9 Personality development – Erikson’s theory, Defense mechanisms

K Arockia Maraichelvi

1. INTRODUCTION

This module on personality deals with two major aspects related to personality of human beings. The first part will discuss Erikson’s psycho-social theory of personality, and the following part would deal with the extension of Freud’s Theory with focus on defense mechanisms.

2. LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of this module you will be able to

• Sketch out the eight stages of Erikson’s Psycho-Social development theory
• Realize the educational implications of Psycho-Social theory
• Comprehend the ego’s defense mechanisms adopted by man to resolve the conflict between id and super-ego

3.  ERIKSON’S PSYCHO-SOCIAL THEORY OF PERSONALITY

The first part of the module will give you a clear picture of the basic concept of psycho-social theory and its eight stages with certain educational applications for young children.

Erik Erikson articulated a psycho-social theory identifying eight stages through which a human being should pass from infancy to old age. He also postulated certain challenges to be mastered by every person at every stage. The successful confrontation and skilful mastery of the challenges confirms a healthy and well-adjusted adult.

Though Erikson expanded Freud’s psycho-sexual theory, he made it very clear that ego helps in attaining positive attitudes, skills and ideas at every stage of development. Unlike Freud’s stages, Erikson’s theory focussed on the whole of the life span of human beings i.e upto death. His major area of interest in proposing this theory and its related researches thereafter was on ‘How to help the future generations with our left over legacy or personal foot print’. The personal footprint indicated by Erikson refers to ‘the inner voice of a person questioning himself/herself on

• What kind of person was I here on earth?
• Was I compassionate?
• Did I help the human race to become better morally and ethically?

3.1 Base of Psycho-social theory

As already said, Erikson’s theory focussed much on the personal footprint with legacy and generativity as major concern. But before articulating his theory Erikson realized certain ideas and facts of life of every human being as given below

1. Every personality trait of a human being comes in opposites and also some of these traits are learned and others are inborn. For example, ‘optimistic or pessimistic’, ‘independent or dependent’, ‘aggressive or passive’, and so on.

2. The world gets bigger as the person goes along and as and when he / she is exposed.

3. Failure is cumulative. But what is it? To understand the cumulative nature of failure, answer these two questions with consideration to orphaned children.

• Do these children find it difficult to negotiate problems in their later stages when compared to children brought up in a caring and better environment?
• Do you think the deficits or deprivation faced by these children in their early stages could be overcome all of a sudden as if the human spirit gets ignited?

If your answer for the first question is true and second one is false, then of course you have got this philosophy of life right.

3.2 Eight Stages of Psycho-social development

As indicated earlier, Erikson had identified eight stages through which a person passes from infancy to late adulthood. At every stage a person is said to confront a conflict/crisis/challenge and thereby questions himself or herself. Then by adopting certain virtues and establishing better relationship with significant others they try to resolve the crisis/master the challenge and find a realistic solution to their question.

The first four stages of Erikson correspond to the first four stages of Freud’s Psycho-sexual development. The fifth stage of adolescence is also seen as parallel to the genital stage of Freud. However the emphasis of Erikson’s theory is not on the sex modes but on the ego qualities of every stage. One major point that differentiates the psycho-social theory with that of the psycho-sexual theory is that Erikson did not stop at adolescence but extended till old age, because of his belief that development continues throughout life.

One important aspect to be realized is that the eight life stages of Erikson are viewed as a life cycle. In other words, the end of one generation serves as the beginning of the next. The following section would explain these eight stages, its corresponding conflict/crisis/challenge to be resolved

3.2.1   First Stage

Psychological crisis : Trust vs Mistrust

Age span                       : Birth to 2 years

Question in mind      : ‘Can I trust the world’

Virtue                             : Hope

At this stage, the infant’s basic needs are being met by the parents and the infant in turn depends on them, particularly mother for sustenance and comfort. Hence the first trust of a child is with the parent or the primary caregiver.

When the infant is exposed to needed warmth and affection the infant views the world as trustworthy and realises that even others in this world are dependable and reliable.

But an insecure environment instills a sense of mistrust in them and looks at others as undependable and unreliable.

This stage of Erikson cautions the parents to create a secured environment in a way that the child feels safe, comfortable and well cared.

3.2.2   Second Stage

Psychological crisis : Autonomy vs Shame and doubt

Age span                        : 2 – 4 years

Question in mind      : ‘Is it okay to be me?’

Virtue                              : Will

This is the period where the child is toilet trained and has a control over eliminative functions. Also their increased motor abilities facilitate them to explore the surrounding environment. With these developments, they become capable of satisfying some of their own needs by feeding, grooming themselves and use bathroom at ease.

