Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Personality

Described personality development as a series of stages. Of these stages, Freud believed that
early childhood was the most important. He believed that personality developed by about the
age of five. In his well-known stage theory of psychosexual development, Freud suggested that
personality develops in stages that are related to specific erogenous zones. Failure to
successfully complete these stages, he suggested, would lead to personality problems in
adulthood.

Freud’s Structural Model of Personality

Freud's concept of the id, ego and superego has gained prominence in popular culture, despite
a lack of support and considerable skepticism from many researchers. According to Freud,
three elements of personality—known as the id, the ego, and the superego—work together to
create complex human behaviors.
THEORIES:
1. Freud’s Psychosexual Development Theory
STAGE AGE CHARACTERISTICS

Center of pleasure: mouth (major source

Birth to 1½
of gratification & exploration)
1. Oral y/o
Primary need: Security
Major conflict: weaning

Source of pleasure: anus & bladder

1½ to 3 y/o
2. Anal (sensual satisfaction & self-control)
Major conflict: toilet training

Center of pleasure: child’s genital

4 to 6 y/o
3. Phallic (masturbation)
Major conflict: Oedipus & Electra Complex

Energy directed to physical & intellectual

activities
6 y/o to
4. Latency puberty Sexual impulses repressed

Relationship between peers of same sex

5. Genital Puberty Energy directed towards full sexual

 maturity & function & development of
onwards
skills to cope with the environment

Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development

Like Freud, Erik Erikson believed in the importance of early childhood. However, Erikson
believed that personality development happens over the entire course of a person’s life. In the
early 1960s, Erikson proposed a theory that describes eight distinct stages of development.
According to Erikson, in each stage people face new challenges, and the stage’s outcome
depends on how people handle these challenges. Erikson named the stages according to these
possible outcomes:

Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust

In the first year after birth, babies depend completely on adults for basic needs such as food,
comfort, and warmth. If the caretakers meet these needs reliably, the babies become attached
and develop a sense of security. Otherwise, they may develop a mistrustful, insecure attitude.

Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

Between the ages of one and three, toddlers start to gain independence and learn skills such as
toilet training, feeding themselves, and dressing themselves. Depending on how they face these
challenges, toddlers can develop a sense of autonomy or a sense of doubt and shame about
themselves.

Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt

Between the ages of three and six, children must learn to control their impulses and act in a
socially responsible way. If they can do this effectively, children become more self- confident. If
not, they may develop a strong sense of guilt.

Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority

Between the ages of six and twelve, children compete with peers in school and prepare to take
on adult roles. They end this stage with either a sense of competence or a sense of inferiority.

Stage 5: Identity vs. Role Confusion

During adolescence, which is the period between puberty and adulthood, children try to
determine their identity and their direction in life. Depending on their success, they either
acquire a sense of identity or remain uncertain about their roles in life.
Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation
In young adulthood, people face the challenge of developing intimate relationships with others.
If they do not succeed, they may become isolated and lonely.

Stage 7: Generativity vs. Self-Absorption

As people reach middle adulthood, they work to become productive members of society, either
through parenting or through their jobs. If they fail, they become overly self-absorbed.

Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair

In old age, people examine their lives. They may either have a sense of contentment or be
disappointed about their lives and fearful of the future.

Erikson’s theory is useful because it addresses both personality stability and personality
change. To some degree, personality is stable, because childhood experiences influence
people even as adults. However, personality also changes and develops over the life span as
people face new challenges. The problem with Erikson’s theory, as with many stage theories of
development, is that he describes only a typical pattern. The theory doesn’t acknowledge the
many differences among individuals.

