Understanding Lifespan Development: Erikson, Freud, and Theories

This assignment provides an overview of various psychological theories related to lifespan development, focusing on the contributions of Erik Erikson and Sigmund Freud. It details Freud's psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic) and Erikson's psychosocial stages (trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt), highlighting their impact on personality development. The assignment also explores the relationship between psychological theories and specific life stages, including behavioral, cognitive, psychodynamic, and humanistic theories. It compares and contrasts psychodynamic and cognitive approaches, as well as psychodynamic and humanistic theories, providing examples to illustrate the concepts. The document explains how early childhood experiences and unconscious motivations influence behavior. The assignment concludes by emphasizing how these theories are used to understand and address various psychological phenomena.

Understand theories of lifespan development
Relation of psychological theories with the particular life stages
Behavioral theory: This concept is the study of alterations in behavior
of human and the reason for it which are the outer factors. When the factors
close to an individual change, for example if a kid is ill-treated by his
generators, then it would directly influence on his health aspects and his nature
socially. This would develop a feeling of anger and frustration in his mind and
as a result, he become anti- social. It also impacts on his health as he will be
stressed most of the times. This may lead to manifestation of several physical
ailments in him.
Cognitive theory: This a branch of psychology for knowing the human
behaviors and examining thought processes. It turns around how an individual
get information, the way he keeps it, then the ways and orientation with which
that data is processed by the person. For example, two best friends have not seen
one another for a long time, one day one of them look his friend and says hi to
him, but other one do not respond because he did not notice him and hear his
voice. Thus, the first friend would think his friend his angry. Then there
generate a negative felling in first one and he got angry with other. As a result,
distances might come between them. This was due to information engrossed by
first one, his reaction to it and thinks or processes it in his own terms.
Various psychological theories are present that describes about the
lifespan development
Erikson vs Freud: These are two names that cannot be miss while discussing about
psychology. Sigmund Freud is known as the father of psychology. Freud focuses on
the importance of feeding whereas Erikson was more concerned with how a
respondent caretaker are to a child's requirement.
The Freud's stages of psychosexual development
Birth to 1 year: He called this the oral stage. At this stage of development, main
source of pleasure of a child is through the mouth via eating, tasting and sucking.
The problems occurred in this stage is known as oral fixation.
1 to 3 years: This known as anal stage of development. In this stage, child receives
sense of mastery and competence by controlling movements of bladder and bower.
One who achieve success at this stage of life can effectively develops a sense of
productivity and capability.
3 to 6 years: This is coined as phallic stage. In this time period, children start
identifying their same sex parents. Here boy child experiences Oedipus complex
whereas girl child experiences the Electra Complex.

Erikson's stages of psychological development
Birth to 1 year: He named this trust vs mistrust stage. Here child acquire to
either trust or mistrust their parents or caregivers. Parents are responsible of
developing this sense of trust. One who do not get proper and dependable care
might develop a sense or feeling of mistrust of others and the entire world.
1 to 3 years: This is called as the autonomy versus shame and doubt stage. In
this period, child can control on several activities like eating, talking, toilet, etc.
Those who succeed in these activities can generate a feeling of independence.
3 to 6 Years: This is refereed as initiative versus guilt stage. Child start for
taking more control over their surroundings.
Psychodynamic vs Cognitive:
Psychodynamic theory is considered as a derivative of Freud. This
theory discusses about the conscious and unconscious thought or behaviors and
links early childhood experiences with this. It states that there are three cases of
abnormal behaviors. These are unconscious motivations, childhood
experiences and the conflicts in the mind.
Whereas Cognitive psychology looks at the certain patterns of the
brain and attempts to abstract the processes into a concept. It is the process of
thinking between an event and a result that makes that result.
Psychodynamic theory: It is that subdivision of psychology that deals with
the study of unconscious wishes and feeling of an individual. It commonly
deals with the mind. It is associated with the desires and anxiety which even
people is not aware of. For example, if a girl who was annoyed by a close
person in her childhood, then a negative feeling and hatred would be
develop in her mind towards her relatives.
Humanistic theory: This theory aids in creating the great self-image,
developing the personality and self-realization. Several approaches to this
therapy can be, realization of one's skill and acting upon it for building
career, preferred for family therapy in order to examine issues within family
and working towards improving them. It contributes in making life better
thereby upgrades the quality of life.