CHAPTER 6: ERIK H. ERIKSON Flashcards
1
Q
What is the job of the “Ego” according to Freud?
A
To find realistic ways of satisfying the impulses of the id while not offending the moral demands of the superego.
2
Q
How did Freud view the ego?
A
The ego operated “in the service of the id” and as the “helpless rider of the id horse.”
3
Q
What are mere displacements or sublimations of basic idinal desires according to Freud?
A
Science, art, and religion.
4
Q
What was the first shift away from Freud’s position?
A
His daughter Anna, in her book, “The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense.”
5
Q
What did Anna Freud suggest?
A
Instead of emphasizing the importance of the id, psychoanalysis should “acquire the fullest possible knowledge of all the three institutions [that is, id, ego, and superego] of which we believe the psychic personality to be consisted and to learn what are their relations to one another and to the outside world.”
6
Q
Who was Erik H. Erikson influenced by?
A
His teacher, Anna Freud. However, he believed she did not go far enough.
7
Q
What is the “Ego” according to Erikson?
A
The ego may have started out in the service of the id, but in the process of serving it, developed its own functions.
8
Q
What is Erikson’s example of the “Ego?”
A
The ego’s job was to organize one’s life and to ensure continuous harmony with one’s physical and social environment.
9
Q
What does the conception emphasize the influence of the ego?
A
On healthy growth and adjustment and also as the source of the person’s self-awareness and identity.
10
Q
What does Erikson’s theory exemplify?
A
Because Erikson stressed the autonomy of the ego, his theory exemplifies the “ego psychology.”
11
Q
Ego psychology
A
Theoretical system that stresses the importance of the ego as an autonomous part of the personality instead of viewing the ego as merely the servant of the id.
12
Q
How can Erikson’s theory be viewed?
A
As a description of how the ego gains or loses strength as a function of developmental experiences.
13
Q
Where was Erikson born?
A
Near Frankfurt, Germany, on June 15, 1902.
14
Q
Who was Erikson’s mother
A
Karla Abrahamsen, a member of a prominent Jewish family in Copenhagen.
15
Q
Who and when did Karla marry?
A
At 21, Karla married a 27-year-old Jewish Stockbroker, Valdemar Isidor Salomonsen
16
Q
Did the relationship between Karla and Valdemar last?
A
No, speculation concerning Valdemar’s rapid departure ranges from his involvement in criminal activities causing him to become a fugitive, to the fact that he physically abused Karla, causing her to terminate the relationship.
17
Q
True or False: Valdemar was Erikson’s father.
A
False: Valdemar was not his father. If Karla knew the identity of Erik’s father, she never revealed it.
18
Q
Who did Karla begin a relationship after Valdemar?
A
Erik’s paediatrician, Theodor Homburger. The two were married on Erik’s third birthday, June 15, 1905.
19
Q
What proposal did Theodor come up with?
A
One provision: Erik was to be told that Theodor was Erik’s biological father and Karla agreed.
20
Q
True or False: Theodor adopted Erik
A
True: legally, Erik became Erik Homburger.
21
Q
What was a secret kept throughout Erik’s childhood?
A
That Dr. Homburger was not Erik’s biological father.
22
Q
When did Erik change his last name?
A
When he became a U.S citizen in 1939, he changed his last name to Erikson.
23
Q
Why did Erik change his last name?
A
His children were troubled by the American tendency to confuse “Homburger” with “hamburger,” and that he asked one of his sons for an alternative; being Erik’s son, he proposed Erikson.
24
Q
What did Erikson connote?
A
That he was his own father, self created.
25
What did Erikson do with his previous last name, “Homburger”
Homburger was reduced to the middle initial of the name that Erikson then used to identify his works.
26
True or False: Erikson had a sense of not belonging to his family.
True: His sense of belonging amplified by the fact that his mother, Karla, and his stepfather, Theodor, were Jewish. Erikson himself was tall, with blue eyes and blonde hair.
27
What was Erikson referred to at school?
A Jew, whereas at his stepfather’s temple he was called a “goy.”
28
Goy
Yiddish word for gentile.
29
Did Erikson have an artistic ability?
Yes: Erikson said, “I was an artist, then which can be a European euphemism for a young man with some talent, but nowhere to go."
30
Why was 1927 a turning point in Erikson’s life?
At age 25, he was invited to Vienna by an old school friend to work at a small school attended by the children of Freud’s patients and friends.
31
What was Erikson hired as at the small school?
As an artist and then as a tutor.
32
What did Anna Freud ask Erikson in regards to training?
Anna freud asked Erikson if he would like to be trained as a child analyst.
33
True or False: Erikson accepted the child analyst position.
True: He received his psychoanalytic training under Anna Freud, for which she charged him $7 per month.
34
What did Anna Freud’s training consist of?
It included Erik being psychoanalyzed by Anna, lasting 3 years and was conducted almost daily.
35
Did Anna Freud have a profound influence on Erikson?
