CHAPTER 6: ERIK H. ERIKSON Flashcards
What is the job of the “Ego” according to Freud?
To find realistic ways of satisfying the impulses of the id while not offending the moral demands of the superego.
How did Freud view the ego?
The ego operated “in the service of the id” and as the “helpless rider of the id horse.”
What are mere displacements or sublimations of basic idinal desires according to Freud?
Science, art, and religion.
What was the first shift away from Freud’s position?
His daughter Anna, in her book, “The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense.”
What did Anna Freud suggest?
Instead of emphasizing the importance of the id, psychoanalysis should “acquire the fullest possible knowledge of all the three institutions [that is, id, ego, and superego] of which we believe the psychic personality to be consisted and to learn what are their relations to one another and to the outside world.”
Who was Erik H. Erikson influenced by?
His teacher, Anna Freud. However, he believed she did not go far enough.
What is the “Ego” according to Erikson?
The ego may have started out in the service of the id, but in the process of serving it, developed its own functions.
What is Erikson’s example of the “Ego?”
The ego’s job was to organize one’s life and to ensure continuous harmony with one’s physical and social environment.
What does the conception emphasize the influence of the ego?
On healthy growth and adjustment and also as the source of the person’s self-awareness and identity.
What does Erikson’s theory exemplify?
Because Erikson stressed the autonomy of the ego, his theory exemplifies the “ego psychology.”
Ego psychology
Theoretical system that stresses the importance of the ego as an autonomous part of the personality instead of viewing the ego as merely the servant of the id.
How can Erikson’s theory be viewed?
As a description of how the ego gains or loses strength as a function of developmental experiences.
Where was Erikson born?
Near Frankfurt, Germany, on June 15, 1902.
Who was Erikson’s mother
Karla Abrahamsen, a member of a prominent Jewish family in Copenhagen.
Who and when did Karla marry?
At 21, Karla married a 27-year-old Jewish Stockbroker, Valdemar Isidor Salomonsen
Did the relationship between Karla and Valdemar last?
No, speculation concerning Valdemar’s rapid departure ranges from his involvement in criminal activities causing him to become a fugitive, to the fact that he physically abused Karla, causing her to terminate the relationship.
True or False: Valdemar was Erikson’s father.
False: Valdemar was not his father. If Karla knew the identity of Erik’s father, she never revealed it.
Who did Karla begin a relationship after Valdemar?
Erik’s paediatrician, Theodor Homburger. The two were married on Erik’s third birthday, June 15, 1905.
What proposal did Theodor come up with?
One provision: Erik was to be told that Theodor was Erik’s biological father and Karla agreed.
True or False: Theodor adopted Erik
True: legally, Erik became Erik Homburger.
What was a secret kept throughout Erik’s childhood?
That Dr. Homburger was not Erik’s biological father.
When did Erik change his last name?
When he became a U.S citizen in 1939, he changed his last name to Erikson.
Why did Erik change his last name?
His children were troubled by the American tendency to confuse “Homburger” with “hamburger,” and that he asked one of his sons for an alternative; being Erik’s son, he proposed Erikson.
What did Erikson connote?
That he was his own father, self created.
What did Erikson do with his previous last name, “Homburger”
Homburger was reduced to the middle initial of the name that Erikson then used to identify his works.
True or False: Erikson had a sense of not belonging to his family.
True: His sense of belonging amplified by the fact that his mother, Karla, and his stepfather, Theodor, were Jewish. Erikson himself was tall, with blue eyes and blonde hair.
What was Erikson referred to at school?
A Jew, whereas at his stepfather’s temple he was called a “goy.”
Goy
Yiddish word for gentile.
Did Erikson have an artistic ability?
Yes: Erikson said, “I was an artist, then which can be a European euphemism for a young man with some talent, but nowhere to go.”
Why was 1927 a turning point in Erikson’s life?
At age 25, he was invited to Vienna by an old school friend to work at a small school attended by the children of Freud’s patients and friends.
What was Erikson hired as at the small school?
As an artist and then as a tutor.
What did Anna Freud ask Erikson in regards to training?
