We are now going to discuss about how Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget thought development.
Freud’s theory of Psychosexual Development
Freud believed that childhood was extremely important in the formation of adult personality and that personality develops in several psychosexual stages and sexual energy or libido governs important behavior throughout life.
According to Freud there are three basic stages of development, each of which is centered on an erogenous zone of the body. They are Oral stage (birth to 2 years), Anal stage (2-3 years) and Phallic stage (3-4 years).
The emphasis of Oral stage is on the mouth in the young baby. Freud stated that the early oral activities were of lasting significance so that how babies are treated at this time is of crucial importance for future development. If the baby’s needs were met then they will grow up as happy trusting individuals whereas if don’t, they would develop malevolent personalities.
When children grow older, according to Freud, the zone of interest for the child shifts to the anus. Freud’s idea was that an infant’s life is dominated to some extent by the requirements of its parents and society to behave in certain ways. In this stage, the foundations for key personality characteristics are laid down.
In Phallic stage, the focus of child’s attention in terms of sexual pleasure turns to the genital region. Here Freud differentiates between the sexes. Freud tries to explain why boys come to identify with males and adopt typical male behavior and girls come to identify with women and adopt typical female behavior. The process in both cases is called ‘Identification’.
Freud stated that if a baby is deprived at any one stage he may develop a pessimistic emotional orientation and become “fixated” and this will lead to an adult who is overly concerned with oral gratification.
Freud’s theory of Personality-Psychodynamic theory
Freud proposed that as we pass through the psychosexual stages, three parts of personality, Id, Ego, Superego, are emerged.
These three parts of personality are in a constant struggle or conflict with each other for dominance.
Freud believed that all behavior in both adults and children is motivated by the need to gratify instinctual drives that are survival based. He suggested three basic drives or forms of mental energy. They are sexual drive or libido, the drive for self-preservation and the aggressive drive.
The only part of the personality present at birth according to Freud is Id. Its function is to gratify the instincts and is governed by the desire for pleasure. Id contains the basic instinct for survival likes food or water. Eros and Thanatos are two major driving forces of Id instincts.
The Ego develops as a result of a realization that there is an external world. The Ego maintains the individual as a whole while adapting to external reality and operates according to the reality principle. By defence mechanisms, it looks for safe and rational ways of satisfying the demands of the id that have to be met. Some defence mechanisms are Denial, Repression, Regression, Projection, Reaction Formation and Identification with Aggressor.
During the phallic stage the child experiences the Oedipus/Electra complex and the Super-ego or conscience begins to develop. The Super-ego represents standards and ethics we learn to live by. It looks for perfection and it is as unrealistic as the Id. Super-ego includes the conscience and Ego-ideal. The conscience part consciously makes us feel guilty for improper thoughts or actions. The Ego-ideal part rewards us for doing or thinking good things. Cause of the superego is not rational so if overdeveloped or underdeveloped can lead to personality and behavioral problems for the individual.
Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development
There are four stages in Piaget’s theory, they are the Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years), the Pre-operational stage (2-5/7 years), the Concrete Operational stage (7-11 years) and the Formal Operational stage (11-15+ years).
In the Sensorimotor stage, most of the infant’s behavior is reflexive and the characteristic mode of interacting with the environment involves practicing the use of the senses and movement.
In the Pre-operational stage, the child’s thinking has progressed significantly but is still not logical in adult terms. The child can use language to thought and use imagination to create image in the mind.
In the Concrete Operational stage, the child’s thinking becomes more logical and can deal with more than one aspect of a situation at once and start to see situations from another’s viewpoint.
In the Formal Operational stage, thinking is now logical and ‘adult-like’ and the individual can grasp abstract concepts such as racism and sexism.
Piaget’s theory of Moral Development
Behaving morally requires thinking. For a person to develop ideas or concepts of right and wrong, such thinking must be logical. Piaget finds this approach to moral development. He defined two different types or stages of morality. The first stage is at about the age of 5-8 years, Heteronomous Morality. The second stage is at about 10 years or above, Autonomous Morality.
In the heteronomous stage, the child sees moral rules as fixed, unchangeable and imposed by external authority. In the autonomous stage, the child begins to see that rules can be flexible guidelines by which people establish an amenable society. As the understanding of rules developed, a child learns to keep the rules.
Piaget describes the development from the heteronomous to autonomous stage as a move from moral realism to a morality of co-operation. The child can now make judgments about the rules.
Compare and contrast between Freud’s theory and Piaget’s theory
Freud’s theory concentrates solely on emotional development to the exclusion of intellectual development. He believes that much of human behavior is explained by factors of the mind. While Piaget’s theory concentrates on intellectual and cognitive development. He believes that the Moral Development of a child can be gain by thinking.
But we can find that the conscience in Super-ego stage of Freud’s theory includes thinking ability, which is similar to Piaget’s theory.
-THE END-
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