A MATRIX OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THEORIES

Prepared by Samuel B. Batara

Life Stage Developmental Task Psychosocial Crisis Erikson’s Psychosocial Freud’s Mahler’s Theory of Piaget's theory
(Erik Erikson) Development Developmental Development
Phases
Infancy Social Attachment Trust vs. Mistrust Oral-Sensory Stage Oral Phase(0-8 Normal Autistic sensory motor stage
Sensorimotor Intelligence and (Birth to one year) months) Phase (birth to 2 years)
(Birth - 2) primitive causality Anal Phase(9 (Birth to 4 weeks)
Object permanence mos. – 2 yrs)
Maturation of motor functions Birth to 4 weeks
Normal Symbiotic
Phase

4 weeks to 5 months
(3-4 weeks to
4-5 months)
Toddlerhood Self-control Autonomy, Pride vs. Muscular-Anal Stage Phallic Phase Separation- preoperational stage
(2 - 4) Language Development Shame, Doubt (1 year to 3 years) (2-6) Individuation Proper (2 - 7 years)
Fantasy and play Differentiation
Elaboration of Locomotion
Differentiation

5 to 10 months
Practicing

Practicing

10 to 16 months
Rapprochement

Rapprochement

16 to 24 months
Object Constancy
24 to 36 months
Early School Gender-role Initiative vs. Guilt Locomotor Genital Latency Phase
Age identification Stage (3 to 5 years) (6-11 years)
 (5 - 7) Early moral development
Preoperational thought
Group Play

Middle Social cooperation Industry vs. Inferiority Latency Stage Concrete operational
School Age Self-evaluation (6 to 11 years) stage
(8 - 12) Skill learning (7 - 11 years)
Team play
Concrete operational thought

Early Physical maturation Group Identity vs. Adolescent Stage Genital Stage stage of formal
Adolescence Formal operations Alienation (11 years and through (11-18 years) operations
(13 - 17) Membership in the peer group end of adolescence) (11 – 15 yrs)
Sexualized relationships

Life Stage Developmental Task Psychosocial Crisis Erikson’s Psychosocial Freud’s Mahler’s Theory of Piaget's theory
(Erik Erikson) Development Developmental Development
Phases
Later Autonomy from parents Individual Identity vs.
Adolescence Internalized morality Role Diffusion
(18 - 22) Career Choice

Early Marriage/ Relationships Intimacy vs. Isolation Early Adulthood

Adulthood Childbearing Work
(23 - 30) Lifestyle

Middle Household management Generativity vs. Middle Adulthood

Adulthood Child rearing Stagnation
Career management
(31 - 50)
Later Redirection of energy to new Ego Integrity vs. Maturity Stage
Adulthood roles Despair The aging years
(51 and up) Acceptance of one's life
Developing a point of view
about death

Footnotes:
Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development

Erikson's Oral-Sensory Stage (Birth to one year)

• Social mistrust demonstrated via ease of feeding, depth of sleep, bowel relaxation
• Depends on consistency and sameness of experience provided by caretaker
• Second six-months teething and biting moves infant "from getting to taking"
• Weaning leads to "nostalgia for lost paradise"
• If basic trust is strong, child maintains hopeful attitude
During the first stage, the oral-sensory stage, the basic crisis centers on the development of either trust or mistrust. An infant is almost completely dependent on others
for the fulfillment of his needs. If these needs are consistently satisfied and if he receives love and stimulation with those he comes in contact with those he comes in
contact with, he will develop a sense of trust, not only in others but in himself and in his ability to handle his needs.
If, on the other hand, his needs are not satisfied regularly and he receives little love, attention and stimulation, he will develop a sense of mistrust. If the mistrust is
severs, the child may become timid and withdrawn since he has given up hope of ever achieving his goals. Erikson believes that the development of a healthy
personality is contingent upon the formation of a basic trust -- the individual's belief that his existence is meaningful.

