is toddlerhood which embraces the ages of one to three and deals with the stage crisis of autonomy versus shame and doubt. In the toddlerhood stage, toddlers are able to use mental skills and are able to start deciding for themselves. The third stage is early childhood, and it embraces the ages of three to six with the stage crisis of initiative versus guilt. During the early childhood stage children are able to gain the characteristics of ambition and responsibility and it is developed through the parent’s support. On the other hand if parents are too demanding children will develop guilt. The next stage is middle adulthood which ranges in the ages of six to eleven; children are able to develop the characteristic cooperation but, inferiority can also arise with negative experiences which can cause a stage crisis of industry versus i...

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...age and the crisis of integrity versus despair however, the two characters had different characteristics that categorize them in different ends of the crisis. Throughout the movie, the audience is able to visualize what types of issues are dealt with as well as what type of problems the characters had to go through to resolve their crisis. Chelsea also had different issues than Billy due to the fact; each were facing a different stage as well as crisis. Personally this movie provide me a great understanding in human development; I was able to understand why each person does a certain action: for instance my sister is disrespectful and immature because she is facing the adolescence stage as well as the identity versus role confusion stage. I also learned that a crisis can truly affect a person in a negative; if the person is not able to fully deal with their crisis.