If the parents/caregiver encourages this self-sufficient behaviour without restrictions then the toddler develops a sense of ability to solve some of their problems by themselves – a sense of autonomy.

If the parents/caregiver demand too much, too soon or if at all they don’t give them enough opportunities to carry out their capable tasks, the children would develop a doubt in their capability and in turn feels shameful for not performing it.

Hence parents/caregivers foremost duty is to provide sensible options without forcing the toddler to perform certain activities, which in turn would promote the sense of independence among them.

3.2.3   Third Stage

Psychological crisis : Initiative vs Guilt

Age span                        : 4 – 5 years

Question in mind      : ‘Is it okay for me to do, move and act in the way I think?’

Virtue                             : Purpose

In the process of learning to master the world, the child learns certain skills and principles. They are observed to do things with a purpose. The autonomy created in the previous stage helps in instigating initiatives to complete an action. But when the initiative does not work out or yield the expected result, a new confusing emotion sets in, called as guilt. However with these new initiatives, the child develops negative behaviour as an outcome of not being able to achieve a desired result of the initiative. So they are found to engage in certain behaviours that seem to be aggressive – throwing objects, hitting, yelling, throwing temper tantrums etc.

When the parents/caregiver/preschool teachers provide enough encouragement and support to the children in making their initiatives a realistic and appropriate one the preschooler develop the independence in taking initiatives.

On the other hand, when their initiatives or independent activities are discouraged and told that they are silly things to do, the child develops guilt over their personal needs or desires.

Hence the parents/caretakers/preschool teachers should allow the child to explore their surrounding by setting a limit and support the decisions made by the child in doing it.

3.2.4   Fourth Stage

Psychological crisis : Industry vs Inferiority

Age span                        : 5 – 12 years

Question in mind      : ‘Can I contribute to the world of people and things?’

Virtue                              : Competence

As children become more aware of themselves, they tend to be responsible, good and wanting to do things right. At this age the children exhibit their eagerness to learn and accomplish complex skills in the arena of 3 R’s. Also self-confidence and moral values get initiated at the beginning of this stage. These enhanced skills inturn make the children crave for praises and encouragement for everything they do. They also start to recognize their special talent and discover their interests.

If the children are supported and encouraged in performing their desired tasks and then praises for accomplishing it (even when minimal), they are sure to develop perseverance to complete the task chosen and try to put work before pleasure. This trait is coined as Industry.

Whereas, when the children are ridiculed or not supported while performing a task of their desire or when punished for their efforts, they feel incapacitated to do anything and develop a feeling of inferiority about their own abilities and thereby lack self-motivation and suffer from low self-esteem.

Hence parents should provide positive social interactions and encouraging affirmations so that the child believes in himself/herself and in his/her ability.

3.2.5   Fifth Stage

Psychological crisis: Identity vs Role confusion

Age span                        : 13 – 19 years

Question in mind      : ‘Who am I and what can I be?’

Virtue                              : Fidelity

This stage marks the period of adolescence – a bridge between childhood and adulthood, where the adolescent’s main concern is on how they appear to others. Also while analysing their roles to be played as an adult, they are subjected to role confusion (ie.) mixed ideas and feelings of how do they fit into the society. Erikson has coined a new word ‘identity crisis’ specific to this period, as a result of an attempt to reconcile between who am I? And what is society expecting me to do? This reconciliation leads to many conflicts among adolescents.

If the society insists gives him enough space to discover himself and provide opportunities to experiment then the adolescent could balance this reconciliation and establish an identity of his own.

However if the society insists too much on what it expects, the adolescent is forced to foreclose his experimentation and just tries to follow the society words, but loose way somewhere in his/her life.

Hence the society as a whole should provide opportunities for every adolescent to explore various roles set goals, so that he/she could discover his/her ‘adult’ selves in them

3.2.6   Sixth Stage

Psychological crisis: Intimacy vs Isolation

Age span                        : 20 – 39 years

Question in mind      : ‘Can I love?’

Virtue                              : Love

Though the beginning of this stage is marked by the end of the previous stage, the youth at this stage are still not able to identify themselves and are trying to blend their identity with friends. The major motive of every youth is to try to fit in within their surrounding based on their identity. This gives way to the fear of isolation or rejection from/by others.

However the successful establishment of identity helps youth to make long term commitment to others, thereby facilitating them to form intimate, reciprocal relationship in the form of close friendships or life partner through marriage. This intimacy brings in the willingness to compromise and sacrifice certain things that is required for a good relationship.

If in case a person fails to establish his/her own identity, then it is impossible for him/her to form intimate relationships, which leads to feelings of darkness and anguish, and thereby sense of isolation sets in.

