Erik Erikson (1902-1994) came up with these 8 psychosocial stages as an improvement on Freud's Psychosexual Stages. They map a human's development throughout their life, and as each stage is resolved it determines the person's personality and social behavior. Each stage has a possible positive and negative outcome. They are still recognized as useful today, although other models have since come to the forefront.

1. Basic trust v. Mistrust. Birth to 1 year. From warm, responsive care infants gain trust or confidence that the world is good.

2. Autonomy v. Shame and Doubt. 1-3 years. Children start to use new mental and motor skills, and want to choose for themselves. Autonomy is created when the parents alow reasonable freedom and don't force or shame the child.

3. Initiative v. Guilt. 3-6 years. Children use play to experiment with what kind of person they might become. If the parent demand too much self-control the child might become insecure with who they are.

4. Industry v. Inferiority. 6-11 years. Children learn to work and cooperate with others. Negative experiences may lead to feelings of incompetence and inferiority.

5. Identity v. Identity diffusion. Adolescence. The adolescence tries to discover 'Who am I, and what is my place in society?' The resolution (or not) of this will result in your views on your future adult roles.

6. Intimacy v. Isolation. Young adulthood. Young people work on establishing intimate ties with others. Because of early disappointments an individual may not be able to form lasting relationships.

7. Generativity v. Stagnation. Middle adulthood. Generativity means giving to the next generation through work, children, or caring for other people. Failing to do this can make you feel that your life is meaningless.

8. Ego integrity v. Despair. Old age. In this final stage, people reflect on what type of life they led. If they are not happy with their life, they feel despair and fear death overmuch.

Erikson's stages of development are as follows:

Stage 1: Infancy

Infancy encompasses approximately the first year of life and parallels Freud's oral phase of development. Erikson's model adopts a broader focus than Freud's oral stage, which was concerned almost exclusively with the mouth. According to Erikson, infancy is a time of incorporation, with infants "taking in" not only through their mouth, but various sense organs as well.

Stage 2: Early Childhood

Early childhood parallels Freud's anal stage and emcompasses approximately the second and third years of life. Freud regarded the anus as the primary erogenous zone during this period and that during the early sadistic-anal phase, children recieve pleasure in destroying or losing objects, while later they take satisfaction in defecating. To Erikson, young children recieve pleasure not only from mastering the sphincter muscle, but also from mastering other body functions such as urinating, walking, throwing, holding, and so on.

Stage 3: Play Age

Play Age covers the same time as Freud's Phallic phase, being roughly three to five years of age. Freud placed the Oedipus complex at the core of the phallic stage. Erikson believed that the Oedipus complex is but one of several important developments during the play age. Erikson contended that, in addition to identifying with their parents, preschool-age children are developing locomotion, language skills, curiosity, imagination, and the ability to set goals.

Stage 4: School Age

Erikson's concept of school age covers development from about age six to approximately age twelve or thirteen and matches the latency years of Freud's theory. During this stage, the social world of children is expanding beyond family to include peers, teachers, and other adult models. For school-age children, their wish to know becomes strong and is tired to their basic striving for competence.

Stage 5: Adolescence

Adolescence is the period from puberty to early adulthood. It is one of the most crucial development stages because, by the end of the period, a person must gain a sense of identity. It is an adaptive phase of personality development, a period of trial and error.

Stage 6: Young Adulthood

People in young adulthood must acquire the ability to fuse the identity gained during adolescence with the identity of another person while maintaining their sense of individuality. This stage, which covers ages nineteen through thirty, is circumscribed not so much by time as by the acquisition of intimacy at the beginning of the stage and the development of generativity at the end. For some people, this stage is relatively short, lasting only a few years. For others, young adulthood may continue for several decades.

Stage 7: Adulthood

Adulthood is the time when people begin to take their place in society and assume responsibility for whatever society produces. For most people, this is the longest stage of development, spanning the years from about age thirty-one to sixty.

Stage 8: Old Age

This is the final stage of development. Erikson was in his early fortys when he first conceptualized this stage and arbitrarily defined it as the period from about age sixty to the end of life. This phase basically encompasses the idea that even though reproductive capabilities may be absent, old people can remain productive and creative in other ways. They can be caring grandparents of their grandchildren as well as other younger members of society. Old age can be a time of joy, playfulness, and wonder, but it is also a time of senility, depression, and despair.

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