Trust Vs. Mistrust Theory Essay

Social factors and hazards play a significant role in infant’s ability to trust or mistrust. These factors include poverty, abuse and neglect, and insufficient or inadequate parenting. Not all of these factors are the direct result of the parent’s or caregivers’ choice, but they can still have a significant impact on the infant’s psychosocial development. These impacts can be wide reaching, but they can also be mitigated and reversed in some instances. Erikson states that, “Infants whose needs are met consistently in a warm and nurturing manner learn that the world is a safe place and that people are dependable,” (Ashford & LeCroy, 2018, 2013, p.121). Unfortunately, this is not always the case for all infants.
This trust vs. mistrust theory is theorized by Erikson to have an impact on attachment between the caregiver and the infant (Ashford & LeCroy, 2018, 2013). This impact can have negative consequences on the child for long periods of time, especially if the situation is not resolved. These impacts can include an inability to trust the caregiver’s ability

to provide food and other necessities to the infant when they are needed or wanted. This lack of trust can hinder the attachment between the two when the necessity is not given and create a pattern of the infant no longer asking or signaling their needs as they do not believe that those needs will be sufficiently met anymore.
This can become an even more significant issue if the lack of trust is stemming from the caregiver’s personal choice to withdraw the needs of the infant.

This can happen in abuse and neglect situations, as well as when the caregivers have insufficient or inadequate parenting skills. Not all of the lack of parenting skills results in purposeful abuse, but it can be a contributing factor. The abuse or neglect of an infant is clearly abuse, and can result in an infant’s severe mistrust of individuals to provide any of their basic needs. This can result in the infant’s disability to form personal relationships and the ability to attach to someone in their later, personal lives. This could possibly be mitigated by therapy once the infant is older, but at that point the mistrust is severe and they may be unwilling to seek any help from others or believe that they can rely on anyone else to help or support

them.
Poverty is a sort of gray area in certain aspects of this theory. It is an issue in that due to the caregiver’s poverty the infant may not be getting all of the proper nutrients that it needs or it may not be getting the proper care if the caregiver is at work or having to turn the caregiving over to older siblings in order to try and provide for the other children and the infant. This poverty is not an intentional choice, nor is it generally the choice of impoverished caregivers to neglect their child in these situations. In this situation, the caregivers genuinely do want to take care of their infant children, but do not have the ability to care for them and provide them if everything that they wish. Unfortunately, this situation can lead to malnourished infants that may not reach their full growth potential due to the lack of proper nutrients at the proper times. This can lead to small, sickly infants which can lead the caregivers to become more impoverished as they attempt to care for their infant’s latest illness. This can also lead to a failure to thrive diagnosis as was previously discussed last week.
These social hazards can have a significant impact on the infant’s psychosocial development throughout their lives, and can have a lasting effect. These social hazards can range from being a product of circumstance, such as poverty, all the way to the purposeful abuse and neglect of an infant. This trust vs. mistrust is something that can be readily apparent to medical professionals and social workers. These effects can be mitigated throughout the individual’s life, but may depend on how severe the mistrust has gotten for it to be completely effective.