PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE ( SIGMUND FREUD) :

Most modern psychologist base their understanding children at least

partly on the work of Sigmund Freud. His theories are concerned primarily
with the libido (sexual drive or development). Although Freud did not study
children, his work focused on childhood development as a cause of later
conflict. Freud believed that a child who did not adequately resolve a particular
stage of development would have a fixation (compulsion) that correlated with
that stage. Freud described three levels of consciousness: the id, which controls
physical need and instincts of the body; the ego, the conscious self, which
controls the pleasure principle of the id by delaying the instincts until an
appropriate time; and the superego, the conscience or parental value system.
These consciousness levels interact to check behavior and balance each other.
The psychosexual stages in Freud’s theory are the oral, the anal, the phallic, the
latency and the genital stages of development.
1. Oral sensory stage: ( Infancy – Ages 0- 1 year )
The newborn first relates almost entirely to the mother (or someone
taking a motherly role), and the first experiences with body
satisfaction come through the mouth.
Not only of sucking but also of making noises, crying, obsessive
eating and often, breathing.
Through the mouth baby expresses needs and finds satisfaction and
thus begins to make sense of the world.

2. Anal stage : ( Toddlerhood, 1-3 years )

Interest during the second year of life centers in the anal region as
sphincter muscles develop and children are able to withhold or
expel fecal material at will.
At this stage climate surround toilet training can have lasting
effects on children’s personalities.

3. Phallic stage: ( Early childhood, 3-6 years )

During the phallic stage the genitals become an interesting and
sensitive area of the body.

Children recognize differences between the sexes and become

curious about the dissimilarities.

This is the period around which the controversial issues of the

Oedipus (desire to be a male) and Electra complexes (girls’
attraction with father). Penis envy and castration anxiety are
centered.
4. Latency stage: ( Middle childhood, 6-12 years )
During the latency period children elaborate on previously
acquired traits and skills.
Physical and psychic energy are channeled into the acquisition of
knowledge and vigorous play.

5. Genital stage: ( Adolescence, 12-19 years)

The last significant stage begins at puberty with maturation of the
reproductive system and production of sex hormones.
The genitals become the major source of sexual tension and
pleasure, but energies are also invested in forming friendships and
preparing for marriage.
 PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE (ERIK ERIKSON):

The most widely accepted theory of personality development is that

advanced by Erikson (1963). Although built on Freudian theory, it is known as
the theory of psychosocial development and emphasizes a healthy personality as
opposed to a pathologic approach. Erikson also uses the biological concepts of
critical periods and epigenesist, describing key conflicts or core problems that
the individual strives to master during critical periods in personality
development.
Each psychosocial stage has two components—the favorable and the
unfavorable aspects of the core conflict—and progression to the next stage
depends on resolution of this conflict. No core conflict is ever mastered
completely but remains a recurrent problem throughout life. No life situation is
ever secure. Each new situation presents the conflict in a new form. For
example, when children who have satisfactorily achieved a sense of trust
encounter a new experience (e.g. hospitalization), they must again develop a
sense of trust in those responsible for their care in order to master the situation.
Erikson’s life span approach to personality development consists of eight
stages; however, only the first five relating to childhood are included here, they
are:

1. Trust vs mistrust (birth to 1 year)

The first and most important attribute to develop for a healthy
personality is a basic trust; establishment of basic trust dominates the
first year of life and describes all of a child’s satisfying experiences at
this age.
Corresponding to Freud’s oral stage, it is a time of “getting” and
“taking in” through all the senses. Trust exists only in relation to
something or someone; therefore consistent, loving care by a
mothering person is essential to its development.
Mistrust develops when trust-promoting experiences are deficient or
lacking or when basic needs are inconsistently or inadequately met.
2. Autonomy vs shame and doubt (1 to 3 years)
Corresponding to Freud’s anal stage, the problem of autonomy can be
symbolized by the holding onto and letting go of the sphincter
muscle.
The development of autonomy during the toddler period is centered
around children’s increasing ability to control their bodies,
themselves, and their environment.
Children want to do things for themselves by using their newly
acquired motor skills of walking, climbing, and manipulating and
their mental powers of selection and decision making.
 Much of children’s learning is acquired through imitating the
activities and behavior of other.
Negative feelings of doubt and shame arise when children are made
to feel small and self-conscious, when their choices are disastrous,
when others shame them, or when they are forced to be dependent in
areas in which they are capable of assuming control.
The favorable outcomes are self-control and willpower.
3. Initiative vs guilt (3 to 6 years)
The stage of initiative corresponds to Freud’s phallic stage and is
characterized by vigorous and intrusive behavior, enterprise, and a
strong imagination.
Children explore the physical world with all of their senses and
powers. They develop their conscience.
Children sometimes undertakes goals or activities that are in conflict
with those of parents or others, and being made to feel that their
activities or imaginings are bad produces a sense of guilt.
Children must learn to retain a sense of initiative without impinging
on the rights and privileges of others. The lasting outcomes are
direction and purpose.

