1. Recall Erikson’s stage theory of personality development; focus specifically on the following stages – autonomy vs. shame and doubt, identity vs. confusion, and generativity vs. self-absorption. First, give an example of a specific conflict that represents the psychosocial crisis associated with each stage. Second, describe how the person could resolve this conflict in favor of the healthier alternative (so, autonomy and identity and generativity). (3 points) For the autonomy vs shame and doubt stage, children around the age of two and three are who experience this according to Erickson’s stage theory of personality development. One example of this conflict could be a child learning how to put their toys away after playing with them. The parent puts forth the effort into teaching the child where the toys go and developing a routine for them to follow. The child will either adapt to the teachings and become self-sufficient (autonomy) or the parent could be conflicted with them and the way they do this chore and make the child feel a sense of shame and doubt. A way to resolve this kind of conflict is to teach the child simpler ways of putting away the toys and give positive reinforcement when they start finally running on autonomy. With identity vs confusion, the children that experience this are around their adolescence stage. The basic wonder of who they are and what they’re going to become is the major conflict they see here. They want to know who they will become as an adult, and they wonder how much like their parents they might become. They are stuck in these conflicted emotions and thought of their future in comparison to their parents. The solution to this conflict would be to let them think and explore who they feel they might be, but if they aren’t able to, then their views on who they are, what they want to become, and even things as basic as sexuality can be questions causing confusion. Generatively vs self-absorption is what I think of as the mid-life crisis of adulthood. When they become middle aged, they start to wonder if they’re really at all capable of raising anyone else and wonder what the world has come to at this stage in their life. They suddenly become so much more aware of the world and the influence they have in it, worrying about the future generations and what things are turning into around them. Basically wondering if they have done well enough in their own lives to be able to provide something of value for someone else. One conflict solution could be to spend more time with children of their own or to possibly just spend time with more youthful people in general. If left unattended to, this conflict could make them more self-absorbed later in life.
2. Describe the four stages of cognitive development proposed by Jean Piaget, and discuss the major developmental changes associated with each of the stages. (3 points)
Stage one, is the sensory motor period between the ages of birth and 2 years old. They start to develop a sense of object permanence and sensory motor responses. Some of the major changes associated with this stage are the way an infant can just grab someone’s hand because they do it without thinking as much about the act as they are just using their reflexes. That stage of infancy turns into the understanding that when something disappears from their sight, it’s no longer something they have the capacity to think about. Out of sight out of mind. They can use more of their brains to think about things and processes without fully understanding object permanence, which is a change from the youngest stages of infancy when they can’t really think too much about what they’re doing, rather just using natural reflexes. Stage two is the preoperational period, which occurs around the ages between 2 and 7. Its basis is about developing symbolic thought and egocentrism. Children are in a stage where they can’t really understand
