Theories_of_Personality 7th Ed Feist

Feist−Feist: Theories of

Personality, Seventh

Edition

II. Psychodynamic

Theories

9. Erikson: Post−Freudian
   Theory

(^278) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
Key Terms and Concepts

• Erikson’s stages of development rest on an epigenetic principle,meaning
  that each component proceeds in a step-by-step fashion with later growth
  building on earlier development.


• During every stage, people experience an interaction of opposing
  syntonicand dystonicattitudes, which leads to a conflict, or psychosocial
  crisis.


• Resolution of this crisis produces a basic strengthand enables a person to
  move to the next stage.


• Biological components lay a ground plan for each individual, but a
  multiplicity of historical and cultural events also shapes ego identity.


• Each basic strength has an underlying antipathy that becomes the core
  pathologyof that stage.


• The first stage of development is infancy,characterized by the oral-sensory
  mode,the psychosocial crisis of basic trust versus mistrust,the basic
  strength of hope,and the core pathology of withdrawal.


• During early childhood,children experience the anal, urethral, and
  muscular psychosexual mode; the psychosocial conflict of autonomy
  versus shame and doubt;the basic strength of will;and the core pathology
  of compulsion.


• During the play age,children experience genital-locomotorpsychosexual
  development and undergo a psychosocial crisis of initiative versus guilt,
  with either the basic strength of purposeor the core pathology of
  inhibition.


• School-agechildren are in a period of sexual latencybut face the
  psychosocial crisis of industry versus inferiority,which produces either
  the basic strength of competenceor the core pathology of inertia.


• Adolescence,or puberty, is a crucial stage because a person’s sense of
  identity should emerge from this period. However, identity confusionmay
  dominate the psychosocial crisis, thereby postponing identity. Fidelityis
  the basic strength of adolescence; role repudiationis its core pathology.


• Young adulthood,the time from about age 18 to 30, is characterized by the
  psychosexual mode of genitality, the psychosocial crisis of intimacy versus
  isolation,the basic strength of love,and the core pathology of exclusivity.


• Adulthoodis a time when people experience the psychosexual mode of
  procreativity,the psychosocial crisis of generativity versus stagnation,the
  basic strength of care, and the core pathology of rejectivity.


• Old ageis marked by the psychosexual mode of generalized sensuality,
  the crisis of integrity versus despair, and the basic strength of wisdom or
  the core pathology of disdain.


• Erikson used psychohistory(a combination of psychoanalysis and history)
  to study the identity crises of Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, and others.

272 Part II Psychodynamic Theories