3.2.7   Seventh Stage

Psychological crisis: Generativity vs Stagnation

Age span                        : 40 – 64 years

Question in mind      : ‘Can I make my life count?’

Virtue                              : Care

The prime task of every person in this stage is to measure of how much they had contributed to the society and helped in guiding the future generation.

If a person feels satisfied with the contribution made towards the humanity by raising a family, or working towards the betterment of the society, he would possess a sense of productivity and accomplishment that leads to a sense of generativity.

Generativity – It refers to the concern of guiding the next generation being expressed by socially valued work and discipline.

However, if a person is self-centered and not willing to contribute to society, he/she would develop dissatisfaction at the end of this stage, because of the lack of productivity. Hence they develop a feeling of getting stagnated.

3.2.8   Eighth Stage

Psychological crisis: Inegrity vs Despair

Age span                        : 65 years to death

Question in mind      : ‘Is it okay to have been me?’

Virtue                              : Wisdom

This stage marks the slowing pace of productivity and contemplating / retrospecting the accomplishments made so far.

If the old person in this stage feels the success, happiness and realises that he/she had lived a productive life, then integrity develops.

However, if the person looks at his/her life as unproductive and never felt the satisfaction with life, despair sets in. This despair leads to depression and hopelessness.

3.3 Educational Implications of psycho-social theory

A teacher who could understand the crux of this theory strives to create comfortable and encouraging environment for children, where the child could learn and explore new things and build stable peer relationships. But, how can you create it? You as an early childhood trainer could do it by incorporating certain classroom rules as indicated below.

• Allow the children to take charge of their learning process. Do not dictate them to do the activities that you want. Do not expect them to complete an activity within a stipulated time. By doing this the child could choose their areas of interest and master it.
• After identifying their interest give them more and more activities in that area or else create projects for them to complete.
• Always make a point to appreciate and praise the effort put in by the child, though not worthy. Do provide continuous feed back to keep them abreast.
• Never criticize children in front of others. Take them to a separate room and talk about their wrong behaviour. Give them other positive choices for that behaviour and give them freedom to pick one choice from it.

By following these rules the teacher helps a child gain a sense of trust with people around him. This trust develops a will in them to carry out an activity of their choice (autonomy) which later encourages them to take initiative. When these initiatives are supported and showed better way to accomplish it the child starts taking initiative with a purpose and develops self-confidence and feels satisfied for their accomplishment.

4. DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Let us recapitulate the subsection of the previous module on ‘Conflict between id, ego and super ego’. The ego is always trying to balance the id and superego in order to maintain a healthy state of consciousness and to restore them to reality. However, before the ego steps in to be the referee much anxiety and stress results. In order to overcome this situation the ego defends itself by using defense mechanisms, thereby protecting the individual from anxiety that distorts reality. Also the ego’s defense mechanisms prevent the dangerous unconscious thoughts to enter into the conscious domain. These mechanisms often appear unconsciously with a key intention of distorting or falsifying reality. Once the reality gets falsified or distorted, the person’s perception towards the situation changes and thereby anxiety decreases.

Though Sigmund Freud observed a number of defense mechanisms, it is his daughter Anna Freud who elaborated on those defences. The following section will provide you the existence of 10 major defense mechanisms with appropriate example. This section is to understand how human beings in general and children in particular use their ego as referee in the process of restoring their thoughts and behaviour into reality.

4.1 Denial

It is a mechanism by which a person believes certain true facts are actually false. Here the external events are just blocked from awareness. Have you seen people who smoke? Most of them think that they won’t get sick from smoking because they are in denial. In the attempt to resolve the conflict the ego gives up. You would have seen people denying a physician’s diagnosis of a disease as correct and seeking a second opinion. This is nothing but denial. Other examples are people fainting at a threatening situation, denying the death of a loved one etc.

4.2 Displacement

It is the redirection of an impulse towards a substitute or less threatening target. The conflict between id, ego and super ego sometimes forces a person to accept superego while redirecting his impulse or drive towards less threatening substitute target.

Have you ever slammed the door instead of hitting a person? If yes, you had exhibited the defense mechanism – Displacement. Other examples are ‘a person after a heated argument with his boss may go home, yell at his wife, kick the dog, beat up a family member or even engage in cross burnings.

4.3 Intellectualization

The process by which a person focuses on the intellectual aspects and avoids expressing unacceptable emotions is called intellectualization. Actually speaking, this defense mechanism helps a person to shape up his personality in a better way. When asked to write your positive qualities, don’t you attribute exaggerated positive traits to yourself? This is nothing but intellectualization. By attributing exaggerated positive traits you gain confidence or self-esteem in yourself.

