Erik Erikson developed the most common theories of emotional development.

And, Lawrence Kohlberg developed the dominant theories of moral development.

Let’s look at Erikson first.

Erikson saw the world as a series of age-matched developmental crises, and he conceptualized these
crises as binary and competing values. He didn’t think of the crises as bad things; rather, each crisis
represented an opportunity to move forward.

Infancy, for example, is characterized by Trust (a positive value) versus Mistrust (a negative value).
Adolescence is a battle between Identity Formation (good) versus Role Diffusion (bad). According to
Erickson, if these binary crises are not successfully negotiated—if an infant, for instance, can’t trust the
adults of the world to keep him warm and fed and held—then that infant will grow up with a
fundamental lack of trust, and at some point, will have to actively address this issue. These ideas
actually stem directly from the psychoanalytic notions that Sigmund Freud put on the map, namely that
past experience influences future feelings and behaviors. Erickson studied children and adults, and he
characterized each stage of development as follows:

Hope: Trust vs. Mistrust (2 years)

Will: Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (2-4 years)

Purpose: Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool, 4-5 years)

Competence: Industry vs. Inferiority (5-12 years)

Fidelity: Identity vs. Role Confusion (13-19 years)

Love: Intimacy vs. Isolation (20-40 years)

Care: Generativity vs. Stagnation (40-64 years)

Wisdom: Ego Integrity vs. Despair (65-death)

You can see from the bold print that Erickson associated certain personality characteristics with
successful passage through these crises. He called these characteristics values. The infant who can
trust, develops hope; the young adult who can be intimate, develops the capacity to love. In this sense,
Erickson created a mechanism by which different individuals can be developmentally assessed. The
adult who feels ashamed is automatically thrown back to the age where she first experienced shame; as
shame occurs at around age 2 to 4, Erickson would argue that the ashamed adult will more likely act like
a toddler. And, an adult behaving like a toddler gets into more trouble. This helps to provide a roadmap
for the clinician.

This way of looking at development has its critics. Many have argued that Erickson’s theories are
primarily Western, and as the world becomes more multi-cultural, one must be wary of the
generalizations that Erickson’s work might engender. Not all cultures, for example, view adolescence as
a time for identity formation.

Gil Noam, an internationally-known developmental psychologist at Harvard, has noted as well that
Erickson seemed to skip an important stage between the values of competence and fidelity. Noam
notes that young adolescents, or middle school kids, are less concerned with who they are as
individuals, and more with what group defines them—hence, the emphasis on popularity in middle
school. Noam calls this the “Psychology of Belonging,” and he has shown through numerous studies
that young teens can be helped most by being made to feel that they belong.
All of this helped to set the stage for Lawrence Kohlberg (he came after Erickson and Piaget, but actually
worked directly with Erickson). Kohlberg decided that if kids move along their development both
emotionally and cognitively, then they must also move forward morally.

If you think about it, this was pretty radical—do human beings pass through clearly-defined stages of
brain development that correlate with how they make moral decisions? This was Kohlberg’s question.

A review of all of Kohlberg’s work is beyond the scope of this post. We can summarize it, though, and
the best way to do that is to describe the story Kohlberg told all of the people he studied. The story is
fictional, but not outlandish; it sets up a clear moral dilemma, and Kohlberg paid attention to how
different people of different ages made sense of the story. He called this “The Heinz Story,” and
although there are many versions, the story roughly went like this:

Kohlberg wasn’t as interested in what most people said they would do; after all, he soon discovered,
most people argued for stealing the medicine. Kohlberg was instead interested in why people thought
that it was OK to steal the medicine. From asking thousands of people of all ages what Heinz ought to
do, Kohlberg discerned what he felt were predictable stages of moral development. Not everyone, he
cautioned, would reach all of these stages despite their age, and it was perhaps this conclusion that
created the most controversy.

Generally speaking, Kohlberg felt that moral development was characterized first by a more or less
amoral stage: you want what you want regardless of right or wrong. In fact, little kids don’t even
understand the concept of right versus wrong. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to get angry at a 2-
year-old for cheating—they don’t, and can’t, understand the concept of cheating. However, after
around age 3, kids start to appreciate right and wrong, but they do so as a function of external
punishments. As kids age, Kohlberg noted, they move through different views of the concepts of right
and wrong. They might start with a fear of punishment, but then they move to a desire for approval.
Slowly, they make their way from external drivers of what to do to internal notions of what constitutes
the right thing to do.