Anna freud asked Erikson if he would like to be trained as a child analyst.
True or False: Erikson accepted the child analyst position.
True: He received his psychoanalytic training under Anna Freud, for which she charged him $7 per month.
What did Anna Freud’s training consist of?
It included Erik being psychoanalyzed by Anna, lasting 3 years and was conducted almost daily.
Did Anna Freud have a profound influence on Erikson?
Yes: In 1964, he showed his appreciation by dedicating his book “Insight and Responsibility” to her.
True or False: Erikson joined the Freudian circle.
True: Freud was 71-years-old. Erikson knew him only informally.
Did Erikson join the group of “outcasts?”
Yes: He joined a group of outcasts to maintain his identity as the outsider.
What did the group “outcasts” do?
The group’s function was to help disturbed people, Erikson could at least indirectly satisfy his stepfather’s desire for him to become a physician.
What were Erikson’s formal trainings?
His graduation from the gymnasium, a Montessori diploma, and his training as a child analyst.
What is Erikson a clear example of?
Of Freud’s contention: that one does not need to be trained as a physician to become a psychoanalyst.
When did Erikson graduate?
In 1933 from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute, becoming a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association.
Who is Joan Person?
Joan Person studied and taught modern dance at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania as she pursued her PhD in education at Columbia.
Did Joan Person become a member of Freud’s circle?
Yes: she began to be psychoanalyzed by Ludwig Jewels, one of Freud’s early disciples.
What happened with Joan Person and Erikson?
Joan met Erik at a masked ball. They talked and danced throughout the night, and soon thereafter she moved in with Erik and became pregnant.
True or False: Erikson did not marry Joan Person.
False: They were married on April 1, 1930, and Joan became Erik’s intellectual partner for the remainder of his long life.
Psychohistory
Term used to describe Erikson’s use of his developmental theory of personality to analyze historical figures.
Which book was awarded both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Aware in philosophy and religion?
Erikson’s book “Gandhi’s Truth.”
What is the difference between Erikson’s and Freud’s theories?
Erikson’s theory, for example, is more optimistic about the human capacity for positive growth. Both theories have transcended the bounds of psychology and have influenced a variety of other fields such as religion, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and history.
True or False: Did Erikson come close to traditional Freudian theory?
True: in the chapter “The Theory of Infantile Sexuality” in his book “Childhood and Society,” Erikson summarized his research on 10 to 12-year-old boys and girls in California.
What did Erikson have the 10 to 12-year-old boys and girls do?
They were instructed by Erikson to build a scene from a movie. The children were to use toy figures and various-shaped blocked.
What was the result to Erikson’s study of the 10 to 12-year-old boys and girls?
In over a year and a half, about 150 children constructed about 450 scenes, and not more than about six were scenes from am movie. For example, only a few of the toy figures were given names of actors or actresses.
What were some of Erikson’s observations in the study of the 10 to 12-year-old girls?
Scenes created by girls typically included an enclosure that sometimes had an elaborate entrance and contained such elements as people and animals. Scenes created by girls tended to be static and peaceful, although animals or dangerous men often interrupted their scenes.
What were some of Erikson’s observations in the study of the 10 to 12-year-old boys?
Scenes created by boys often had high walls around them and had many objects such as high towers or cannons protruding from them. The scenes created by boys also had relatively more people and animals outside the enclosure. The boys’ scenes were dynamic and included fantasies about the collapse or downfall of their creation.
What did Erikson conclude from his observations in the study of the 10 to 12-year-old boys and girls?
Erikson concluded that the scenes created by the children were outward manifestations of their genital apparatus. For example, Erikson recounted that one boy created what he called a “feminine” scene, but, as the boy was leaving the room, he realized that there was “something wrong” with the scene and returned to rearrange it.
What are factors that determine how a person perceives and acts on the world?
Biological and social factors were important. We are specifically interested by our culture on how boys and girls are expected to act and think, and these cultural dictates influence our outlook.
Is anatomy destiny?
Yes, it is destiny, insofar as it determines not only the range and configuration of physiological functioning and its limitations but also, to an extent, personality configurations.