Yes: In 1964, he showed his appreciation by dedicating his book “Insight and Responsibility” to her.
36
True or False: Erikson joined the Freudian circle.
True: Freud was 71-years-old. Erikson knew him only informally.
37
Did Erikson join the group of “outcasts?"
Yes: He joined a group of outcasts to maintain his identity as the outsider.
38
What did the group “outcasts” do?
The group’s function was to help disturbed people, Erikson could at least indirectly satisfy his stepfather’s desire for him to become a physician.
39
What were Erikson’s formal trainings?
His graduation from the gymnasium, a Montessori diploma, and his training as a child analyst.
40
What is Erikson a clear example of?
Of Freud's contention: that one does not need to be trained as a physician to become a psychoanalyst.
41
When did Erikson graduate?
In 1933 from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute, becoming a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association.
42
Who is Joan Person?
Joan Person studied and taught modern dance at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania as she pursued her PhD in education at Columbia.
43
Did Joan Person become a member of Freud’s circle?
Yes: she began to be psychoanalyzed by Ludwig Jewels, one of Freud’s early disciples.
44
What happened with Joan Person and Erikson?
Joan met Erik at a masked ball. They talked and danced throughout the night, and soon thereafter she moved in with Erik and became pregnant.
45
True or False: Erikson did not marry Joan Person.
False: They were married on April 1, 1930, and Joan became Erik’s intellectual partner for the remainder of his long life.
46
Psychohistory
Term used to describe Erikson’s use of his developmental theory of personality to analyze historical figures.
47
Which book was awarded both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Aware in philosophy and religion?
Erikson’s book "Gandhi’s Truth."
48
What is the difference between Erikson’s and Freud’s theories?
Erikson’s theory, for example, is more optimistic about the human capacity for positive growth. Both theories have transcended the bounds of psychology and have influenced a variety of other fields such as religion, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and history.
49
True or False: Did Erikson come close to traditional Freudian theory?
True: in the chapter “The Theory of Infantile Sexuality” in his book "Childhood and Society,” Erikson summarized his research on 10 to 12-year-old boys and girls in California.
50
What did Erikson have the 10 to 12-year-old boys and girls do?
They were instructed by Erikson to build a scene from a movie. The children were to use toy figures and various-shaped blocked.
51
What was the result to Erikson’s study of the 10 to 12-year-old boys and girls?
In over a year and a half, about 150 children constructed about 450 scenes, and not more than about six were scenes from am movie. For example, only a few of the toy figures were given names of actors or actresses.
52
What were some of Erikson’s observations in the study of the 10 to 12-year-old girls?
Scenes created by girls typically included an enclosure that sometimes had an elaborate entrance and contained such elements as people and animals. Scenes created by girls tended to be static and peaceful, although animals or dangerous men often interrupted their scenes.
53
What were some of Erikson’s observations in the study of the 10 to 12-year-old boys?
Scenes created by boys often had high walls around them and had many objects such as high towers or cannons protruding from them. The scenes created by boys also had relatively more people and animals outside the enclosure. The boys’ scenes were dynamic and included fantasies about the collapse or downfall of their creation.
54
What did Erikson conclude from his observations in the study of the 10 to 12-year-old boys and girls?
Erikson concluded that the scenes created by the children were outward manifestations of their genital apparatus. For example, Erikson recounted that one boy created what he called a “feminine” scene, but, as the boy was leaving the room, he realized that there was “something wrong” with the scene and returned to rearrange it.
55
What are factors that determine how a person perceives and acts on the world?
Biological and social factors were important. We are specifically interested by our culture on how boys and girls are expected to act and think, and these cultural dictates influence our outlook.
56
Is anatomy destiny?
Yes, it is destiny, insofar as it determines not only the range and configuration of physiological functioning and its limitations but also, to an extent, personality configurations.
57
Anatomy and Destiny
Freud thought many important personality traits were determined by one’s gender. Erikson believed the same but thought that one’s culture was another powerful influence on one’s personality. Although Erikson believed men and women have different personality characteristics, he did not consider one set of characteristics better than the other.
58
Who is Naomi Weisstein?
She criticized Erikson’s views of male-female differences. Weisstein argued in her article “Psychology Constructs the Female, or the Fantasy Life of the Male Psychologist (with Some Attention to the Fantasies of His Friends, the Male Biologist and the Male Anthropologist” that psychology does not know what either men or women are really like because it deals with only the cultural stereotypes of both.
59
What did Naomi Weisstein conclude from her article?
She insisted that what have been called biologically determined differences in behaviour between the sexes are really better explained as the result of social expectations. She concluded that insofar as there are differences between the sexes, they are the result of cultural expectations and the prejudices of male social scientists.
60
Who is Paula Caplan?
Caplan criticized Erikson’s contention that the type of sex organs one possesses influences how one interacts with the world. She was especially critical of Erikson’s assertion that a woman’s kinaesthetic experience of her own inner space, that is, of her own uterus, determines even partially her personally characteristics.