One more example of intellectualization is focussing on the details of funeral against expressing sadness and grief towards the death of a loved one.

4.4 Projection

It is also called displacement outward. It is almost the complete opposite of turning against the self or placing your own unacceptable impulse /feelings/ drives onto someone else. It increases the tendency to see one’s own fault in others. Putting in simple words it is as per the popular saying ‘How you perceive yourself is how you perceive others”. For example a person who is self-centered and could focus only on his/her intentions and desires, thinks that the next person is also self-centered and will not render help to others.

4.5 Rationalization

It is a type of defense mechanism, wherein logical or rational reasons are supplied instead of the real reason. A person applying this mechanism makes excuses as an effort to make it seem the unacceptable behaviour exhibited is okay for certain rational reasons. You would have often heard adolescents giving rational reasons for falling in love, as because their parents do not show love on them.

Another example to explain this mechanism is tht a student who cheats on a text may say ‘ I only copied few questions and wrote others on my own’.

4.6 Reaction Formation

It is otherwise called as believing the opposite. This happens because the true belief would have caused anxiety in them and hence the person tries to change that unacceptable impulse/drive/ belief into its opposite. A very simple example for this mechanism is your own statements given during your adolescent period. Boys – Don’t you say ‘the girls are disgusting’ Girls – Don’t you say with equal vigour ‘How gross boys are?’ But we adults will know what your true feelings are.

4.7 Regression

It is going back to a previous stage of development when faced with a stressful or threatening situation. This is the reason why certain times your behaviour becomes more childish or primitive. You very well know that temper tantrums are often exhibited by a preschool child, but you at any stage of life might show the same behaviour when you don’t see things getting your way.

4.8 Repression

It is a defense mechanism wherein you try to push your uncomfortable thoughts out of consciousness. Here the ego tries to push your bad or painful memories underneath the surface of the lake. It is also referred as ‘motivated forgetting’, so that you will not be able to recall threatening situation, person or event. For example, by effort you may completely forget a tragic family accident that had happened in your childhood, because of recalling the trauma or anxiety you underwent. The person holds in their urges just like a tea-kettle holding in steam. But care should be taken as it would burst at any point of time.

4.9 Introjection

It is sometimes called identification. It involves taking someone else’s personality characteristics into your own, as that process helps you to solve some of your own emotional difficulty. For example, a child who is left alone most of the times take up this defense mechanisms identifying his/her mother’s characterized and introjecting into himself/herself by acting s ‘mom’ in order to learn his/her fears.

4.10 Sublimation

It is a most acceptable process of defense mechanism, wherein you try to redirect your wrong or unacceptable urges/drives into a society acceptable and even in a productive form. For a person to be aggressive an easy way of channelizing his impulse is by directing his energy into playing sports, thereby sublimation had occurred.

This synoptic presentation of the major defense mechanisms would have thrown light on how a personality of a man changes from time to time. But how do these mechanisms help us to deal with children as the focus of this paper is on early childhood period? As already indicated id is present from birth, ego develops little later followed by super ego. Hence children also exhibit these defense mechanisms though not at an aggressive level. So as a prospective teacher or as parent you should be in a position to understand that a behaviour exhibited by a child may be due to the ego’s defense mechanism, realise its root,encourage and support them to be transparent and channelize their feelings/ desires for a better outcome.

5. CONCLUSION

Erikson’s Psycho-social theory though lacks some academic credentials like the use of synonym words such as ‘initiative’ in one stage and ‘autonomy’ in the other, his idea that the positive way of resolving a crisis in a particular stage facilitates the transition and strength for crisis resolving in the next stage. Empirical researches had also proved that the self-esteem and contentment improves with every positive resolution of challenge faced at every stage. Hence Erikson’s theory is found to be valid, original and significant. However, it is in the hands of the teacher and parent of every child, in the way they interpret the theory in the classroom setting and in the home environment respectively in nurturing a human being with a better personality.

The next section of the module dealing with the extension of Freuds Psycho-analytic theory – Defense mechanism also gives you a glimpse of the nature and role of ego in resolving the conflict between id and super-ego. This section also cautions the teachers to provide a supportive and encouraging environment for children to develop into a better person accepted in the society.

Web links

• Boundless. “Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality.” Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 08 Jun. 2015. Retrieved 10 Jun. 2015
• fromhttps://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/personality-16/psychodynamic-perspectives-on-personality-77/freudian-psychoanalytic-theory-of-personality-304-12839/Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 10 Jun. 2015. Retrieved 10 Jun. 2015
• fromhttps://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/personality-16/introduction-to-personality-76/defining-personality-303-12838/