FREE ESSAY ON ERICSONS THEORY

ERICSONS THEORY

Erik H. Erikson, just like many others, had a theory of socialization process. In his
theory during a human's life they will meet main challenges during eight points in their
life.
The first stage is during infancy, from birth until about the age of eighteen months.
This is the time that infants must begin to trust people, and have the feeling of being
safe. As you would assume family and people that spend a lot of time with them during
this time, help the infant overcome this. The next dilemma one faces comes between the
ages of 18 months and three years of age. This is when they try to become in control of
the actions. Between the ages of four and five kids learn to interact with their
surroundings and try to meet expectations of others. This is when they begin to meet
people other than their family, such as kids at school. The fourth stage, during the ages
of six and thirteen, children begin to make friends and choose their social group they
tend to hang out with. During the teenage years, teenagers begin to create their
identity. There is great confusion during this stage. The sixth stage is when young
adults begin to struggle with intimate relationships and experience the feeling of
falling in love. The next challenge comes during middle adulthood. Middle-aged adults
deal of trying to make differences in other people lives. Getting involved in the
community is just one example. The final stage of life is when older people look back to
see their accomplishments in life. They try to see if the made a difference in other
peoples lives, not just their own.
Erickson's theory may help to us to understand the social process as a whole, but it can
not usually be applied to one individual life. Not everyone deals with the same problems
at certain ages in their life. For example I had to deal with falling in love during my
teenage years. Not during young adulthood as theorized by Erikson. Also many middle age
people begin to look at their lives to see if they had made a difference, and become
proud of their accomplishments, much younger than Erikson states. As you can see this is
good basic theory, but it does not hold true very often.