61
What claim did Caplan point out of Erikson that was impossible?
Erikson made a claim that it is the female child’s experience of “inner space” that influences the configurations she produces during his play experiences. Caplan says: The most important physiological factor to take into account is that there is no inter space.
62
True or False: Caplan repeated Erikson’s research on play constructions.
True: However, she utilized preschool children who were younger than those used by Erikson.
63
What did Caplan conclude in her research on play constructions?
No sex differences were found in the frequency of constructions of simple enclosures, enclosures only in conjunction with elaborate structures or traffic lanes, height of structures, construction of a tower, or construction of a structure, building, tower, or street---all categories in which Erikson had reported sex differences.
64
True or False: Did Erikson react to his criticisms?
True: He discussed those criticism in his essay “Once More the Inner Space.” He said that (1) psychoanalytic truths are often disturbing and he can understand people being upset by them and (2) biology is only one strong determinant of personality, and culture is another.
65
Epigenetic Principle
The innate biological principle that determines the sequence in which the eight stages of Psychosocial development occurs.
66
Where is the Epigenetic Principle serviced from?
The growth of organisms in the utero.
67
What happens during the epigenetic principle?
The personality characteristics that become salient during any particular stage of development exist before that stage and continue to exist after that stage; they merely become more prominent during their particular stage because they are needed to move through that stage and beyond.
68
Crisis
Conflict that becomes dominant during a particular stage of development that can be resolved positively, thus strengthening the ego, or resolved negatively, thus weakening the ego. Each crisis, therefore, is a turning point in one’s development.
69
True or False: Each stage of development is characterized by a crisis.
True: The crisis characterizes each stage of development and has a possible positive resolution or a negative one.
70
Positive resolution to crisis.
Contributes to a strengthening of the ego and therefore to a greater adaptation. In one stage it increases the likelihood that the crisis characterizing the next stage will resolved positively.
71
Negative resolution to crisis.
Weakens the ego and inhibits adaptation. In one stage lowers the probability that the next crisis will be resolved positively.
72
First Phase of Crisis: Immature Phase.
Where it is not the focal point of personality development.
73
Second Phase of Crisis: Critical Phase.
Where because of a variety of biological, psychological, and social reasons it is the focal point of personality development.
74
Third Phase of Crisis: Resolution Phase.
Where the resolution of the crisis influences subsequent personality development.
75
Psychosocial stage of development.
Erikson’s eight stages of human development, so named to emphasize the importance of social experience to the resolution of the crises that characterize each stage.
76
Where does personality development occur?
Within a cultural setting.
77
What is the job of culture?
To provide effective ways of satisfying both biological and psychological human needs.
78
Ritualizations
Behaviours that reflect and thereby perpetuate the beliefs, customs, and values that are sanctioned by a particular culture.
Ritualizations are culturally approved patterns of everyday behaviour that allow a person to become an acceptable member of the culture.
79
What are characteristic ways of ritualizations?
Ways in which we relate to each other such as shaking hands, kissing, and hugging.
80
What is an example of ritualization?
It may be permissible for a woman to wear a bikini on a beach, whereas such attire may cause a stir at work or at school.
81
Ritualisms
Distorted or exaggerated ritualizations.
They are inappropriate or false ritualizations, and they are the causes of much social and psychological pathology.
82
What is an example of ritualisms?
A ritualization within a culture might encourage addressing certain accomplished persons with titles and thus encourage a sense of respect for their status. To idolize or worship such persons, however, would be an inappropriate exaggeration of that ritualization and would thus be a ritualism.
A ritualism then is a ritualization that has become mechanical and stereotyped.
82
What is an example of ritualisms?
A ritualization within a culture might encourage addressing certain accomplished persons with titles and thus encourage a sense of respect for their status. To idolize or worship such persons, however, would be an inappropriate exaggeration of that ritualization and would thus be a ritualism.
A ritualism then is a ritualization that has become mechanical and stereotyped.
82
What is an example of ritualisms?
A ritualization within a culture might encourage addressing certain accomplished persons with titles and thus encourage a sense of respect for their status. To idolize or worship such persons, however, would be an inappropriate exaggeration of that ritualization and would thus be a ritualism.
A ritualism then is a ritualization that has become mechanical and stereotyped.
83
What is an additional example of ritualisms?
An elaborate birthday party or wedding. These are not only about celebrating the individual or couple and sharing an experience with friends, they are instead about outshining others and flaunting one’s economic accomplishments.
84
What do the first five stages of psychosocial development relate too?
Erikson’s first five stages closely parallel to Freud’s proposed psychosexual stages of development in the time at which they are supposed to occur.
85
First Stage of Psychosocial Development: Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust.
Lasts from birth throughout the first year and corresponds closely to Freud’s oral stage of psychosexual development.
This is the time when children are most helpless and thus most dependent on adults.