 
Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development
Stag Typical Age
Conflict Faced Major Challenge(s)
e Range
Having basic needs met, attaching to
1 Trust vs. mistrust First year of life
people
Autonomy vs. shame and
2 1–3 years Gaining independence
doubt
3 Initiative vs. guilt 3–6 years Acting in a socially responsible way
Competing with peers, preparing for adult
4 Industry vs. inferiority 6–12 years
roles
5 Identity vs. role confusion Adolescence Determining one’s identity
6 Intimacy vs. isolation Early adulthood Developing intimate relationships
Generativity vs. self-
7 Middle adulthood Being productive
absorption
8 Integrity vs. despair Old age Evaluating one’s life

2. Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development Theory

(-)
CENTRAL
STAGE AGE (+) RESOLUTION RESOLUTIO
TASK
N
 Mistrust,
Birth
Trust vs Learn to trust withdrawal,
1. Infancy -18
Mistrust others estrangemen
mos
t

Compulsive,
Self control w/o self-restraint
1½ Autonomy loss of self esteem or
2. Early
to 3 vs Shame compliance.
childhood
y/o & doubt Ability of cooperate
& express oneself Willfulness &
defiance.

Lack of self-
confidence.

Learns to become
Pessimism,
assertive
3 to Initiative fear of
3. Late
5 y/o vs guilt wrongdoing.
childhood Ability to evaluate
one’s own behavior
Over-control
& over-
restriction.

Loss of hope,
Learns to create,
sense of
develop &
being
6 to Industry manipulate.
4. School mediocre.
12 vs
Age
y/o Inferiority Develop sense of
Withdrawal
competence &
from school &
perseverance.
peers.
 Feelings of
Coherent sense of confusion,
5. 12– Identity vs
self. indecisivenes
Adolescen 20 role
s, & possible
ce y/o confusion Plans to actualize
anti-social
one’s abilities
behavior.

Impersonal
Intimate relationships.
relationship with
18- Intimacy Avoidance of
another person.
6. Young
25 vs relationship,
Adulthood
y/o isolation Commitment to career or
work and lifestyle
relationships. commitments
.

Self-
indulgence,
25- Generativi self-concern,
Creativity,productivi
7. Adulthoo 65 ty vs lack of
ty, concern for
d y/o stagnation interests &
others.
commitments
.

Acceptance of
65
worth & uniqueness Sense of
y/o
Integrity of one’s own life. loss,
to
8. Maturity vs despair contempt for
deat
Acceptance of others.
h
death.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

While conducting intelligence tests on children, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget began to
investigate how children think. According to Piaget, children’s thought processes change as
they mature physically and interact with the world around them. Piaget believed children
develop schema, or mental models, to represent the world. As children learn, they expand and
modify their schema through the processes of assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is
the broadening of an existing schema to include new information. Accommodation is the
modification of a schema as new information is incorporated.

Example: Suppose a young boy knows his pet parrot is a bird. When he sees a robin outside
and calls it a bird too, he exhibits assimilation, since he broadened his bird schema to include
characteristics of both parrots and robins. His bird schema might be “all things that fly.” Now
suppose a bat flaps out at him one night and he shrieks, “Bird!” If he learns it was a bat that
startled him, he’ll have to modify his bird schema to “things that fly and have feathers.” In
modifying his definition, he enacts accommodation.

Piaget proposed that children go through four stages of cognitive development:

Stage 1: Sensorimotor Period

In this stage, which lasts from birth to roughly two years, children learn by using their senses
and moving around. By the end of the sensorimotor period, children become capable
of symbolic thought, which means they can represent objects in terms of mental symbols.
More important, children achieve object permanence in this stage. Object permanence is the
ability to recognize that an object can exist even when it’s no longer perceived or in one’s sight.

Example: If a three-month-old baby sees a ball, she’ll probably be fascinated by it. But if
someone hides the ball, the baby won’t show any interest in looking for it. For a very young
child, out of sight is literally out of mind. When the baby is older and has acquired object
permanence, she will start to look for things that are hidden because she will know that things
can exist even when they can’t be seen.

Stage 2: Preoperational Period

This stage lasts from about two to seven years of age. During this stage, children get better at
symbolic thought, but they can’t yet reason. According to Piaget, children aren’t capable of
conservation during this stage. Conservation is the ability to recognize that measurable
physical features of objects, such as length, area, and volume, can be the same even when
objects appear different.

Example: Suppose a researcher gives a three-year-old girl two full bottles of juice. The girl will
agree that they both contain the same amount of juice. But if the researcher pours the contents
of one bottle into a short, fat tumbler, the girl will then say that the bottle has more. She doesn’t
realize that the same volume of juice is conserved in the tumbler.

