PSY10004 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Erik Erikson, Emerging Adulthood And Early Adulthood, Attachment In Adults
PSY10004 - PSYCH 101
WEEK 3
Social Development!
Social Development encompasses the changes in feeling, interpersonal thought and behaviour
across the lifespan !
Issues which we are going to focus on are:!
•Erikson’s Theory of Social Emotional Development !
•Attachment and emotional development in infancy !
•Socialisation by parents during childhood !
•Identity Development during adolescence, emerging adulthood !
•Becoming a parent !
•Midlife- Generativity !
•Old Age.!
ERIKSON’S THEORY
Basic Assumptions: Sigmund Freud!
Freud argued that individuals go through 5 stages where different conflicts between biological
drives and social needs have to be resolved- parents are “ like riders on the horse”.!
The stages end in late adolescence.!
Erik Erikson was influenced by Freud’s ideas and extended his theory by adding on more stages
of development in adulthood to death.!
Erikson agreed with Freud that sexual impulses, biological maturation were important in
development, but he gave more importance to the environment beyond immediate family in
driving development. !
Interpersonal, social cultural, historical context, that is broader societal context impacts on
individual personality development/ ego identity throughout life, not just internal family dynamics.!
Basic Assumptions: Erik Erikson!
Biological maturation combines with cultural expectations to drive stages where individuals must
come to terms with their sense of self and how they fit into the culture. !
Infants/children and later adults must develop a sense of meaning/ego identity about themselves
and their place in society. This sense of self is developed by progressing through qualitatively
different stages. Each stage has a crisis or challenge that is normative for that period of life. Each
successive challenge the individual must try to resolve it. !
Resolving the conflict provides personal growth and allows us to move on to the next. That is we
mature, become stronger and develop into a qualitatively different person. But even if crisis not
resolved, society pushes us on to next stage- but way we develop/manage during next stage
influenced by how previous conflicts have been resolved.!
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Early Stages:!
•Trust vs mistrust - considers more general pattern of interaction between parents and child-akin
to way attachment patterns described.!
•Autonomy vs shame/self doubt - not just toilet training- but especially related to exploring wider
social world, doing new things.!
•Initiative vs guilt - language plus wider social interactions- more contact with others- conflict
with others as assert self- “on the make”- to be all-important, powerful, centre of attention.!
•Industry vs inferiority - begin to learn skills related to becoming productive member of society-
internalisation of standards of society.!
•Attachment - refers to an enduring emotional tie between child and primary caregiver.!
Attachment — Early Stages!
Attachment involves:!
-Desire of the child to be close to the caregiver !
-A sense of security around the caregiver !
-Feelings of distress when the caregiver is absent !
-Provides a secure base from which to explore environment !
-Haven to return to when threatened!
FREUD’S VIEWS ON ATTACHMENT
•Emotional connection with mother – foundation for all other relationships. !
•Emotional bond with mother develops initially through feeding – baby builds a sense of trust if
mother consistently satisfies his/her hunger & feeding occurs with sensitive & loving care. !
•Emphasis on early traumatic experiences – maternal deprivation could be seen as this – leads
to neurosis !
•Focus is on caregiver’s role in fostering attachment!
BOWLBY'S VIEWS ON ATTACHMENT
•Ethological theory – attachment between infant & caregiver is an evolved response - promotes
survival- infant comes with behaviours to orient it to caregiver !
•Emphasised (like Freud) importance of quality of the connection between caregiver & infant –
implications for development of sense of trust & security & for later relationships. !
•Influenced by Konrad Lorenz – infant has a set of “built-in” behaviours that help keep the parent
close-by. !
•Feeding not basis for attachment, rather felt security from danger- ensures survival!
HARLOW’S STUDIES ON ATTACHMENT
Contact/security more important than feeding for attachment !
-Infant monkeys were raised in isolation and were housed with artificial mothers !
-The infant monkeys could choose between a wire- mesh ‘monkey‘ that provided food or a
‘mother‘ covered in terry cloth that did not provide food !
-Harlow noted that the infants clung to the terry cloth mother as though ‘attached‘ to that
mother!
MEASURING ATTACHMENT
Experiment —!
Mother leaves her child (12-18 months of age) alone in a room of toys A stranger enters the room
for a while Mother rejoins her child The measure of attachment was the reaction of the child to the
mother upon her leaving and returning to the child!
Four patterns of attachment were revealed: !
•Secure: Child welcomes mothers return and seeks closeness to her !
•Avoidant: Child ignores the mother !
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•Ambivalent: Child exhibits anger at the mother while seeking to be close to her !
•Disorganised: Child may approach mother but gaze away, and may show odd motor behaviour
and dazed facial expressions!
DEVELOPMENT OF ATTACHMENT STYLE
Both biological and environmental factors involved. !
Temperament: easy, difficult and slow-to warm-up!
•Tendency to be timid, shy- produce anxious behaviour in strange situation !
•Ambivalent/resistant style !
•But negative temperament in infancy correlated only 0.3 with attachment style in early
childhood (Vaughn et al,1992).!
Environmental: The sensitivity of the mother to her infant!
•Contingent responsiveness !
•Mother stimulates and encourages infant, but also soothes and calms infant !
•Interaction-if difficult- infant- rigid/ emotionally insensitive mother- poorly attached infant!
•But if mother can tune responses into difficult infant- can become securely attached.!
RELATIONSHIP OF PARENTS’ INTERNAL WORKING MODELS TO INFANT ATTACHMENT SECURITY
Note
correspondence between parent model and infant attachment is much higher for mothers ( r=.62),
whereas for fathers the link is less strong ( r=.37)
Disorganised/Disoriented Infant Attachment Classification:
More frequent the more disrupted the home background !
•13% Middle class !
•28% Multi-problem families !
•54% Low income or depressed mothers !
•82% Maltreating families!
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Document Summary
Social development encompasses the changes in feeling, interpersonal thought and behaviour across the lifespan. Freud argued that individuals go through 5 stages where di erent con icts between biological drives and social needs have to be resolved- parents are like riders on the horse . Erik erikson was in uenced by freud"s ideas and extended his theory by adding on more stages of development in adulthood to death. Erikson agreed with freud that sexual impulses, biological maturation were important in development, but he gave more importance to the environment beyond immediate family in driving development. Interpersonal, social cultural, historical context, that is broader societal context impacts on individual personality development/ ego identity throughout life, not just internal family dynamics. Biological maturation combines with cultural expectations to drive stages where individuals must come to terms with their sense of self and how they t into the culture.