86
What happens if you care for infants in the "Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust" stage.
It will satisfy their needs in a loving and consistent manner, the infants will develop a feeling of basic trust.
87
Basic Trust.
General feeling of trust in the world and the people in it, which arises if the crisis dominating the first stage of development is resolved positively.
88
What happens if the parents are rejecting their infants in the "Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust" stage.
They will develop a feeling of mistrust.
89
What happens if care is loving and consistent during the "Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust" stage.
Infants learn they need not worry about a loving, reliable parent and therefore are not overly disturbed when that parent leaves their sight.
90
First social achievement.
Erikson called the ability of the infant to tolerate the absence of the mother the “first social achievement.”
This maturational change in the child reflect the ability of the child to hold a cognitive image of the mother that is stable and predictable because the mother has, herself, been stable and predictable.
91
Basic mistrust.
Lack of trust in the world and the people in it, which arises if the crisis dominating the first stage of development is resolved negatively.
92
True or False: A child during the "Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust” stage must have a ratio between basic trust and basic mistrust.
True: It is the ratio of the two solutions that is important. A child who trusted everyone and everything would be in trouble. A certain amount of mistrust is healthy and conductive to survival. It is the child with a predominance of trust, however, who has the courage to take risks and who is not overwhelmed by disappointments and setbacks.
93
Virtue.
Ego strength that arises when the crisis dominating a stage of development is resolved positively.
A virtue emerges in one’s personality when the crisis characterizing a stage is positively resolved.
A virtue adds strength to one’s ego in this stage.
94
Hope.
When the child has more basic trust than basic mistrust.
Erikson's definition: “the enduring belief in the attainability of fervent wishes, in spite of the dark urges and rages which mark the beginning of existence."
95
Numinous.
Ritualization characterizing the first stage of development. This involves the many culturally determined ways in which mother and infant interact.
96
What is an example of numinous?
Mother-infant interactions reflect culturally sanctioned childrearing practices.
For example, many mothers breastfeed their infants, but in the United States few have done so in public until recently.
In similar vein, it is not uncommon for bothers to babble inanely at their infants, imitating the babbling and cooing sounds the baby makes, rather than speaking to the infant as if he or she is a cognizant adult.
As a result of these mother-infant interactions, the child develops positive feelings toward the mother, and these feelings cause the infant to be socially responsible.
Thus, the mother’s warm, predictable caring for the child creates in the child a desire to seek interactions with persons other than the mother.
97
Idolism.
Ritualism that can occur during the first stage of development where instead of a child learning a warm, positive feeling toward others, he or she tends to worship them.
98
Second Stage of Psychosocial Development: Early Childhood: Autonomy Vs. Shame and Doubt.
Occurs from about the end of the first year to about the end of the third year.
Corresponds to Freud’s anal stage of psychosexual development.
99
What happens during the "Early Childhood: Autonomy Vs. Shame and Doubt” stage.
Children rapidly develop a wide variety of skills. They learn to walk, climb, push, pull, and talk.
They learn how to hold on and let go. Not only does this apply to physical objects but to faces and urine as well.
Children can now “willfully” decide to do something or not.
Children are engaged in a battle of wills with their parents.
100
What must the parents do in the "Early Childhood: Autonomy Vs. Shame and Doubt” stage.
The parent must control the child’s behaviour in socially acceptable directions without injuring the child’s sense of self-control or autonomy.
101
How did Erikson view the "Early Childhood: Autonomy Vs. Shame and Doubt” stage.
As the development of balance between independent willfulness and social cooperation.
102
Autonomy.
Sense of being relatively independent of external control, which arises if the crisis dominating the second stage of development is resolved positively.
103
Shame and Doubt.
Feelings that develop instead of the feeling of autonomy when the crisis dominating the second stage of development is resolved negatively.
104
Will.
Virtue that arises if the child leaves the second stage of development with a greater sense of autonomy than of shame and doubt.
Erikson’s definition: “the unbroken determination to exercise free choice as well as self-restraint, in spite of the unavoidable experience of shame and doubt in infancy."
105
Why is it important to note the positive resolution in the "Early Childhood: Autonomy Vs. Shame and Doubt” stage.
Because it means the child’s ego becomes strong enough to deal adequately with the inevitable experiences of shame and doubt.
106
What is an example of hope and will?
The virtues of hope will have some influence on the quality of one’s life but little on survival. Persons without much hope or will do survive; that is, they are able to satisfy their biological (ordinal) needs, but they probably are not as flexible, optimistic or generally as happy as those with more hope and will.
107
Judiciousness
Ritualization characterizing the second stage of development. This involved the many ways that children learn right from wrong.
108
How is autonomy best served?
When one’s will is freely exercised.
109
What does the child learn through judiciousness?
The child learns the laws, rules, honoured practices, and regulations that characterize the child’s culture.
The child begins to judge his or her own behaviour as well as that of others.
110
What must children learn through judiciousness?
