Development Throughout the Lifespan Essay 6

Development Throughout the Lifespan Essay 6

Development Throughout the Lifespan Essay 6

Erikson and Freud are two of the few theorists who have developed a lifespan approach to development. Freud’s approach to development was psychosexual while Erikson’s was psychosocial. Even though Freud’s theory is better known, Erikson’s theory remains a leading and very much applied model in personality and developmental psychology today.

When considering these two stage-oriented theories, you can directly compare the majority of their stages. These are matched in the following table:

Approximate Age Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial development
Infancy (Birth to 1 year) Oral stage Trust versus mistrust
Early childhood (1–3 years) Anal stage Autonomy versus doubt
Preschool (3–6 years) Phallic stage Initiative versus guilt
School age (7–11 years) Latent period Industry versus inferiority
Adolescence (12–18 years) Genital stage Identity versus role confusion
Young adulthood (19–40 years) Intimacy versus isolation
Middle adulthood (40–65 years) Generativity versus stagnation
Older adulthood (65–death) Integrity versus despair

When considering Erikson’s eight stages of development, the way a person moves through each stage directly affects their success in the next stage. Their personality is being built and shaped with each stage. At each stage, there is a turning point, called a crisis by Erikson, which a person must confront.

In this assignment, you will observe or interview two different people, each at a different stage of development. For a third observation, take a look at yourself and the stage that you are in (this stage must be different from your other two observations).

  • Record your three observations in a template. Include the following information:
    • Name
    • Age
    • Gender
    • Current developmental stage
    • Status within the stage (i.e., identity achievement or role confusion)
    • Events that have lead to this status

Download a Development Template from the Doc Sharing area to record your observations.

  • Summarize what you have learned about psychosocial development through these observations/interviews.
  • Summarize the trends you see in your observations/interviews regarding psychosocial development.
  • How does movement through Erikson’s stages influence personality development? Again, be specific.
  • How do Erikson’s stages of development compare to Freud’s stages? How are they similar? How are they different?
  • Between these two theories, which one do you feel best explains your own personality development? Justify your answers with specific examples.

Write a 3–4-page paper in Word format. Insert your chart at the end of your paper. Apply APA standards to citation of sources. Use the following file naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M3_A2.doc.

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You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument. Development Throughout the Lifespan Essay 6