Erikson's Muscular-Anal Stage (1 year to 3 years)

• Biologically includes learning to walk, feed self, talk
• Muscular maturation sets stage for "holding on and letting go"
• Need for outer control, firmness of caretaker prior to development of autonomy
• Shame occurs when child is overtly self-conscious via negative exposure
• Self-doubt can evolve if parents overly shame child, e.g. about elimination

Erikson's Locomotor Genital Stage (3 to 5 years)

• Initiative arises in relation to tasks for the sake of activity, both motor and intellectual
• Guilt may arise over goals contemplated (especially aggressive)
• Desire to mimic adult world; involvement in oedipal struggle leads to resolution via social role identification.
• Sibling rivalry frequent

Erikson's Latency Stage (6 to 11 years)

• Child is busy building, creating, accomplishing
• Receives systematic instruction as well as fundamentals of technology
• Danger of sense of inadequacy and inferiority if child despairs of his tools/skills and status among peers
• Socially decisive age
Erikson's Adolescent Stage (11 years and through end of adolescence)
• Struggle to develop ego identity (sense of inner sameness and continuity)
• Preoccupation with appearance, hero worship, ideology
• Group identity (peers) develops
• Danger of role confusion, doubts about sexual and vocational identity
• Psychosocial moratorium, a stage between morality learned by the child and the ethics to be developed by the adult

Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud's Oral Phase

The oral phase begins at birth and lasts eight months. It is characterized by the infant's concern for his mouth and gratification he feels from oral stimuli. The most obvious
oral activity the child derives pleasure from is eating. Oral stimulation, however, is also produced by engaging in such activities as sucking, biting, swallowing and
manipulating various parts of the mouth. Freud contended that these activities are he child's means of fulfilling his sexual urges. Hence, Eros (the life instinct) makes its
appearance. But Thanatos (the death instinct) is also seen since quite frequently children destroy objects they come in contact with, often by biting them.
During this phase, the child's personality is controlled by the id. He demands immediate gratification of his wants.

Other phases related to Oral Phase:

• Trust vs. Mistrust
• Primary narcissism
• Need-satisfying
• paranoid-schizoid position
• part-object relations
• normal autism
• Birth

Freud’s Anal Phase

The anal stage of motivational development is characterized by the child's central area of bodily concern in the rectum. Bowel movements become a source of pleasure to the
child. He may defecate often to achieve this pleasure. This, however, would bring him into conflict with his parents. The conflict leads the child to develop an ego. He comes
to realize that he cannot always do what he wants when he wants. He learns that there are certain times when it it appropriate to expel waste and other times when it is
inappropriate. He gradually comes to understand his mother's wishes and abides by them.

Freud's Phallic Phase

The child's central interest shifts to the genital region. This stage is called the phallic phase and lasts from approximately two years of age to age six. Sexual gratification
becomes more erotic during this time as evidenced by the child's masturbation: actual manipulation of the genitals.
It is during this stage that he phallus acquires a special significance. Freud believed that the increased awareness in the male of his sexual organs leads him to subconsciously
desire his mother. In addition, the male child grows envious and resentful of his father and wishes to replace him as the object of his mother's love. The situation is called the
Oedipus Complex.
Similarly, a female undergoes a complex wherein she desires her father and rivals with her mother for her father's affections. This is called the Electra Complex. This
complex involves penis envy on the part of the female child. She believes that she once had a penis but that it was removed. In order to compensate for its loss, Freud
believed the girl wants to have a child by her father. Eventually, however, both the boy and the girl pas through these complexes. Once this happens, they begin to identify
with the parent of their own sex. This marks the end of the phallic phase and the beginning of a new one.

Freud’s Latency Period

The period of latency is characterized by indifference to sexually related matters. During this time, the child's identification with the parent of his own sex becomes stronger.
The child imitates his or her behavior -- speech, gestures, mannerisms, as well as beliefs and value systems. The child also incorporates more and more of the beliefs and
values of his culture. Thus, the super-ego is developing to a greater extent. (It began to develop during the late anal and phallic stages. The child comes to distinguish
between acceptable and unacceptable behavior in his society.
The period of latency is also marked by the fact that children seek associations ( or playmates) of their own sex. Boys prefer the company of boys and consciously avoid
girls. Girls prefer contact with other girls and avoid boys. This period of sexual latency lasts five years, from ages six to eleven.

