This research paper is based on an interview of a female Jamaican aged 40 years old and an American female catholic also aged 40 years old. The interview is carried out to try and examine the differences each of the female experiences as a person in terms of physical, cognitive and psychological development. According to Eriksson’s model of development, an individual aged 40 years, should be in stage seven development characterized by; generativity vs. stagnation, a stage of parenthood, and particularly caring of the young ones and giving them unconditional love and care both to the family and the community.
An Interview of Jamaican 40 Years Old Female On interviewing this lady whom we shall call Alice, I found that she had been married twice and divorced on both occasions, in her last marriage she had a daughter who is now aged 5 years before divorcing. Alice stays with the daughter presently, though she gets support from the former husband. It is hard for Alice and she seems to be working extra hard to provide care for the child. Alice had a rough childhood; as a child aged 9 her parents divorced and she was left to her mother who was to care for her.
Her mother worked hard to provide food for Alice and her two brothers, but in most cases it was not enough. On many occasions the mother came back in bad mood and the Alice and brother were severely beaten for nothing in particular. Thus, as an adult Alice finds a problem of having a stable marriage as she has never learned to love and trust people. She approaches marriage with mistrust and to her; this is why her marriages have been breaking. Though, Alice has one child, she has failed to dedicate full attention to the child who she says reminds her of her past husband.
Alice also seems to have a problem concentrating on her work, she has worked in the same firm for the last five years but she has not been promoted to a higher level because of her poor production record. To Eriksson, stage seven; generativity vs. stagnation; is characterized by parenthood, and particularly caring of the young one and giving them unconditional love and care. Eriksson points out that this stage also covers additional productive activities such work. However, it stresses parenting a lot.
Positive results from this stage will base on making positive contribution to the family and the community; this crisis stage may be viewed as a stage that ends self interest. Having children is not a precondition for generativity, but the success of this stage is based on giving and caring – giving out something back to the society. Alice can’t make positive contribution and she is still self- cantered because of unsuccessful passage of other development stages. (Roazen, 1976)
On the other hand, stagnation in this stage is an extension of intimacy, which results into self- interest or self absorption. This represents the feelings of self- selfishness, greed or lack of interest in young people. Stagnation comes about because of not having no opening or an opportunity to make contribution to the family or the community. Thus, Alice shows stagnation because she did not successful pass through all stages of development due to interruption caused by her parents divorce and bad up bring from her mother.
(Roazen, 1976) An Interview of American Catholic 40 Years Old Female Contra to Alice, Betty is a successful 40 years old American who enjoys every minute of life Betty was born in a catholic family and was raised to be fear God, be respectful to adults and follow direction of teachers. She also helped out at home a lot with chores, like washing dishes and other house cleaning chores. She also went to church regularly and was very obedient to her parents who were loving, caring and supportive. She learnt to be independent early.
Betty had very good conduct in school, very good grades and always tried to please her parents and her teachers. She formed a strong belief in following rules and laws of the society. She grew up to be successful business owner and a functional contributing citizen to the family and the community. Betty balances her work with the raising of her two children and school. she attribute her current status in life to how she develop as a child as far as being independent and carrying forward a strong sense of self esteem.
Successful completion of each psychosocial stage depends on getting the right balance between the two conflicting ends and not entirely focusing or being led towards “ideal” or “preferable” ends in each stage. This model then explains why too a large amount of any thing does not help in developing person with well- balanced personality. It also explains why Betty is successful since she went through every development stage successful and without any major incidence. (Roazen, 1976)
A positive experience in every stage which is well- balanced, develops a matching “basic virtue” or strength which assist in personality development each of this basic virtue enables a series of other related emotional crisis. For example stage four; between 6 and 12 years for most people, results in “basic psychosocial virtue” of competence, in addition to related strengths such as skills, methods, ability to work with different processes and techniques. Thus, Betty success can be attribute to positive experiences she had in childhood. (Roazen, 1976) Effects of Cultural Perceptive To Physical, Cognitive or Psychosocial Development
Culture is said to be a system of values and norms that are shared among a group of people and that when combined together it comprises a design for living that is culture is the way of life Research reveals that, culture and social aspects have an effect on physical, cognitive or psychosocial development because of different cultural view on life will affect the child up bring. For example, a child brought up in a catholic setting will have different development in psychosocial as compared to one brought up in the Jamaica where families don’t follow catholic beliefs.
This will in fact be more pronounced if the child is not a catholic. Cultural perspective has a big effect on Eriksson model of development; it dictates when the next stage of development will be reached, where us in some cultures a child will be encouraged to go through these stages much faster, and example in America. In other places like Jamaica, a child may be delayed in one stage for example, a child may be delayed to start schooling which will definitely delay his/her passage of other stages.
Cultural differences also play an important role in child development especially in terms of resource availability; more resource will lead to the child developing normal or quickly, while fewer resources will lead to redundancy in growth. Due to much cultural and epochal influence on the cognition the moral concept of Eriksson model may fail to be universal. Interpreting of psychosocial response based exclusively on structural systems conditions which are organized by general intelligences, therefore badly distorts psychosocial development profile.
For example, many studies show that many people in other countries do not reach Eriksson’s eighth stage of development (Crain, 1985 Conclusion According to Eriksson’s psychological model, it basically states that each person will experience the eight psychosocial crises. (Which are inner conflicts related to life’s key stage) which assist in defining an individual growth and personality. Individual go through this fixed “psychosocial crisis” stages in a fixed series, however, timing vary in accordance to the people and circumstances.
This explains why the model defines the stages chiefly by the crises names in those stages or by emotional conflicts involved in those stages. Cultural differences play an important role in psychosocial development as different cultural backgrounds have different impact on an individual personal development. (Roazen, 1976)
Reference:
Crain, W. C. (1985): Theories of Development, 2Rev Ed, Prentice-Hall. Marcia, J. E. , (1966): Development and validation of ego identity status, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 3 Roazen, P. (1976): Erik H. Eriksson: The Power and Limits of a Vision, N. Y. ; The Free Press