Erikson Stage 3 Analysis

ERIKSON’S STAGE 3
At some point in a child’s life they have the need to want to do what everyone else is doing, and they learn that they want to participate in the action as well. Stage 3 of Erik Erikson’s psychological development is labelled initiative vs. guilt and this is where children start to gain a sense of power and will to do things on their own in their environment. If their initiative actions were to fail than the child starts to feel a sense of guilt. An example would be of a child wanting to help their mother clean up after dinner, if the child drops a plate and gets scolded, they would feel guilty, however if all went well, the child will have participated in the initiative stage. Moving forward, in 2003 I started up in the
Furthermore, in Erikson’s psychological development stage 4 is called industry vs inferiority. In stage 4, children develop high self-esteem from the pride they gain in their external activities (e.g. scoring the winning goal in a soccer game). Furthermore, children can also develop a low self-esteem if they are unsuccessful in their actions (e.g. missing the winning goal at the soccer game). In the second grade, our school had a spelling bee for kids our age. First, we got tested in our classes and the top 3 would go against the rest of the grade; I was one of the lucky students who made it to the top 3 in my class, even more so, I made it to the top 5 in the grade. However, when I was facing the rest of the grade I misspelled the word quiet and so I lost my chance and did not make it to the district competition. I was extremely disappointed and I never lived it down. In relation to Erikson’s psychological development, stage 4, industry vs. inferiority, at this particular moment in my life I achieved inferiority. By failing in the competition, I ended up developing a very low self-esteem about my knowledge capability. What made this event so scarring into my psychological development, was that I had worked so hard at something and willed for the championship to be mine, and did not end up winning. I was sure I was going to get it
Skinner’s ‘Operant Conditioning.’ Skinner's theory is beneficial because it does not differentiate into separate stages, it can be applied to any individual at any point in time because it analyzes one's behavior. "The emphasis of behavioral psychology is on how we learn to behave in certain ways. We are all constantly learning new behaviors and how to modify our existing behavior: (McLeod, 2015). Skinners' Operant Conditioning theory focuses on how our behavior and attitude reflects our actions today. This theory can be used in classrooms, prisons and even psychiatric hospitals. Furthermore, not only can Skinners theory be applied to all the stages of human development, but it can also be used teaching mechanism. Skinner believed that rewards are more effective than punishment, even though both have an impact to simulating the desired behavior from an individual. In a classroom environment, a teacher who rewards his/her students will tend to notice a child willing to demonstrate the same exemplary behavior they wish to see continuously. “After getting such a positive response, the feeling of pride and self-satisfaction is one they are going to want to emulate in the future, and so they are likely to behave well from here onwards.” (Loring et al, 1969). A positive reinforcement is meant to help increase the desired behavior tendency to occur more. With