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Erik Eriksons Theory of Personality Development

BY

Dr. Tarnue Johnson (MA., PGCE., DBA)

Faculty Member: Argosy University- Illinois School of Professional Psychology

ABSTRACT
This paper presents a comprehensive description of Erik Eriksons theory of personality
development. The paper focuses on the inner logical coherence of the underlying structure and
empirical implications of the theory. Furthermore, the biographical and historical circumstances
that provide the background to the emergence of the theory will be explored. The paper also
critically examines the inherent strengths and purported weaknesses of the theory as exemplified
in the theoretical claims and accounts of various strands of contemporary psychoanalytical
thought. The paper concludes that the cultivated marginality of Erik Erikson allowed him to see
the problems and paradoxes and the many forms that human development can assume.

INTRODUCTION
The discussion in the proceeding sections will critically examine Erik Eriksons theory of
personality development. Invariably, a discussion of both the biographical and historical
circumstances that motivated an author of this magnitude is significant. This effort, in fact, is
primarily intended to gauge the basic intellectual rationale and pragmatic necessity of his work
and contributions to human development. Thus, it is suggested that by appreciating the
circumstances of the life of Erik Erikson, one could gain proper and a mediating insight into the
true strengths and nature of his contributions to the development of personality theory and the
field of psychology in general. This is so because Eriksons life had a distinct influence on his
theory of psychosocial development (Carver & Scheier, 2008).
BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL ROOTS
Erik Erikson was in Frankfurt, Germany in 1902 to Danish parents. The circumstances of
his birth were concealed from him in childhood because his birth was a result of his mothers
extramarital affair. Karla Abrahamsen, his mother, was from a prominent Jewish family in
Copenhagen. Eriksons maternal grandmother, Henrietta, died when his mother was only 13.
Eriksons father abandoned his mother before he was born, and three years later she married to
Theodor Homburger, a Jewish physician (p.248). He was not told for years that Homburger was
not his real father. Erikson later referred to that as an act of loving deceit. (p.248). By 1909 the
young Erikson had changed his name from Erik Salomonsen to Erik Homburger. Around 1911 he
was officially adopted by his stepfather Erik Homburger.

While growing up Erikson began to form an image of himself as an outsider. Because of his
Scandinavian appearance, Jews saw him as a gentile; gentiles saw him as a Jew. For this
particular reason he was not accepted by either group. His identity confusion deepened as the
result of the realization that his ancestry was Danish rather than German. As he wondered Europe
during his early twenties, his feelings of a lack of identity intensified. He worked as a portrait
painter but never developed a sense of identity of himself as an artist (p.248). This is why
perhaps the development of identity became one of the greatest concerns in Eriksons theory.
Hence, Benveniste (2000) has noted to this effect that
Considering the multiple identifications that Erikson had to integrate, it is not
surprising that he became interested in identity and identity crises. Given the
social pressures he encountered to conform to one identification or another
(artist, researcher, psychoanalyst, Jew, etc), it is not surprising that he became
interested in pseudospeciation, the tendency of groups to split off from other
groups, to establish a sense of superiority, centrality, and immortality in relation
to those other groups, and to create dogmas to preserve themselves (p. 2).

Erikson became a student and a teacher of arts, history and other subjects to young children.
While teaching at a private school in Vienna, he became acquainted with Anna Freud, the
daughter of Sigmund Fred. He underwent psychoanalysis, and the experience made him to
choose psychoanalysis as a career (Woodward, 1994). He was trained in psychoanalysis at the
Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute and also studied Montessori educational methods. The
Montessori approach in education focused on child development and learning processes.
Following his graduation from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1933, the Nazis came
to power in Germany. He emigrated in the mid-1930s with his wife first to Denmark and then to
the United States. Erikson had a difficult time in establishing a psychoanalytic career. Unlike

many of his American colleagues, he was without an academic degree or an M.D., and he was
still a newcomer to English. Despite these initial challenges as a new immigrant in a strange
land, the influence and historical significance of Eriksons theory is so immense that no
developmental theory outpaces and is, indeed, better known than it.
In fact, because of the penetrating quality of his mind and clinical expertise, Erikson went
on to later hold many positions in the United States in both the academy and in clinical practice.
He held positions at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Judge
Baker Guidance Center. Erikson worked at the Institute of Human Relations when he accepted a
position to teach at Yale in 1936. He also taught at the Yale Medical School. After spending a
year observing children on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, he joined the faculty of the
University of California at Berkeley, where he was affiliated with the Institute of Child Welfare.
While he California Erikson also studied children of the Yurok Native American tribe. Erikson
left UC Berkeley after publishing Childhood and Society in 1950. This book became one of his
best known and most influential works.
The main reason he left was that professors at the University of California were being asked
to sign loyalty oaths to affirm their allegiance to the United States in the wake of the Marcarthy
witch hunt. Erikson studied the young civil rights workers who sat in at the counters in the south
and deeply appreciated their heroic actions and political protestations (Douvan, 1996). Many
people seemed not to remember also that Erikson coauthored a little book with Huey Newton,
who was at the time the Minister of Defense for the Black Panthers (p.19). Douvan (p.19) has
remarked that it is a testiment to Eriksons open heart that he exibited such courage in his
encounters with the contemporary world. In the 1960s Erikson returned to Harvard as professor
of human development and stayed there until he retired in 1970. The next section will explore

