Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages: Exploring the Development and Behavior of Children

My parents didn't really read books about child-rearing advice, but they did look at books about development and milestones. They were interested in paying attention to when I was supposed to be at a developmental milestone. For example, I apparently started walking at an earlier age than usual, yet was a bit stubborn during potty training. My parents took an interest in those milestones and how I performed when they came up.

I don't think that the concerns of today's parents are really that different from my generation's parents. They both pay close attention to the development and behaviors of the child, making sure everything looks normal. They might be nervous about whether or not they are or will be doing a good job raising their child, which is something I would expect every parent who cares to have thoughts about.

People who are not as fond of the psychoanalytic perspective find behaviorism to be a more fulfilling way of studying child psychology. Instead of "unseen events," as psychoanalysts were interested in, behaviorists focus on things that one can notice happening. They found stimuli and the resulting responses, and recorded them for future use. For example, Pavlov found out classical conditioning when he trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell.

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Then Watson was inspired by that study and made a similar one with an infant; teaching him to associate white rats with fear and alarm. Another researcher who was interested in behaviorism instead of psychoanalysis was Albert Bandura, who then contributed to the social learning theory. He found that children get information such as personality traits, behaviors and ideas from others through modeling, or by observing others, and then copying their behaviors.

But one characteristic of the behaviorism is the fact that it seems to act like people rely entirely on others to develop. Jean Piaget is a cognitive theorist that noticed this flaw and found a way to explain another aspect of development. While others' contributions to our development are important and do help, we also can help ourselves. Piaget established a theory known as the Cognitive-Developmental Theory. As a child experiences the world around them, they constantly learn things for themselves. For example, as they child tries to learn about and manipulate the world around them, they adapt to the world. They slowly revise and edit faulty knowledge and ideas in stages.

These stages are known as Piaget's stages of cognitive development. In each stage the child has a distinct way of thinking. Babies learn and think by moving around and interacting with their world. When they are toddlers they start to learn language, but have yet to use logic in their thinking. Once they are in elementary school, thought becomes logical and more organized. By the time the child is 11 years old, they have the abstract thinking of adults.

The three domains of development are all intertwined and interconnected while we grow and learn as a child and beyond. They are physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development. Psychoanalytic theory has physical aspects of development, as well as social and emotional growth that are found in the social learning theory. Behaviorism focuses on the psychosocial development from the Psychoanalytic theory.

For example, Eric Erikson's psychosocial stages are intertwined with behaviors and social impacts. Behavior modification combines conditioning and modeling to create a better social development, and is influenced by psychosocial stages such as the autonomy vs shame/doubt stage, and the industry versus inferiority stage. And in order for all of these processes to develop in both the behavioral and social development, the physical brain development and the resulting cognitive development must happen simultaneously too.

Piaget's Cognitive-Developmental Theory is intertwined with Erikson's Psychosocial Stages, because we are human beings who need a balance between learning and developing on our own as well as with others. In Piaget's Preoperational Stage and Erikson's Initiative versus Guilt stage, children use make-believe play to learn and grow in themselves. Piaget's theory acknowledges the physical aspect of development, since the brain must develop in order for cognitive processes to develop.

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