Piaget argued that children are not capable of conservation during the preoperational stage
because of three weaknesses in the way they think. He called these
weaknesses centration, irreversibility, and egocentrism:

 Centration is the tendency to focus on one aspect of a problem and ignore other key
aspects. In the example above, the three-year-old looks only at the higher juice level in
the bottle and ignores the fact that the bottle is narrower than the tumbler. Because of
centration, children in the preoperational stage cannot carry out hierarchical
classification, which means they can’t classify things according to more than one level.
 Irreversibility is the inability to mentally reverse an operation. In the example, the three-
year-old can’t imagine pouring the juice from the tumbler back into the bottle. If she
poured the juice back, she’d understand that the tumbler holds the same amount of liquid
as the bottle.
 Egocentrism is the inability to take someone else’s point of view. Animism, or the belief
that even inanimate objects are living, results from egocentrism. Children assume that
since they are alive, all other things must be too.
Talking Tables and Dancing Dishwashers

Animism explains the popularity of children’s movies featuring characters such as talking
vegetables or singing candlesticks. Young children can readily believe that objects around them
are alive, which means they can be entertained by stories involving living objects. Children and
adolescents past the age of seven generally lose interest in heroic toasters and prefer stories
about people.

Stage 3: Concrete Operational Period

From the age of seven to about eleven, children become capable of performing mental
operations or working through problems and ideas in their minds. However, they can perform
operations only on tangible objects and real events. Children also achieve conservation,
reversibility, and decentration during this stage:

 Reversibility is the ability to mentally reverse actions.

 Decentration is the ability to focus simultaneously on several aspects of a problem.
Furthermore, children become less egocentric during this stage as they start to consider
simultaneously different ways of looking at a problem.

Stage 4: Formal Operational Period

In this stage, which begins around eleven years of age and continues through adulthood,
children become capable of applying mental operations to abstract concepts. They can imagine
and reason about hypothetical situations. From this point on, people start to think in abstract,
systematic, and logical ways.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Stage Age Important Features
First two years of
1 Sensorimotor Object permanence, symbolic thought
life
2 Preoperational 2–7 years Centration, irreversibility, egocentrism, and animism
Concrete Reversibility, decentration, decrease in egocentrism,
3 7–11 years
operational conservation
11 through
4 Formal operational Abstract thought
adulthood

Piaget’s Phases of Cognitive Development

PHASE AGE DESCRIPTION

Birth to 2 Sensory organs & muscles

a. Sensorimotor
yrs become more functional

Birth to 1
Stage 1: Use of Movements are primarily reflexive
month
reflexes

Stage 2: Primary 1-4 Perceptions center around one’s

circular reaction months body.

Objects are perceived as

 extensions of the self.

Becomes aware of external

environment.
4-8
Stage 3: Secondary
months
circular reaction Initiates acts to change the
movement.

Stage 4:
Coordination of 8-12 Differentiates goals and goal-
secondary months directed activities.
schemata

Experiments with methods to

reach goals.
Stage 5: Tertiary 12-18
circular reaction months
Develops rituals that become
significant.

Uses mental imagery to

Stage 6: Invention 18-24 understand the environment.
of new means months
Uses fantasy.

b. Pre-operational 2-7 years Emerging ability to think

Thinking tends to be egocentric.

Pre-conceptual
2-4 year
stage
Exhibits use of symbolism.

Unable to break down a whole

into separate parts.
Intuitive stage 4-7 years
Able to classify objects according
to one trait.
 c. Concrete 7-11 Learns to reason about events
Operations years in the here-and-now.

d. Formal Able to see relationships and

11+ years
Operations to reason in the abstract.

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg focused on moral reasoning, or why people think the way they do about
right and wrong. Influenced by Piaget, who believed that moral reasoning depends on the level
of cognitive development, Kohlberg proposed that people pass through three levels of moral
development. He divided each level into two stages.

Level 1: The Preconventional Level

At this level, children ascribe great importance to the authority of adults. For children in the first
stage of this level, an action is wrong if it’s punished, whereas in the second stage, an action is
right if it’s rewarded.