some of the most basic tenets of Eriksons theory of personality development. What is centrally
focused upon in the discussion that follows are the most basic outlines of the theory as presented
in Eriksons major theoretical works and various exegeses of those works by contemporary
scholars and scientists.
PSYCHOSOCIAL PROCESSES AND IDENTITY
Massey (1986) suggests that Erikson has consistently expanded psychoanalytical theory in a
direction compatible with Adlers Individual psychology. The central point that Massey (p.66)
stresses is that the foundations for later personality development occurred in childhood through
what Adler describes as style of life and what Erikson refers to as ego identity. In fact, one
should note that ego identity (which is the consciously experienced sense of self) and its
development is the central theme of Eriksons theory (Carver & Scheier, 2008). One is reminded
that both Adler and Erikson are regarded as considering the social as well as the creative self or
ego processes as important as the biological. Erikson, like Adler, focused on polarities as
possibilities in the human growth process. This is how Massey (1986) has expanded on this
discussion:
Both elaborate on the bipolar possibilities in the human developmental process for
increasing insecurity or promoting growth. Both stress the pursuit of personal growth
rather than the defense of the self in the healthy personality. This common focus on
growth psychology prompted Maslow (1962) to designate both Adler and Erikson as
members of the Third Force. (p. 66).

It is pertinent to observe that while the predominant emphasis of Freuds theorizing was
psychosexual, the emphasis of Erikson was primarily psychosocial. However, Erikson remained
faithful to his Freudian roots while deferring with Freud in his psychosocial approach. For

example, he retained an emphasis on infantile sexuality while stressing the importance of social
relationships in the early years (p. 66). For Erikson, there are eight stages through which a
healthy developing human should pass from infancy to late adulthood. The individual person
confronts at each stage new challenges and hopefully masters them. The stage-wise nature of the
model suggests that the individual successfully builds on the completion of earlier stages. The
challenges of stages not completed may be expected to reappear as problems in the future.
The first four stages are coterminous with stages of psychosexual development outlined by
Freud. While the first stage is infancy, the second stage is early childhood (the second and third
years of life) when children began to focus on gaining control over their actions. This is followed
by preschool, school age and adolescence. The preschool period corresponds to the stage where
Freud saw oedipal conflicts emerging (Carver & Scheier, 2008). Meanwhile, the adolescent stage
is the period that begins with the physical changes of puberty and lasts until roughly age 20. This
stage is said to be a larger break with the past than any stage up to this point (p. 247).
It is the stage at which the individual begins to find his place in the world. Critical to this
stage is knowing who you are and how your roles fit your identity in the world. Erikson
continued to dwell on the concept of adolescent identity in the 1960s, especially in light of
student protests on American college campuses (Friedman, 2001). The next stage in Eriksons
theory is young adulthood. The conflict here relates to the desire for intimacy versus isolation.
The longest of the psychosocial stages is adulthood, which is immediately preceded by young
adulthood. The crisis of adulthood centers on being able to generate or nurture. The description
of this stage expounds on the notion of generativity. Generativity is one of the central theoretical
categories of Eriksons psychosocial theory (p. 179).

