ERIKSON: Post-Freudian Theory
Theories of Personality
OVERVIEW
• extend Freud’s assumptions
↳ differed with emphasis on the ego and
social and historical influences
• stages of development are characterized by
a psychosocial struggle
• life-cycle approach to personality
BIOGRAPHY
1902 Germany
1994 Cape Cod
• Salomonsen → Homburger → Erikson
• spent nearly a lifetime trying to search for
self-identity
• psychoanalyzed by Anna Freud
↳ an experience that allowed him to become
a psychoanalyst
THE EGO IN POST-FREUDIAN THEORY
• emphasis on ego rather than id functions
↳ center of personality
↳ responsible for a unified sense of self
o body ego
o ego ideal
o ego identity
SOCIETY’S INFLUENCE
→ develops within a given society
→ influenced by child-rearing practices and
other cultural customs
pseudospecies – a fictional notion that one
culture/nation are superior to others
EPIGENETIC PRINCIPLE
→ ego develops according to a genetically
established rate and in a fixed sequence
↳ like our organs
STAGES OF
PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
→ marked by a conflict between a syntonic
(harmonious) element and a dystonic
(disruptive) element
↳ produces a basic strength or ego quality
INFANCY
• first year of life
• similar to Freud’s oral stage
↳ include sense organs such as the eyes
and ears
• oral-sensory mode – characterized by
both receiving and accepting
EARLY CHILDHOOD
• second to third year of life
• a period that compares to Freud's anal
stage
• includes mastery of other body functions
such as walking, urinating, and holding
• anal-urethral-muscular mode – behave
both impulsively and compulsively
PLAY AGE
• third to the fifth year
• a period that parallels Freud's phallic
phase
• Oedipus complex – early model of lifelong
playfulness and a drama played out in
children's minds as they attempt to
understand the basic facts of life
• genital-locomotor mode – both interest in
genital activity and an increasing ability to
move around
SCHOOL AGE
• period from about 6 to 12 or 13 years of age
• a time of psychosexual latency and time of
psychosocial growth beyond the family
↳ use their energies to learn the customs
of their culture (formal and informal
education)
ADOLESCENCE
• begins with puberty
• marked by a person's struggle to find ego
identity
• time of psychosexual growth and period of
psychosocial latency
• genital maturation
YOUNG ADULTHOOD
• begins with the acquisition of intimacy at
about age 18 and ends with the
development of generativity at about age
30
• genitality – expressed as mutual trust
between partners in a stable sexual
relationship
ADULTHOOD
• period from about 31 to 60 years of age
• time when people make significant
contributions to society
• procreativity – the caring for one's children,
the children of others, and the material
products of one's society
OLD AGE
• final stage of development is old age, from
about age 60 until death
• generalized sensuality – taking pleasure in CRITIQUE
a variety of sensations and appreciation of
the traditional lifestyle of people of the other • High on Generating Research and Internal
gender Consistency
• Moderate on Organizing Knowledge,
SUMMARY OF THE LIFE CYCLE Falsifiability, Guiding Action, and Parsimony
Psychoanalysis
Stage Basic Strength Core Pathology
Crises
CONCEPT OF HUMANITY
•
basic trust vs. withdrawal
Infancy
basic mistrust
hope retreat from the world Determinism over Free Choice
• Optimism over Pessimism
Early
Childhood
autonomy vs.
shame & doubt
will compulsion • Causality over Teleology
• Unconscious and Conscious Are
Play Age initiative vs. guilt purpose inhibition Influenced by Four Developmental Stages
industry vs. • Culture over Biology
School Age competence inertia
inferiority • Uniqueness over Similarity
identity vs. fidelity role repudiation
faith in some inability to bring
Adolescence identity ideological view of the together one's various
confusion future self images

Young intimacy vs. exclusivity

love
Adulthood isolation inability to love

rejectivity
generativity vs. excluding or refusing
Adulthood care to provide care for
stagnation specific individuals or
groups

disdain
integrity vs. marked by feelings of
Old Age wisdom
despair being finished or
helpless

METHODS OF INVESTIGATION
(1) Anthropological Studies
→ Sioux of South Dakota and the Yurok
tribe of northern California
→ demonstrated the notion that culture and
history help shape personality
(2) Psychohistory
→ combination of methods of
psychoanalysis and historical research
to study several personalities
↳ Gandhi and Luther
→ the central figure experienced an identity
crisis that produced a basic strength
rather than acore pathology
(3) Play Construction
→ became controversial
↳ found that 10- to 12-year-old boys
used toys to construct elongated objects
and produce themes of rising and falling
↳ girls arranged toys in low and peaceful
scenes
→ concluded that anatomical differences
between the sexes play a role in
personality development

RELATED RESEARCH
• one of Erikson’s major contributions was
to extend personality development into
adulthood