Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Erikson: Post−Freudian
Theory
(^262) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
with something and to finish a job. School-age children learn to work and play at ac-
tivities directed toward acquiring job skills and toward learning the rules of cooper-
ation.
As children learn to do things well, they develop a sense of industry, but
if their work is insufficient to accomplish their goals, they acquire a sense of
inferiority—the dystonic quality of the school age. Earlier inadequacies can
also contribute to children’s feelings of inferiority. For example, if children acquire
too much guilt and too little purpose during the play age, they will likely feel
inferior and incompetent during the school age. However, failure is not inevitable.
Erikson was optimistic in suggesting that people can successfully handle the crisis
of any given stage even though they were not completely successful in previous
stages.
The ratio between industry and inferiority should, of course, favor industry;
but inferiority, like the other dystonic qualities, should not be avoided. As Alfred
Adler (Chapter 3) pointed out, inferiority can serve as an impetus to do one’s best.
Conversely, an oversupply of inferiority can block productive activity and stunt one’s
feelings of competence.
Competence: The Basic Strength of the School Age
From the conflict of industry versus inferiority, school-age children develop the
basic strength of competence:that is, the confidence to use one’s physical and cog-
nitive abilities to solve the problems that accompany school age. Competence lays
the foundation for “co-operative participation in productive adult life” (Erikson,
1968, p. 126).
If the struggle between industry and inferiority favors either inferiority or an
overabundance of industry, children are likely to give up and regress to an earlier
stage of development. They may become preoccupied with infantile genital and
Oedipal fantasies and spend most of their time in nonproductive play. This regres-
sion is called inertia,the antithesis of competence and the core pathology of the
school age.
Adolescence
Adolescence,the period from puberty to young adulthood, is one of the most cru-
cial developmental stages because, by the end of this period, a person must gain a
firm sense of ego identity.Although ego identity neither begins nor ends during ado-
lescence, the crisis between identityand identity confusionreaches its ascendance
during this stage. From this crisis of identity versus identity confusion emerges
fidelity,the basic strength of adolescence.
Erikson (1982) saw adolescence as a period of sociallatency, just as he saw
school age as a time of sexuallatency. Although adolescents are developing sexually
and cognitively, in most Western societies they are allowed to postpone lasting com-
mitment to an occupation, a sex partner, or an adaptive philosophy of life. They are
permitted to experiment in a variety of ways and to try out new roles and beliefs
while seeking to establish a sense of ego identity. Adolescence, then, is an adaptive
phase of personality development, a period of trial and error.
256 Part II Psychodynamic Theories