Erik Erickson Freud and Jean Piaget’s Psychosexual Development Theory
Introduction
Modern psychologists such as Freud, Erickson, and Piaget were among the first to propose ideas on child development. Their research has had a favorable influence on psychology and the study of personality and development. These theories were examined in this study for their primary differences and similarities and why each theory was formed with a focus on race and gender, socioeconomic position, and diversity in mind.
Freud’s Psychosexual Development Theory
Freud based his research on psychoanalysis, and as an Australian neurologist, he produced several ideas that emphasize the theory and the development of the psychosexual self. For Sigmund Freud, the conscious and unconscious were key components in explaining how a person’s personality develops. According to Freud, life is a dynamic equilibrium of many forces because of the conscious and unconscious battle. Sigmund Freud made a case for the existence of three distinct mental systems: the id, which is the inherited psychological aspect of a person and is present at birth; the ego, which controls how a person interacts with their environment; and the superego, which is the moral section of a person’s personality.
According to an investigation, psychosexual development theory focuses on the Oedipus complex, which supports the idea that male infants prefer to gravitate toward their mothers. The anal stage (18 months to 3 years), phallic stage (3 years to 6 years), latency phase (6 years to 12 years), and genital stage were all defined by Sigmund Freud (13 years and above). Each stage represents a different phase of an individual’s development.
Erik Erickson’s psychosocial theory
Erickson was a German psychoanalyst whose work was heavily affected by Freud’s ideologies. Erickson applied one of Freud’s theories, the ego, even though he didn’t always agree with all of his ideas. He discussed how social contact affects human growth and how the ego functions consciously. Erickson highlighted the significance of social interaction in a person’s growth and maturation. He devised a set of eight phases of development that are critical to a person’s ability to succeed in the real world, making the case that a person must be treated with respect, which he defined as having an equal sense of ego. When it comes to personal growth and change, he identified eight phases: trust and distrust, autonomy and guilt, initiative and culpability, industry and the role of ambiguity, self-identity and isolation, generativity and immobility, and integrity and hopelessness, among others. Each stage has a struggle arising from developing a certain psychological trait.
Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Theory
The cognitive theory outlines a child’s developmental phases using the essential concepts. Schemata, according to Piaget, are mental structures that reflect the world. Schemata vary throughout a child’s growth due to assimilation and adaptation during the learning process. A delicate balance must be struck between assimilation and accommodation to ensure a child’s development. Piaget developed four phases of growth: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete stage, and formal operations to back up his claim.
The similarities
These three early development theories have a lot in common, starting with using stages to describe how people’s minds grow. Throughout each step of the growth process, there is a conflict caused by the multiple development techniques intertwining. Because each level builds on the previous one, the stages are sequential. When one step is unsuccessful, the whole process is halted. Secondly, all three theories investigated the concept of growth via a learning process that expands during an individual’s lifetime.
Three things bind these three thinkers together: their work has had a significant impact on society and, more specifically, on the early years of development, when children are still absorbing a large amount of information. Psychologists and educators have devised curricula based on these notions to aid children in their quest to become good citizens one day. These early thinkers also highlighted the need for a safe and secure environment for children’s development to prepare them for adult life.
Differences
In Freud’s theory, the emphasis was on the development of sexuality, thus the term “psychosexual development” of a person. On the other hand, Erickson’s hypothesis described how social events affect a person’s lifetime. He made this clear by including additional details on each person’s childhood, social growth, and cultural background. When compared to Freud and Erickson’s theories, Piaget’s hypothesis only looked at children under 12 years old. It became clear that the phases of development described in these two early development theories differed somewhat from one another.
The first hypotheses were based on observations and psychoanalytic studies of people’s behavior and actions as they grew up. Consequently, there is worry about the various environments created by each theory. In other words, for example, Freud’s theory was founded on a theoretical examination of the mind’s workings via a theoretical lens. However, detractors, the majority of whom are scientists, have voiced concerns about socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and gender. They didn’t have any experimental evidence to back them up, which means they can’t be taken seriously as facts. Critics like feminists worried that the ideas were patriarchal, i.e., male-dominated, expressed misogynistic concerns about the theories (male-narcissism). It has been argued that Piaget’s hypothesis is flawed because it does not adequately account for cultural influences on the development of cognition.