Level 2: The Conventional Level

In the next level, children value rules, which they follow in order to get approval from others. In
the first stage of this level, children want the approval only of people who are close to them. In
the second stage, children become more concerned with the rules of the broader society.

Level 3: The Postconventional Level

In the final level, people become more flexible and consider what’s personally important to
them. In the first stage of this level, people still want to follow society’s rules, but they don’t see
those rules as absolute. In the second stage, people figure out right and wrong for themselves,
based on abstract ethical principles. Only a small proportion of people reach this last stage of
moral reasoning.

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

Level Stage What Determines Right and Wrong
1
Preconventional 1 Punishment by adults
.
2 Reward by adults
2
Conventional 3 Rules set by close people
.
4 Rules set by society
 3 Postconventiona
5 Rules set by society, judged by what’s personally important
. l
6 Rules based on abstract ethical principles

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

LEVEL AND STAGE DESCRIPTION

LEVEL I: Pre-conventional Authority figures are obeyed.

Misbehavior is viewed in terms of

(Birth to 9 years)
damage done.

A deed is perceived as “wrong” if one

Stage 1: Punishment & is punished; the activity is “right” if
obedience orientation one is not punished.

“Right” is defined as that which is

acceptable to & approved by the self.
Stage 2: Instrumental-
relativistorientation When actions satisfy one’s needs,
they are “right.”

Cordial interpersonal
LEVEL II: Conventional
relationships are maintained.

Approval of others is sought through

(9-13 years)
one’s actions.

Stage 3: Interpersonal Authority is respected.

concordance

Individual feels “duty bound” to

maintain social order.
Stage 4: Law and order
orientation Behavior is “right” when it conforms
to the rules.
 Individual understands the
LEVEL III: Post-
morality of having democratically
conventional
established laws.

(13+ years)

Stage 5: Social contract It is “wrong” to violate others’ rights.

orientation

The person understands the

principles of human rights & personal

Stage 6: Universal ethics conscience.

orientation
Person believes that trust is basis for
relationships.

Gilligan’s Theory of Moral Development

LEVEL CHARACTERISTICS

Concentrates on what is best for self.

I. Orientation of Individual Selfish.

Survival Transition
Dependent on others.

Recognizes connections to others.

Transition 1: From
Selfishness to Makes responsible choices in terms of
Responsibility self and others.

II. Goodness as Self- Puts needs of others ahead of own.

sacrifice
Feels responsible for others.
 Is dependent.

May use guilt to manipulate others

when attempting to “help.”

Decisions based on intentions &

consequences, not on others’
responses.

Transition 2: From Considers needs of self and others.

Goodness to Truth
Wants to help others while being
responsible to self.

Increased social participation.

Sees self and others as morally equal

Assumes responsibilities for own

decisions.

Basic tenet to hurt no one including

self.
III. Morality of Nonviolence
Conflict between selfishness and
selflessness.

Self-judgment is not dependent on

others’ perceptions but rather on
consequences & intentions of actions.

Fowler’s Stages of Faith

 STAGE AGE CHARACTERISTICS

Trust, hope and love

Pre- compete with environmental
Infant
stage:Undifferentiate inconsistencies or threats if
d faith abandonment.

Imitates parental behaviors

and attitudes about religion
Toddler- and spirituality.
Stage 1: Intuitive-
preschooler
projective faith
Has no real understanding
of spiritual concepts.

Accepts existence of a deity.

Religious & moral beliefs are

symbolized by stories.
School-aged
Stage 2: Mythical-
child Appreciates others’
literal faith
viewpoints.

Accepts concept of
reciprocal fairness.

Questions values & religious

Stage 3: Synthetic- Adolescent beliefs in an attempt to form
conventional faith own identity.

Late
Assumes responsibility for
Stage 4:Individuative- adolescent &
own attitudes & beliefs.
reflective faith young adult

Stage 5: Conjunctive Adult Integrates other

 perspectives about faith into
faith own definition of truth.

Makes concepts of love &

Stage Adult
justice tangible.
6:Universalizing faith