In Childhood and Society and at a 1950 White House conference, Erikson layout the first
detailed account of his developmental model: 1. Basic trust vs. basic mistrust (infancy); 2.
autonomy vs. shame and doubt (early childhood); 3. Initiative vs. guilt (play age) 4. Industry vs.
inferiority (school age); 5. Identity vs. role confusion (adolescence); 6. Intimacy vs. isolation
(young adulthood); 7. Generativity vs. stagnation (adulthood); ego integrity vs. despair (old age).
EMPIRICAL TESTING AND VALIDITY
Benveniste (2001, p. 2) has evaluated Eriksons contributions to the intellectual and cultural
climate of his time. The central conclusion of this author is that many of the attacks on Eriksons
work came as the result of the influence of orthodoxy in the psychoanalytical community. Most
empirical research into Erikson has in fact stemmed from his views on adolescence and attempts
to establish identity. His analytic approach regarding adolescence was substantiated by James E.
Marcia. Marcias work has distinguished different forms of identity by pointing to empirical
evidence that showed that those people who form the most coherent self-concept in adolescence
are those who are able to make intimate attachments in early adulthood. This finding supports
Eriksons thesis by indicating that those best equip to resolve the crisis of early adulthood are
those who have most successfully resolved the crisis of adolescence.
The Eriksonian category of generativity versus stagnation has anticipated several empirical
studies (Carver & Scheier, 2008). For example, using data from longitudinal studies of educated
white women, Torgues, Stewart and Duncan (2008) explored the precursors and correlates of ego
integrity and despair, which is the last developmental stage in Eriksons theory of adult
development. This study suggests that generativity at the age of 63 was found to predict ego
integrity at age 62. Meanwhile, McAdams and de St. Aubin (1992) found that men who had had
children scored higher on a self-report measure of generativity than did childless men.

Generativity has also been found to relate to a view of the self as role model and source of
wisdom for ones children.
Eriksons work has been criticized for adhering closely to Freuds misogynist theories (Douvan,
1997). The main reason for this is the claimed that he focused his psycho-biographical work
entirely on male figures (p. 17). However, Douvan (p. 17) argues that the central body of his
theory places emphasis on validated qualities that relate to womens development but had been
underplayed in academic psychology. These qualities include trust, intimacy, generativity, and
the importance and awareness of feelings in humane and healthy development. Douvan goes on
to argue that by focusing on male development, Erikson was merely reflecting the historical
context of his times.
Eriksons stage-structured approach has been judged as rigid and deterministic and
normative in its hierarchy of stage-specific traits and totalizing in its intensions. He has also
been judged by others as too compliant within the framework of prevailing social values because
of his willingness to surrender developmental ideals to any societys dominant conception of the
phases of life. The dialectical model of development that he puts forward has been criticized as
insufficiently contextualized even context itself has been identified as needing greater rigor and
specificity in its developmental applications. Lerner (1984) indicates that while Eriksons ideas
may be providing greater variability in development, it may not recognize enough plasticity in
the individuals complex interactions with the environment.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
This paper has critically examined and shed some light on the psychological theory of Erik
Erikson. It is postulated based on the essentials of Eriksons personality theory, that there are
eight stages through which a healthy developing human should pass. These phases start from

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infancy and end in late adulthood. During the course of this discussion, many aspects of the
circumstances that formed the ego identity of Erik Erikson as an individual self have been
explored. The issues of marginality and generativity emerged as distinguishing psychosocial
categories (Douvan, 1996). Hence, through examining the status of marganality that colored
Eriksons career both in Europe and the United States, it is hoped that one has gained a
qualitative and dialectical insight into the basic intellectual rationale and empirical groundings of
his contributions to the human sciences.
The discussion in this paper has demonstrated that Erikson was a man that wore many hats
including artist and psychoanalyst and scholar. It is suggested that why Freud focused his studies
on the psychosexual dimensions of human development, Eriksons theory was essentially
undergirded by an attempt to gauge the theoretical underpinnings of psychosocial processes.
Thus, like the psychologist Adler, Erikson considered social as well as the creative self or ego
processes.

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References
Benveniste, D. (2000). Identitys architect: A biography of Erik H. Erikson by Lawrence J.
Friedman. Psychoanalytic Review, 87, 943-949.
Carver, S.C. & Scheier, M.F. (2008). Perspectives on personality (six edition), Boston:
Pearson Education.
Douvan, E. (1999). Erik Erikson: Critical times, critical theory, Child Psychology and
Human Development, 28(1), 15-21.
Friedman, L.J. (2001). Erik Erikson on identity, generativity, and pseudospeciation: A
biographers perspective, Psychoanalysis and History, 3, 179-192.
Lerner. (1984). On the nature of human plasticity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
McAdams, D.P., & de St. Aubin, E. (1992). A theory of generativity and its assessment through
self-report, behavior acts, and narrative themes in autobiography. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 62, 1003-1015.
Massey, R. F. (1986). Individual psychology. The Journal of Adlerian Theory, Research and
Practice, 42, 65-92.
Torges, C.M., Stewart, A.J. & Duncan, L.E. (2008). Achieving ego integrity: Personality
development in late midlife, Journal of Research in Personality, 42,4, 1004-1209.
Woodward, K.L. (1994). Erik Erikson: Teaching others how to see, America, 171 (4), 6-8.

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