They must learn to judge themselves as others judge them. As the superego develops, it is used by the child to make moral evaluations.
111
What is the perversion of the ritualization of judiciousness?
The ritualism of legalism.
112
Legalism.
Ritualism that can occur during the second stage of development. This involves a preoccupation with rules and regulations themselves instead of with what they were designed to accomplish.
Erikson’s definition: “the victory of the letter over the spirit of the word and the law. It is expressed in the vain display of righteousness or empty contrition, or in a moralistic insistence on exposing and isolating the culprit whether or not this will be good for him or anybody else."
113
Third Stage of Psychosocial Development: Preschool Age: Initiative Vs. Guilt.
Occurs from about the fourth year to about the fifth year.
Corresponds to Freud’s phallic stage of psychosexual development.
114
What is the child capable of doing in the "Preschool Age: Initiative Vs. Guilt” stage.
Child is increasingly capable of detailed motor activity, refined use of language, and vivid use of imagination.
115
What do the skills from the "Preschool Age: Initiative Vs. Guilt” stage allow the chidl to do?
The skills gained allow the child to initiate ideas actions, and fantasies, and to plan future events.
116
What did Erikson note in the "Preschool Age: Initiative Vs. Guilt” stage.
He noted, the child during this stage is “apt to develop an untiring curiosity about differences in sizes in general, and sexual differences in particular.... his learning is now eminently intrusive and vigorous: it leads away from his own limitations and into future possibilities."
117
What happens if the parent encourages the children self-initiated behaviours and fantasies in the "Preschool Age: Initiative Vs. Guilt” stage.
The children will leave this stage with a healthy sense of initiative.
118
Initiative.
General ability to initiate ideas and actions and to plan future events, which arises if the crisis dominating the third stage of development is resolved positively.
119
What happens if the parent ridicule the children’s self-initiated behaviour and imagination in the "Preschool Age: Initiative Vs. Guilt” stage.
The child will leave this stage lacking self-sufficiency. Instead of taking the initiative, they will tend to experience guilt when pondering such behaviour and therefore will tend to live within the narrow limits that others set for them.
120
Guilt.
General feeling that develops in a child if the crisis dominating the third stage of development is resolved negatively.
121
What is an example go fuilt?
In a doctor’s office, a four-year old boy was playing with a doll house and was hardly reprimanded for playing with dolls. If this type of parenting is consistent, the child will learn not to take initiative, but instead experience guilt when they try something independently because they fear being incorrect.
122
Purpose.
Emerges when the child develops more initiative than guilt when leaving the third stage of development.
Erikson’s definition: “the courage to envisage and pursue valued goals uninhibited by the defeat of infantile fantasies, by guilt and by the foiling fear of punishment."
123
Authenticity.
Ritualization characterizing the third stage of development. This involved playful role playing ti discover possible ways of living one’s adult life.
124
Provide an example of authenticity.
Playing with toys, children at this stage typically engage in a great deal of playacting, imitating, wearing costumes, and even pretending to be various types of animals.
125
What does “playing” do in authenticity.
Such play provides children with an intermediate reality where they can explore the relationship between their inner and outer worlds.
Both positive and negative roles are played to reconfirm the limits on behaviour.
126
Impersonation.
Ritualism that can occur during the third stage of development. This involves confusing playing a role with one’s true personality.
127
Example of impersonation.
The child becoming the role he or she plays such as an evil villain.
128
Fourth Stage of Psychosocial Development: School Age: Industry Vs. Inferiority.
Lasts from about the sixth year to the eleventh year.
Corresponds to Freud’s latency stage of psychosexual development.
129
What transpires during the "School Age: Industry Vs. Inferiority” stage.
Children learn the skills necessary for economic survival, the technological skills that will allow them to become productive members of their culture.
130
What stage is most ready to become adults and parents?
"School Age: Industry Vs. Inferiority” stage.
131
What is the problem for children in the "School Age: Industry Vs. Inferiority” stage.
Is that they must put their lives on hold to attend school and learn to be productive workers under the direction of others.
132
What is the most important lesson children learn during the "School Age: Industry Vs. Inferiority” stage.
“The pleasure of work completion by steady attention and preserving diligence."
133
Industry.
Sense of enjoyment from work and from sustained attention, which arises if the crisis dominating the fourth stage of development is resolved positively.
134
Inferiority.
Loss of confidence in one’s ability to become a contributing member of one’s society, which arises if the crisis dominating the fourth stage of development is resolved negatively.
135
What is an additional danger associated with the "School Age: Industry Vs. Inferiority” stage.
Children may later overvalue their position in their workplace.
For such people, work is equated with life, and they thus are blinded to the many other important aspects of human existence.
136
Competence.
Virtue that arises if a child leave the fourth stage of development with a greater sense of industry than inferiority.
Erikson’s definition: “Competence is the free exercise of dexterity and intelligence in the completion of tasks, unimpaired by infantile inferiority.”
