Essay On Erikson's Psychosocial Theory

Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory is one of the best-known theories of personality in psychology. Erikson extended Freud’s work which describe the stages of development to include all of the human lifespan, that is from infancy trough old age. Erikson suggested that there are plenty of the space for us to develop and well developed in our behaviour and learning since birth to death as people will be mature and grow older. One of the important elements of Erikson’s psychosocial theory is the development of ego identity. Ego identity is the conscious sense of self that we developing within the social interaction. According to Erikson, our ego identity is continuously changing because of the new information and experiences that we acquire in

In this stage infant need the support and taking care by others specially their mother. When they feel scare, hungry or pain they will cry loud, whether their mother at this moment give a speedy response will establish the level of the trust. Mother play an important role in this stage and Erikson believed if the mother show love and customary way to fulfil the needs of infant then they will build up the trust, if mother rejected and using non-customary way to treat the infant then they will feel mistrust. The customary way mean the mother’s teaching and loving way with regularity, consistency and continuity toward the infant. Through the interaction with mother, infant will get to know the world is predicable, safety and full of love. For example if mother rejected to give love to infant, he/she will easy frustrated in future, and infant will mistrust the world, in the other hand, if infant will the love and trust from mother, he/she will become independent in the future. Erikson pointed out that if the infant’s basic trust is higher then basic mistrust then will create the sense of hope which need to meet the challenges presented at later stages of development. Hope is the basic strength is this stage and the opposition of hope is a lack of hope and withdrawal. He believed that the trust in first and early stage of an individual life is important, if children get the