Compare And Contrast Erikson's Eight Stages Of The Life Span

Hello Yellow-brick Road, Goodbye Yellow-brick Road 1

Hello Yellow-brick road, Goodbye Yellow-brick Road

The Two Important Stages of the Life Span

William James, the father of American psychology, once said that, “Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds.” With that said, we are all human beings, living in the same world, developing at different speeds. After all, isn’t that the basic foundation of development? Development is the physical and psychological change that takes place in a human being throughout the course of his/her life span. No two persons are alike – in fact, we all go through the same changes, just at different
points in our lives, under different circumstances. However, whichever the path, the road ends at the same place for all of us. Development is continuity and change. Human beings undergo many different changes as they grow older, from infancy, all the way up until death. These changes include motor skills, physical appearance, cognition, intelligence, social changes, emotional changes, and most importantly but not limited to, personality changes. All of these changes occur in human beings, but not all at the same time, because face it, it would be impossible for all of these changes to occur at the same exact time in everyone; it sort of defeats the very meaning of the word change. Erik Erikson, one of the greatest developmental psychologists of our time, broke down development into eight different stages. Erikson’s eight stages are as follows: infancy, early childhood, play age, school age, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood.
These eight stages extend from birth to death; changes take place during childhood as well as adolescence and adulthood. Though the actual ages may differ from one stage to another, the ages seem to be fitting for the majority of people. I won’t go too much into all eight of Erikson’s stages; however, I would like to discuss two stages that I find to be quite interesting. Adolescence and late adulthood are two stages that are quite intriguing, and after some research, I have found that there are some stark comparisons and contrasts between the
two. According to most sources, adolescence is the intermediary stage of physical as well as psychological development that occurs between childhood and adulthood – it is brought on by the onset of puberty. Erikson says that during the adolescent stage, generally ages 12-18, there is identity versus role confusion. During this stage, development depends largely upon what we do. Adolescence is a stage at which our bodies undergo various physical changes and we are no longer a child, nor are we fully adults. Life becomes more complicated as we attempt to find our own identity as to who we really are, struggle with social relations, and come to grips with moral issues. Erikson’s fifth stage is all about our task to discover who we are as persons and basically find our way and become accepted by society. My cousin Shafique is 14 years old and lives in Manhattan with my aunt and uncle, and his little brother who’s only 7.
I’ve watched him grow up ever since he was an infant. Shafique used to be an adorable little boy who had this innocence behind him, like most children do before they hit puberty. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, but I ran into him at a family event not too long ago, and my, has he changed. He’s at least a foot and a half taller, his body weight has increased by an average of thirty pounds, his voice doesn’t sound like a girl anymore, and his attitude and the way he dresses is parallel to that of any teenager you see these days. He dresses “emo,” with his hair all grown out and spiked up, tight skinny jeans, and bright colored t-shirts. He spends most of his time on the new social playground, facebook, flirting with girls his age and fighting back criticism from his male friends. From what I can recall, the after I had a thorough conversation with my cousin, he came off as a jerk, for a lack of better words. He was arrogant and cocky, and everything he said, he thought that he was absolutely right and that there was no room for anyone else’s opinion. All that I knew of him seemed like it had vanished. Not to my astonishment, I knew that he was going through puberty, you could tell from his one or two hairs growing on his chin. His relationship with his mom and dad are strong, because coming from an Asian background, familial bonds are really strong.
Most of my older cousins love him to death, as do I, but I must admit, he is a pain in the rear, but I guess we all were when we were going through puberty, well, males anyway. Erikson’s other stage I would like to discuss is his eighth and final stage, late adulthood, which is typically from age 55 until death. Much of life is spent preparing for the middle adulthood stage, and the final stage, is simply recovering from it. As older adults, we can often look back on our lives and reflect. Erikson calls this stage the integrity versus despair stage in which the person conducts a life review; combines earlier stages and comes to grips with their basic identity, thus developing self-acceptance. Erikson calls this feeling of fulfillment, integrity. On the other hand, some adults reach this stage and feel misery at their experiences and see them as failures. They fear death as they struggle to find a purpose to their lives, as it is almost coming to an end. Erikson calls this feeling, despair. My father, whom I love very much, is 62 years of age, and after my younger sister passed away three years ago, I’ve noticed a change in him. He used to act young and look young before the sudden death of my sister, but now, the grey hairs make him look old and the wrinkles in his face no longer disappear when he smiles. I guess after my little sister died, he no longer feels young, after all, she did keep him on his toes at all times. His thinking is filled with wisdom and he is open-minded to everything, and does not have any biases. My dad is strong man, well, he used to be. His memory is forgetful at times, but his wisdom is superior. I know I can go to him if I ever needed advice on anything. He sleeps a lot more than he used to these days, but that’s because he’s really tired from work and being on his feet all day. My dad is a teacher. When he’s not at work, my dad spends most of his time talking on the phone or going shopping with my mom, and on weekends, he’s always at parties with his friends and/or my uncles. He’s doing what older people do when they get his age – he’s relaxing and enjoying however many years he’s got left in this world. Everyone loves my dad, he’s the youngest out of his siblings and he’s also the comedian in the family. My dad has two children, myself and my older sister. My dad is happily married to my mom, successfully, for the past 25 years, and hopefully, for many more years to come. I remember recently, we went on a family trip up north, and I was driving back home and it was pretty late at night. I was listening to my cd and this song came on, “Forever Young,” by The Youth Group. My dad asked me what song that was and told me to replay it. Right then I knew that my dad, although he was happy with everything he had accomplished in life, he didn’t want to die, he wasn’t ready to die. He wanted to be forever young. My dad fits into this stage of lifespan by that he has reached this final stage of development, and he’s having integrity versus despair issues. Not that he’s not happy with all that he’s accomplished and with what he has, but more that, he’s not ready to let go of it all. I don’t blame him. Life comes at you pretty fast. My dad and my cousin are in two completely different life span stages right now. My dad is old and wise, and my cousin is young and naïve. My cousin lacks major life experiences and probably cannot be of help if you needed advice. My father, on the other hand, is full of life experiences and wisdom and would be happy to happy to help you with whatever problem you have. The life span is about change, that’s for sure, but when one door closes, another one opens. That’s pretty much how life and change occurs. Whether it be my cousin Shafique, who’s going through a pretty rough but yet exciting time right now during his stage in the life span, or it be my dear father who’s almost at the end of his, it’s not the destination that’s important, it’s the journey that gets us there. The only similarity is that, at the end of the day, we’re all just humans craving to be happy and accepted by everyone else.

References

Linn, M. & Fabricant, S. (1988). Healing the Eight Stages of Life (pp. 112-204). New Jersey: Paulist Press.

Baltes, P., Staudinger, U., (1999, January). LIFESPAN PSYCHOLOGY: Theory and Application to Intellectual Functioning. Annual Review of Psychology. 1.

Boyd, D. (2008). Lifespan Development: 5th Edition (pp. 29-31). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.