137
Where does competence come from?
Competence comes from loving attention and encouragement.
138
Where does a sense of inferiority come from?
Ridicule or lack of concern by those persons most important to the children.
139
What do children learn during the formality stage?
Children learn that to be a productive member of their community they must possess real (not imagined) skills and knowledge.
140
Formality.
Ritualization corresponding to the fourth stage of development. This involves learning how various things work in one’s culture.
141
Formalism.
Ritualism that can occur during the fourth stage. This involves a preoccupation with how things work, or with one’s work, and a disregard for the reason why things function as they do or why various types of jobs exist.
142
What is the student’s concern during the formalism stage?
High grades.
143
Fifth Stage of Psychosocial Development: Adolescence: Identity Vs. Role Confusion.
Occurs between about 12 and 20 years of age.
Corresponds roughly to Freud’s genital stage of psychosexual development.
144
What stage is Erikson best known for of Psychosocial Development?
Adolescence: Identity Vs. Role Confusion due to his well-known concept of identity crisis.
145
Identity Crisis.
Crisis that dominates the fifth stage of development, which results either in the person gaining an identity (positive resolution) or in role confusion (negative resolution)
146
Adulthood.
The seventh stage of development.
147
What must children ponder during the "Adolescence: Identity Vs. Role Confusion” stage.
The accumulated information about themselves into the future. In doing so, they make the first steps in gaining identity and become adults.
148
What marks the satisfactory end of the "Adolescence: Identity Vs. Role Confusion” stage.
Gaining a personal identity.
149
Identity or Ego Identity.
Sense of knowing who you are and where you are going in life that develops when the fifth stage of development is resolved positively. The emergence of an identity marks the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood.
150
What happens once identity is initially established?
Identity continues to develop and be redefined throughout adulthood.
151
How did Erikson view identity.
As large unconscious (or non-conscious), always interacting with and being modelled by culture, and often expressing negative characteristics such as prejudice and bias.
152
What is the interval between youth and adulthood?
Psychosocial moratorium.
153
Psychosocial moratorium.
Time during the fifth stage of development when the adolescent is searching for an identity.
154
How is it like to be in a period between childhood and adulthood during the "Adolescence: Identity Vs. Role Confusion” stage?
Like a trapeze wrist, the young person in the middle of vigorous motion must let go of his safe hold on childhood and reach out for a firm grasp on adulthood, depending for a breathless interval on a relatedness between the past and the future, and on the reliability of those he must let go of, and those ho will "receive” him.
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What was Erikson's example of Identity?
It is a “feeling of being at home in one’s body, a sense of knowing where one is going, and inner assuredness of anticipated recognition from those who count."
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What happen’s if adults do not leave the "Adolescence: Identity Vs. Role Confusion” stage with an identity?
They will leave it with role confusion or with a negative identity.
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Role Confusion.
The state produced by not acquiring an identity during the fifth stage of development. The state is characterized by an inability to choose a defining role in life and represents the negative resolution of the identity crisis.
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Negative Identity.
Identity contrary to the goals of society. Negative identities are all those roles that a child is warned not to assume.
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How did Erikson define negative identity?
“An identity perversely based on all those identifications and roles which, at critical stages of development, had been presented to the individual as most undesirable or dangerous, and yet also as most real."
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What is an example of negative identity according to Erikson?
A mother who is filled with unconscious ambivalence toward a brother who disintegrated into alcoholism may again and again respond selectively only to those traits in her son which seem to point to a repetition of her brother’s fate, in which case this “negative” identity may take on more reality for the son than all his natural attempts at being good: he may work hard on becoming a drunkard."
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How is the loss of a sense of identity expressed?
In a scornful and snobbish hostility toward the roles offered as proper and desirable in one’s family or immediate community.
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Why should an adolescent choose a negative identity if a positive one is not available?
Erikson said because an adolescent would “rather be nobody or somebody bad, or indeed, dead--than be not-quite somebody."
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What happens if the young adult emerges fromthe "Adolescence: Identity Vs. Role Confusion” stage with a positive identity?
They will emerge with the virtue of fidelity.
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Fidelity.
Virtue that arises at the end of the fifth stage of development if one has a sense of identity instead of role confusion.
Erikson’s definition: “The ability to sustain loyalties freely pledged in spite of the inevitable contradictions of value systems."
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What must happen during the "Adolescence: Identity Vs. Role Confusion” stage.
The person must synthesize the information. The development of an identity marks the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood. Life is a matter of acting out one’s identity.
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Ideology
Ritualization characterizing the fifth stage of development. This involves embracing a philosophy of life that makes one’s past, present, and future meaningful.
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Why does the adolescent search for an ideology?
The child need an ideology that synthesizes all of the ego developments from previous stages.
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What would be a chosen ideology?
Religious, political, or philosophical.
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Totalism.
Ritualism that can occur during the fifth stage of development. This involves embracing simplistic ideas mouthed by various “heroes” because those ideas may temporarily make life more tolerable.
