Erikson's psychosocial stages
Eight life stages, each posing a tension: trust v. mistrust, autonomy v. shame, initiative v. guilt, industry v. inferiority, identity v. role confusion, intimacy v. isolation, generativity v. stagnation, integrity v. despair. How each is resolved leaves a residue later stages build on.
What drives it
Gives a vocabulary for what question a person's life is currently putting to them, and for which earlier question is still open. Useful for identifying where adults are stuck: the executive still fighting the identity question at 45, or the manager stuck in industry v. inferiority who measures worth by output.
How it shows
Work
In the 20s and 30s, identity and intimacy: trying roles, collecting mentors, job moves. From the 40s, generativity (mentoring, building something that outlasts them) or stagnation (cynical, self-absorbed, coasting). Older leaders facing integrity v. despair resist succession or obsess about legacy. Residues of earlier stages show too: shame-proneness as touchiness about being supervised, unresolved inferiority as compulsive achievement.
Relationships
People without a settled identity tend to merge with partners or keep things shallow (intimacy v. isolation). Generativity shows in investment in children, juniors and community; stagnation in self-preoccupation and boredom.
Self
Ask which question your life is asking now: who am I, whom do I love, what will I leave, was it worth it. Then ask which older question still produces outsized feeling.
What tells it apart
Piaget's stages of cognitive development: Piaget tracks reasoning capacity; Erikson tracks the social and emotional question. A sharp analyst can be stuck on trust or identity.
Subject-object shift (Kegan): Kegan's orders describe the structure of meaning-making regardless of age; a 50-year-old can face generativity questions from a socialised mind.
A test
Listen for which concern dominates a person's talk about the future and their regrets, and whether it fits their age or belongs to an earlier stage.
Questions to carry
- Listening to how someone talks about regrets and the future, which life question keeps coming up for them?
- Which question about trust, identity, closeness or legacy is my own life putting to me this year?
How strong the research is
mixed. The fixed sequence and its tie to age are little supported; constructs drawn from it, notably identity and generativity, are measurable and predict well-being.
Where it comes from
Erik Erikson, 1950 (Childhood and Society); elaborated 1959 and 1968
On the family tree: Erik Erikson
Sources
- Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and Society (1950)