Erik Erikson Stages of Psychosocial Development

Erik Erikson
Stages of Psychosocial Development

Stage	Ages	Basic Conflict	Important Event	Virtue	Mal-adaptation Malignancy
Oral- Sensory	Birth to 12 to 18 months infancy	Trust vs. Mistrust	Feeding: the infant must form a first loving, trusting relationship with the caregiver, or develop a sense of mistrust.	Hope, Faith	sensory distortion -- withdrawal
Muscular- Anal	18 months to 3 years toddler	Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt	Toilet Training: the child's energies are directed toward the development of physical skills, including walking, grasping, and rectal sphincter control. The child learns control but may develop shame and doubt if not handled well.	Will, Determination	impulsivity -- compulsion
Loco-motor	3 to 6 years preschool	Initiative vs. Guilt	Independence: the child continues to become more assertive and to take more initiative, but may be too forceful, leading to guilt feelings.	Purpose, Courage	ruthlessness -- inhibition
Latency	6 to 12 years school- age	Industry vs. Inferiority	School: the child must deal with demands to learn new skills or risk a sense of inferiority, failure and incompetence.	Competence	narrow virtuosity -- inertia
Adolescence	12 to 18 years	Identity vs. Role Confusion	Peer Relationships: the teenager must achieve a sense of identity in occupation, sex roles, politics, and religion.	Fidelity, Loyalty	fanaticism -- repudiation
Young Adulthood	19 to 40 years	Intimacy vs. Isolation	Love Relationships: the young adult must develop intimate relationships or suffer feelings of isolation.	Love	promiscuity -- exclusivity
Middle Adulthood	40 to 65 years	Generativity vs. Self-Absorption	Parenting: each adult must find some way to satisfy and support the next generation.	Care	overextension -- rejectivity
Maturity	65 to death	Ego Integrity vs. Despair	Reflection on and acceptance of one's life: the culmination is a sense of oneself as one is and of feeling fulfilled.	Wisdom	presumption -- despair

Freud for comparison:

Stage	Age	Process	Outcome
Oral	Birth to 18 months	During the oral stage, the child if focused on oral pleasures (sucking)	Too much or too little gratification can result in an Oral Fixation or Oral Personality which is evidenced by a preoccupation with oral activities. This type of personality may have a stronger tendency to smoke, drink alcohol, over eat, or bite his or her nails. Personality wise, these individuals may become overly dependent upon others, gullible, and perpetual followers. On the other hand, they may also fight these urges and develop pessimism and aggression toward others.
Anal	18 months to three years	The child’s focus of pleasure in this stage is on eliminating and retaining feces. Through society’s pressure, mainly via parents, the child has to learn to control anal stimulation.	In terms of personality, after effects of an anal fixation during this stage can result in an obsession with cleanliness, perfection, and control (anal retentive). On the opposite end of the spectrum, they may become messy and disorganized (anal expulsive).
Phallic	Ages three to six	The pleasure zone switches to the genitals; Oedipus Complex	According to Freud, out of fear of castration and due to the strong competition of his father, boys eventually decide to identify with him rather than fight him. By identifying with his father, the boy develops masculine characteristics and identifies himself as a male, and represses his sexual feelings toward his mother. A fixation at this stage could result in sexual deviancies (both overindulging and avoidance) and weak or confused sexual identity according to psychoanalysts.
Latency	Age six to puberty	It’s during this stage that sexual urges remain repressed and children interact and play mostly with same sex peers.
Genital	Puberty on	The final stage of psychosexual development begins at the start of puberty when sexual urges are once again awakened.	Through the lessons learned during the previous stages, adolescents direct their sexual urges onto opposite sex peers, with the primary focus of pleasure is the genitals.