4. Industry vs inferiority (6 to 12 years)

The stage of industry is the latency period of Freud.
Having achieved the more crucial stages in personality development,
children are ready to be workers and producers.
They want to engage in tasks and activities that they can carry through
to completion; they need and want real achievement.
Children learn to compete and cooperate with others, and they learn
the rules.
It is decisive period in their social relationship with others.
Feeling of inadequacy and inferiority may develop if too much is
expected of them or if they believe they cannot measure up to the
standards set for them by others.
The ego quality developed from a sense of industry is competence.

5. Identity vs role confusion (12 to 18 years)

Corresponding to Freud’s genital period, the development of identity
is characterized by rapid and marked physical changes.
Previous trust in their bodies is shaken, and children become overly
preoccupied with the way they appear in the eyes of others as
compared with their own self-concept.
Adolescents struggle to fit the roles they have played and hope to play
with the current roles and fashions adopted by their peers, to integrate
 their concepts and values with those of society and to come a decision
regarding an occupation.
Inability to solve the core conflict results in role confusion.
The outcome of successful mastery id devotion and fidelity to others
and to values and ideologies.
 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (JEAN PIAGET)

Cognitive development consists of age-related changes that occur in

mental activities. The best-known theory regarding children’s thinking, and a
more comprehensive developmental theory than those already described, has
been developed by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. According to Piaget,
intelligence enables individuals to make adaptations to the environment that
increase the probability of survival; through their behavior individuals establish
and maintain equilibrium with the environment.
Piaget proposes three stages of reasoning :(1) Intuitive, (2) concrete
operational, and (3) formal operational.
When children enter the stage of concrete logical thought at
approximately 7 years of age, they are able to make logical inferences, classify,
and deal with quantitative relationships about concrete things. Not until
adolescence are, they able to reason abstractly with any degree of competence.
According to Piaget, children proceed through the stages of mental
activity in an orderly and sequential manner. The mechanisms that enable them
to adapt to new situations and to move from one stage to the next are
assimilation and accommodation. By assimilation children incorporate new
knowledge, skill, ideas, and insights into cognitive schemes (Piaget uses the
term ‘schema’=pattern of action and / or thought.) already familiar to them. For
new situations that do not fit into an established schema, children accommodate.
They change and organize existing schemas to solve more difficult tasks and
form new schemas, children’s understanding of a new experience is based on all
relevant previous experiences. Thus, children achieve an accurate understanding
of reality and come to deal with increasingly complex problems in an
increasingly effective manner.
Piaget believed there are four major stages in the development of logical
thinking. Each stage is derived from and builds on the accomplishments of the
previous stage in a continuous, orderly process.

1. Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years)

The sensorimotor stage of intellectual development consists of six
sub stages and that are governed by sensation in which simple
learning takes place.
Children progress from reflex activity through simple, repetitive
behaviors to imitative behavior. They develop a sense of “cause
and effect” as they direct behavior toward objects.
Problem solving is primarily trial and error. They display a high
level of curiosity, experimentation, and enjoyment of novelty and
 begin to develop a sense of self as they are able to differentiate
themselves from their environment.
They become aware that objects have permanence—the objects
exist even when no longer visible.
Toward the end of the sensorimotor period, children begin to use
language and representational thought.

2. Preoperational (2 to 7 years)
The predominant characteristic of the preoperational stage of
intellectual development is egocentrism, which in this sense does
not mean selfishness or self-centeredness but rather the inability to
put oneself in the place of another.
Children interpret objects and events not in terms of general
properties but in terms of their relationships or their use to them.
They are unable to see things from any perspective other than their
own; they cannot see another’s point of view, nor can they see any
reason to do so.
Preoperational thinking is concrete and tangible. Children cannot
reason beyond the observable, and they lack the ability to make
deductions or generalizations. Thought is dominated by what they
see, hear, or otherwise experience.
Through imaginative play, questioning, and other interactions, they
begin to elaborate concepts and to make simple associations
between ideas.
In the latter stage of this period their reasoning is intuitive (e.g. the
stars need to go to bed just as they do).
Reasoning is also transudative—because two events occur
together, they cause each other or knowledge of one characteristic
is transferred to another. (E.g. all women with big bellies have
babies.)

