Theoretical Blog: Infancy

Erik Erikson had developed a theory of eight stages of change in the psychosocial dynamic. The eight stages are; Infancy: Trust vs. Mistrust, Early Childhood: Autonomy vs. Shame doubt, Play age: Initiative vs. guilt, School age: Industry vs. Inferiority, Adolescence: Identity vs. identity confusion, Young Adulthood: Intimacy vs. isolation, Maturity: Generatively vs. self-absorption, and Old age: Integrity vs. despair, disgust, these stages takes a human from birth to death (Ashford, J. B., & LeCroy, C. W., 2013). In these the first stage in the most crucial stage trust versus mistrust, an article by (Studer 2006) states that ‘According to Erikson (1980/1994), "basic trust is an attitude toward self and the world" (p. 57), whereas mistrustful individuals are in conflict with self and others. Trust, also described as "confidence," provides a foundation in which the trainee feels comfortable in risk-taking as a result of his or her relationship with others. If events and people are unpredictable and anxiety provoking, mistrust will result (Capps, 2004). Just as trust is the essential foundation in Erikson's psychosocial developmental model, a supportive, genuine supervisory atmosphere facilitates trainee task development. When the trainee first enters the clinical experiences, a "working relationship" is formed based on genuine communication and trust.’  (Studer, J. R. 2006). This is where the foundation is laid to begin the process of theoretically seeing clients and having a positive response.

            In addition to this theory there is Bandura’s social learning theory, where Bandura believes that people can process information to actively influence how the environment controls them. Observational learning is a kind of indirect learning. The learning process is considered cognitive because people must pay attention to the role models and process this information in their memory. Is an approach that combines learning principles with cognitive processes plus the effects of observational learning to explain behavior? (Ashford, J. B., & LeCroy, C. W., 2013)

Erikson and Bandura believed that everyone could be taught; there are learned behaviors that ever human develops and it is done cognitively. Erikson saw that everything started at birth and Bandura believe that a child can start learning from the day someone is born. To show the largest difference in the two theories is that with Bandura everything is learned by cognition and with Erikson everything is developed by stages. However the end out come is still going to be the exact same the child will learn from the second it is born up until the day it dies. When coming back to infancy Erikson’s theory is proven to be truer based on the fact that infants are facing biophysical issues good and bad. As the mind is developing the child is learning what is right and wrong. For example temper tantrum is a bad way to communicate but crying is a healthy way of communicating in infancy.

References

Ashford, J. B., & LeCroy, C. W. (2013). Human behavior in the social environment: a multidimensional perspective (5th ed.). Australia: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.

Studer, J. R. (2006). Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Stages Applied to Supervision. Guidance & Counseling, 21(3), 168.