Freud's Genital Phase

The genital phase is the longest of the five stages. It lasts seven years from ages eleven to eighteen. This period is similar to the anal stage. There is a renewed interest and
pleasure derived from excretory activity. In addition, masturbation takes place and is engaged in much more frequently at this time than during the anal stage.
In the beginning of the genital phase, the person seeks associations with members of his own sex just as in the latency period. But the associations are stronger in the genital
phase and Freud believed that they are homosexual in nature, even though homosexual activity may not take place. As this period progresses, however, the homosexual
tendencies are supplanted by heterosexual ones and toward the latter part of this phase, the child makes contact and forms relationships with members of the opposite sex.
Also at this time, the superego undergoes further development and becomes more flexible. In the latency period the superego is quite rigid. The child adopts rules in the most
literal sense. During the genital phase, the individual realizes that some rules are less vital than others. Consequently, his behavior will reflect this. He accepts some rules or
norms and makes exceptions to others.

Margaret Mahler's Theory of Development

Mahler's Normal Autistic Phase (Birth to 4 weeks)

• State of half-asleep, half-awake
• Major task to phase is to achieve homeostatic
equilibrium with the environment
•
Mahler's Normal Symbiotic Phase (3-4 weeks to 4-5 months)
• Dim awareness of caretaker, but infant still functions as if he and caretaker are in state of undifferentiation or fusion
• Social smile characteristic (two to four months)
Mahler's First Subphase - Differentiation (5 to 10 months)
• Process of hatching from autisic shell, i.e., developing more alert sensorium that reflects cognitive and neurological maturation
• Beginning of camparative scanning, i.e., comparing what is and what is not mother
• Characteristic anxiety: stranger anxiety, shich involves curiosity and fear (most prevalent around 8 months)
•
Mahler's Second Subphase - Practicing (10 to 16 months)
• Beginning of this marked by upright locomotion -- child has new perspective and also mood of elation
• Mother used as home base
• Characteristic anxiety: separation anxiety
•
Mahler's Third Subphase - Rapprochement (16 to 24 months)
• Infant now a toddler -- more aware of physical separateness, which dampens mood of elation
• Child tries to bridge gap between himself and mother -- concretely seen as bringing objects to mother
• Mother's efforts to help toddler often not perceived as helpful, temper tantrums typical
• Characteristic event: rapprochement crisis. Wanting to be soothed by mother and yet not be able to accept her help
• Symbol of rapprochement: child standing on threshold of door not knowing wich way to turn in helpless frustration
• Resolution of crisis occurs as child's skills improve and child able to get gratification from doing things himself
•
Mahler's Object Constancy Phase (24 to 36 months)
• Child better able to cope with mother's absence and engage substitutes
• Child can begin to feel comfortable with mother's absences by knowing she will return
• Gradual internalization of image of mother as reliable and stable
• Through increasing verbal skills and better sense of time, child can tolerate delay and endure separations

Jean Piaget’s Theory

Piaget’s Sensory-Motor Period (birth – 2 years) (Pavlov’s dynamic equilibrium)

• The child achieves adaptation through a process of assimilation and accommodation
• Construction of the permanent object

Piaget’s Pre-conceptual intelligence stage (2-4 years)

• Child is beginning to develop concepts; individual versus class of objects
Piaget’s Intuitive thinking stage (4-7 yrs)
• Child begins to acquire basic skills and effective communication
• Grasp of spatial relationships and causality

Piaget’s Concrete operations stage (8 – 11 yrs)

• Child is able to think about actions
• Child is still tied to the concrete

Piaget’s Formal operations stage (11 – 15 yrs)

• Child starts to become independent of concrete reality, reasons with propositions;
• manipulates relations between things

Copyright © 2001 - 2008 Samuel B. Batara, All rights reserved.