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What is an example of totalism?
Adolescents may accept the values mouthed by various “heroes” in religious cults, musical groups, drug cultures, athletics, gangs, films, or political groups.
When adolescents overidentity with such groups or individuals, it is because they seem to provide answers to life’s most difficult questions.
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True or False: All crises exist in all stages of development.
True: For example, the identity crisis exists in the young child as it does in the mature adult.
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Sixth Stage of Psychosocial Development: Young Adulthood: Intimacy Vs. Isolation.
Lasts about 20 to about 24 years of age.
No corresponding Freudian psychosexual stage of development.
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What is “normalcy” according to Erikson?
Normalcy for the young adult consists of being able to love and work effectively; he agreed with Freud.
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True or False: Erikson agreed with Freud on the importance of love.
True: He believed only the person with a secure identity can risk entering a loving relations
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What were young adults with formed identities?
Erikson insisted that young adults were both “eager and willing” to “fuse” their identities with others, to enter into committed relationships and accept the challenges and sacrifices that such relationships demand.
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Intimacy.
Ability to merge one’s identity with that of another person, which arises if the crisis dominating the sixth stage of development is resolved positively.
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What happens if an individual does not develop a capacity for productive work and intimacy?
They will withdraw into themselves, avoid close contacts, and thus develop a feeling of isolation.
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Isolation.
Inability to share one’s identity with that of another person, which results if the crisis dominating the sixth stage of development is resolved negatively.
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Love.
Virtue that arises if one leaves the sixth stage of development with a greater sense of intimacy than isolation.
Erikson’s definition: “The mutuality of devotion forever subduing the antagonisms inherent in divided function.
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Affiliation.
Ritualization characterizing the sixth stage of development. This involves sharing one’s identity with fellow humans in a caring, productive way.
For example: by entering into an intimate relationship with someone who has also gained an identity.
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What is a sanctioning ritual?
The marriage ceremony and the subsequent honeymoon.
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What are elements of ritualizations in wedding ceremonies?
The ceremony casts a numinous (feeling of reverence) spell; it has a judicious element in that certain rights are bestowed the ceremony and subsequent marital relationship may reflect earlier experimentation with role playing; formality is reflected in the fact that the ceremony includes elements that must be performed according to accepted practice’; and the mutual pledges taken by the man and woman affirm their identities as husband and wife.
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What does affiliation prepare people to do?
To live harmoniously with fellow humans within a culture.
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Elitism.
Ritualism that can occur during the sixth stage of development. This involves the superficial relationships with groups of like-minded individuals that people without identities seek.
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How are the lives of people with Elitism characterized?
Snobbery, status symbols, and membership in exclusive clubs; because such relationships are not truly intimate, they continue the person’s sense of isolation within his or her culture.
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Seventh Stage of Psychosocial Development: Adulthood: Generatively Vs. Stagnation.
Occurs from about age 25 to about 64
Called the “middle adulthood."
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What transpires during the "Adulthood: Generatively Vs. Stagnation" stage.
If one has been fortunate enough to develop a positive identity and to live a productive and happy life, one attempts to pass on the circumstances that caused such a life to the next generation.
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Generativity.
Impulse to help members of the next generation that arises when the crisis dominating the seventh stage of development is resolved positively.
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What happens to a person who does not develop a sense of generativity?
The person becomes characterized by "stagnation and interpersonal impoverishment."
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Stagnation.
Lack of concern about the next generation that characterizes the person whose crisis during the seventh stage of development is resolved negatively.
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Care.
Virtue that arises when a person leaves the seventh stage of development with a greater sense of generativity than of stagnation.
Erikson’s definition: “the widening concern for what has been generated by love, necessity, or accident; it overcomes the ambivalence adhering to irreversible obligation.
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Generationalism.
Ritualization that characterizes the seventh stage of development. This involves the many ways in which healthy individuals help younger people to have experiences conductive to healthy personality growth.
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Who are influential factors in conveying cultural values to children?
Parents, teachers, physicians, and spiritual leaders.
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Authoritism.
Ritualism that can occur during the seventh stage of development. This involves using power for selfish gains instead of helping others.
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Eighth Stage of Psychosocial Development: Old Age: Ego Integrity Vs. Despair.
Occurs from about the age of 65 to death.
Is called “late adulthood."
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Ego integrity.
The satisfaction with life and the lack of fear of death that characterize the person who has positively resolved the crisis that dominates the eight and final stage of development.
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How did Erikson define ego integrity?
As a “ripening” of both successes and frustrations of previous stages in individuals who were both “originators” and “generators” during their lives.
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What person does not fear death?
A person who can look back on a rich, constructive, happy life.
The person has a feeling of completion and fulfillment.
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Despair.
Lack of satisfaction with life and the fear of death, which characterizes the person who has negatively resolved the crisis that dominates the eight and final stage of development.