Kohlberg called the final stages of moral development “post conventional.” By that he meant that
people at these stages were deciding what to do as a function of their own internal compasses, and not
as a function of how they ought to behave because of the conventions of their society.

What are educational implications of Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development?

Erikson showed developmental stages that seamlessly integrate into a comprehensive theory of
personality based on self-organization. Each stage corresponds to access to a structural level. Our
maturation is discontinuous. The trouble is that every child will not access them the same age and with
the same ease. A chance for our diversity? This complicates the task of educators. Easier to teach a class
of children at the same stage than a heterogeneous class, especially if these children are given the same
social status because they belong to the same generation. Prioritization is pejorative. Things were better
in rural classrooms mixing different generations and different scholar levels: the social position of tall
and little ones was clear, and mutual support could be exercised easily. In a classroom of the same age,
the least developed are “drags” and the most advanced « pretentious”.

Since identical educational prerequisites are asked to all students, their different potentials clearly
come, early, from the innate. Of course difficult social ambience complicated life of some. But it is not
insurmountable for a teacher. Method affair. By cons, when confronted with a real misunderstanding,
because the mind circuits are not mature, stress leads to destroy the confidence of the student.

The construction of personality is the interaction of two streams of solicitations: instinctive intentions
and requests of the environment. It slowly raised the psychic building, floor by floor, with a structure
and means deeply tattooed by innate. When requests far exceed the capabilities, the simplest
protection is to ignore them. Various possible methods, from introversion to the construction of an
illusory universe. Appear neurosis, which are construction defects related to non-compliance to the
specification: the plan ceases to be interactive between the two streams, instinct and environment.
Neurosis is an overly instinctive behavior. The reverse abuse is equally pathological: an omnipotent,
colonialist environment for the child psyche produces colorless personalities: excessive right-thinking.

So must see Erikson theory not as a series of steps to achieve in order and on time, but as benchmarks
for educators to analyze the personality of their students and adapt their requests. They can also
encourage their flock to be aware of their shortcomings. All this takes time, energy, is rarely profitable
(except empathy from kids). With both parents at work and no increase in the social budget that would
allow a customized education, young minds continue to bump along on a road full of ruts of life, and
produce the great diversity of adults we know . The society seen by our self-organizational theory can
only be a dynamic of conflicts and never equilibrium.

How to Apply Kohlberg's Theory in the Classroom

Lawrence Kohlberg's theory on moral development can be applied to the classroom where rules,
standards, and consequences are concerned. The theory tracks an individual's level of moral reasoning
by assigning him to one of six stages, where the first stage is a basic submission to authority and the last
is universal ethics for all. As an educator, consider where your students' personal development lies in
terms of Kohlberg's six stages. Then work toward achieving optimal moral character along the lines of
Kohlberg's level six "Universal Principals" for a positive and constructive learning environment.

Students at stage one behave appropriately to avoid punishment. At stage two, students behave to earn
rewards. By stage three, students start thinking about other people and caring about their expectations.
Give students the opportunity to help create a classroom code of conduct. In this way, they will become
responsible for the rules that they set and follow them accordingly, rather than blindly agreeing to
standards set by school administrators or other authorities.

Allow for a written self evaluation as part of any disciplinary consequence. It does not have to be
lengthy, but it should provide the student with adequate time to review their own reasoning for
misbehavior and to come up with a solution for the future. This type of action relates to Kohlberg's
fourth stage of morality, in which individuals do their part to maintain order by reflecting on the impact
of their words and actions.

Plan group projects where students work together toward the understanding of curriculum instead of
sitting back and listening to the teacher talk at them. Group activities encourage engagement.
Responsibility for learning is placed squarely onto the students, facilitating adherence to the classroom
goal of educational enrichment. Collaborate learning supports Kohlberg's fifth morality stage, which
relates to upholding a social contract.

Make time for role play, whether it be related to the curriculum or used as a problem solving tool. By
acting or seeing situations through the eyes of others, students gain a more broad understanding of
what is taking place. This helps them to make decisions based not on themselves, but on a commitment
to the group. Similarly, they have advanced to Kohlberg's sixth stage, in which the needs of every person
in society are worth considering. In a classroom, a brief skit or scenario can help students focus on
making sure everyone is involved and engaged in learning