3. Concrete operations (7 to 11 years)

At this age thought becomes increasingly logical and coherent.
Children are able to classify, sort, order, and otherwise organize
facts about the world to use in problem solving.
Develop new concept of permanence—conservation i.e. they
realize that physical factors such as volume, weight, and number
remain the same even though outward appearances are changed.
They are able to deal simultaneously with a number of different
aspects of a situation. They do not have the capacities to deal in
abstraction; they solve problems in a concrete, systematic fashion
based on what they can perceive.
 Reasoning is inductive. Through progressive changes in thought
processes and relationship with others, thought becomes less self-
centered.
Children can consider points of view other than their own.
Thinking has become socialized.

4. Formal operations (11 to 15 year)

Formal operational thought is characterized by adaptability and
flexibility. Adolescents can think in abstract terms, use abstract
symbols, and draw logical conclusions from a set of observations,
e.g. they can solve “if A is larger than B, and B is larger than C,
which symbol is the largest?” (the answer is A)
They can make hypotheses and test them; they can consider
abstract, theoretic, and philosophic matters.
They may confuse the ideal with the practical; most contradictions
in the world can be dealt with and resolved.
 MORAL DEVELOPMENT (KOHLBERG)

It is theorized that children develop moral reasoning in an invariant

developmental sequence. To understand the stages in the development of moral
judgment, it is important to be aware of the stages of logical thought and its
relationships to cognitive development and moral behavior. Moral development
is based on cognitive developmental theory and consists of three major levels,
each with two stages (Kohlberg, 1968)
Kohlberg’s theory allows for prediction of behavior but pays little
attention to individual differences. Questions arise relative to observed sex
differences in attainment of the various sequences of moral development. It has
been argued that the theory was derived from interviews with male adults and
may not reflect feminine moral reasoning.
The preconventional level of morality parallels the preconceptual level of
cognitive development and intuitive thought. At this level morality is external
because children conform to rules imposed by authority figures. Culturally
oriented to the labels of good/bad and right/wrong, children integrate these
labels in terms of the physical or pleasurable consequences of their actions. The
two stages of this level are:
Stage: 1. The punishment-and-obedience orientation.
Children determine the goodness or badness of an action in
terms of its consequences.
They avoid punishment and obey unquestioningly those who
have the power to determine and enforce the rules and labels.
They have no concepts of the underlying moral order that
supports these consequences.

Stage: 2.The instrumental-relativist orientation.

The right behavior consists of that which satisfies the child’s
own needs (and sometimes the needs of others).
Elements of fairness, reciprocity, and equal sharing are evident;
they are interpreted in a very practical, concrete manner
without the element of loyalty, gratitude, or justice.

At the conventional level children are concerned with conformity and loyalty;
actively maintaining, supporting, and justifying the social order; and personal
expectations of those significant in their lives. They value the maintenance
family, group, or national expectations regardless of consequences. This level
correlates with the concrete operational stage in cognitive development and
consists of two stages:
Stage: 3. The interpersonal concordance or “good boy-nice girl”
orientation.
Behavior that meets with approval and pleases or helps others is
viewed as good.
Conformity to the norm is the “natural” behavior, and one earns
approval by being “nice”.

Stage: 4. The “law and order” orientation.

Obeying the rules, doing one’s duty, showing respect for
authority, and maintaining the social order is the correct
behavior.
The rules and authority can be social or religious, depending on
which is most valued.

At the postconventional, autonomous, or principled level children have reached

the cognitive formal operational stage, and they endeavor to define moral values
and principles that are valid and applicable beyond the authority of the groups
and persons holding these principles. This level is not associated with the
individual’s identification with these groups.
Stage: 5. The social-contract, legalistic orientation.
Correct behavior tends to be defined in terms of general
individual rights and standards that have been examined and
agreed on by the entire society.
Procedural rules for reaching consensus become important, with
emphasis on the legal point of view; there is also emphasis on
the possibility of changing law in terms of societal needs and
rational considerations.
Agreement and contract outside the legal realm are binding
elements of obligation.

The most advanced level of moral development is one in which self-chosen

ethical principles guide decisions of conscience. These are abstract, ethical, and
universal principles of justice and human rights with respect for the dignity of
persons as individuals. It is believed that few persons reach this stage of moral
reasoning.