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What person does fear death?
One with despair as they have not yet achieved any major goals in life.
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What is the "Old Age: Ego Integrity Vs. Despair” stage related to the most?
Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust stage.
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Wisdom.
Virtue that arises if a person has more ego integrity than despair during the eighth and final stage of development.
Erikson’s definition: “detached concern with life itself, in face of death itself."
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What happens if everything has gone well in a person’s life?
That person realizes how instrumental he or she has been in perpetuating culture.
The person has a sense of immortality knowing that the culture he or she helped sustain will survive his or own death.
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Integralism.
Ritualization characterizing the right stage of development. This involves the wisdom to place one’s own life in a larger perspective, that is, to see one’s finite life as contributing to immortal culture.
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What happens when combining and renewing the ritualizations of childhood and affirming generative sanction?
They help to consolidate adult life once its commitments and investments have led to the creation of new persons and to the production of new things and ideas.
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Sapientism.
Ritualism that can occur during the eight stage of development. This involves the pretense of being wise.
Erikson’s definition: “The unwise pretense of being wise."
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What happens if an older person is experiencing despair instead of ego integrity?
They may play the role of a person having all the answers, of being absolutely right; however, he or she is unable to place his or her life in the context of continuous cultural evolution.
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What did Erikson stress about psychotherapeutic practices?
They differ from those of traditional psychoanalysis because modern times have created different types of disorders.
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What is an example of psychotherapy?
When patients were concerned with their inhibitions and how to overcome them, they are now more concerned with what they should believe in and who they should become.
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What was the main focus in the therapeutic process?
The patient's ego must be strengthened to the point at which it can cope with life’s problems.
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What did Erikson believe about the traditional technique?
The traditional technique of releasing the contents of the unconscious mind may do more harm than good.
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What can transpire after the psychoanalytic method?
Erikson says: “It may make some people sicker than they ever were, especially if, in our zealous pursuit of our task of making conscious in the psychotherapeutic situation, we push someone who is leaning out a little too far over the precipice of the unconscious."
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What is the purpose of psychotherapy?
To encourage the growth of whatever virtues are missing, even if it means going back and helping the person to develop a sense of basic trust.
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Comparison of Erikson and Freud: Development.
Freud: Personality determined by 6. Theory did not go beyond adolescence
Erikson: Development occurs throughout life.
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Comparison of Erikson and Freud: Anatomy as destiny.
Freud: Yes.
Erikson: Yes but social environment interacts with anatomy.
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Comparison of Erikson and Freud: Penis envy.
Freud: Yes.
Erikson: No.
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Comparison of Erikson and Freud: Ego or id.
Freud: Id was most important. Id wars with society.
Erikson: Ego and its interaction with society is most important.
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Comparison of Erikson and Freud: Dream analysis.
Freud: Used to uncover unconscious motives and idinal impulses.
Erikson: Used to determine ego strengths.
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Comparison of Erikson and Freud: Psychotherapy.
Freud: Used psychoanalytic techniques to discover repressed material and memories.
Erikson: People are basically healthy if they acquire virtues from each stage. Therapy can help weak egos develop into stronger ones.
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Comparison of Erikson and Freud: Religion.
Freud: A collective neurosis based on infantile fears.
Erikson: An institution that makes life events understandable and creates a “shared world image."
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What is Erikson’s grade?
C+
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True or False: Erikson’s theory cannot be evaluated only on the basis of laboratory investigations.
True: Erikson did not create his theory with the researcher in mind. He attempted to classify conceptually several items related to personality development, and one either believes they are clarified, or they are not; either his theory is a sueful guide to understanding personality, or it is not.
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Is Erikson’s research difficult to test empirically?
Yes: His research on the play activities of boys and girls lacks quantification and statistical analysis.
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What did Erikson concentrate on?
Problems of identity, problem solving, and interpersonal relationships.
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How do some critics view Erikson’s portrayal of humans?
Too optimistic, unrealistic, and simplistic.
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Support of Status Quo Critique.
Erikson insisted that healthy egos require the support of culturally sanctioned roles, and many view this insistence as endorsement of those roles.
For those seeing gross injustices, dangerous values, shallowness, and even stupidity in their culture makes little sense to define mental health in terms of alignment with those factors.
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What is the danger in Erikson’s definition of the positive adjustments?
Erikson may have been describing his own values rather than the objective reality.
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Why did Erikson label himself a Freudian?
To avoid being “excommunicated” from psychoanalytic circles.
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What were Erikson’s contributions to the Psychology’s Domain.
The terms: Psychosocial development, ego strength, psychohistory, identity, identity crisis, and life-span psychology.
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Where has Erikson’s theory have been successfully used?
In such areas as child psychology and psychiatry, vocational counselling, marital counselling, education, social work, and business.
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What did Erikson encourage the study of?
Healthy people in addition to neurotics and psychotics; encouraged the study of personality development across the entire life span; and painted a dignified picture of humans.