Anatomy and Destiny
Freud thought many important personality traits were determined by one’s gender. Erikson believed the same but thought that one’s culture was another powerful influence on one’s personality. Although Erikson believed men and women have different personality characteristics, he did not consider one set of characteristics better than the other.
Who is Naomi Weisstein?
She criticized Erikson’s views of male-female differences. Weisstein argued in her article “Psychology Constructs the Female, or the Fantasy Life of the Male Psychologist (with Some Attention to the Fantasies of His Friends, the Male Biologist and the Male Anthropologist” that psychology does not know what either men or women are really like because it deals with only the cultural stereotypes of both.
What did Naomi Weisstein conclude from her article?
She insisted that what have been called biologically determined differences in behaviour between the sexes are really better explained as the result of social expectations. She concluded that insofar as there are differences between the sexes, they are the result of cultural expectations and the prejudices of male social scientists.
Who is Paula Caplan?
Caplan criticized Erikson’s contention that the type of sex organs one possesses influences how one interacts with the world. She was especially critical of Erikson’s assertion that a woman’s kinaesthetic experience of her own inner space, that is, of her own uterus, determines even partially her personally characteristics.
What claim did Caplan point out of Erikson that was impossible?
Erikson made a claim that it is the female child’s experience of “inner space” that influences the configurations she produces during his play experiences. Caplan says: The most important physiological factor to take into account is that there is no inter space.
True or False: Caplan repeated Erikson’s research on play constructions.
True: However, she utilized preschool children who were younger than those used by Erikson.
What did Caplan conclude in her research on play constructions?
No sex differences were found in the frequency of constructions of simple enclosures, enclosures only in conjunction with elaborate structures or traffic lanes, height of structures, construction of a tower, or construction of a structure, building, tower, or street—all categories in which Erikson had reported sex differences.
True or False: Did Erikson react to his criticisms?
True: He discussed those criticism in his essay “Once More the Inner Space.” He said that (1) psychoanalytic truths are often disturbing and he can understand people being upset by them and (2) biology is only one strong determinant of personality, and culture is another.
Epigenetic Principle
The innate biological principle that determines the sequence in which the eight stages of Psychosocial development occurs.
Where is the Epigenetic Principle serviced from?
The growth of organisms in the utero.
What happens during the epigenetic principle?
The personality characteristics that become salient during any particular stage of development exist before that stage and continue to exist after that stage; they merely become more prominent during their particular stage because they are needed to move through that stage and beyond.
Crisis
Conflict that becomes dominant during a particular stage of development that can be resolved positively, thus strengthening the ego, or resolved negatively, thus weakening the ego. Each crisis, therefore, is a turning point in one’s development.
True or False: Each stage of development is characterized by a crisis.
True: The crisis characterizes each stage of development and has a possible positive resolution or a negative one.
Positive resolution to crisis.
Contributes to a strengthening of the ego and therefore to a greater adaptation. In one stage it increases the likelihood that the crisis characterizing the next stage will resolved positively.
Negative resolution to crisis.
Weakens the ego and inhibits adaptation. In one stage lowers the probability that the next crisis will be resolved positively.
First Phase of Crisis: Immature Phase.
Where it is not the focal point of personality development.
Second Phase of Crisis: Critical Phase.
Where because of a variety of biological, psychological, and social reasons it is the focal point of personality development.
Third Phase of Crisis: Resolution Phase.
Where the resolution of the crisis influences subsequent personality development.
Psychosocial stage of development.
Erikson’s eight stages of human development, so named to emphasize the importance of social experience to the resolution of the crises that characterize each stage.
Where does personality development occur?
Within a cultural setting.
What is the job of culture?
To provide effective ways of satisfying both biological and psychological human needs.
Ritualizations
Behaviours that reflect and thereby perpetuate the beliefs, customs, and values that are sanctioned by a particular culture.
Ritualizations are culturally approved patterns of everyday behaviour that allow a person to become an acceptable member of the culture.
What are characteristic ways of ritualizations?
Ways in which we relate to each other such as shaking hands, kissing, and hugging.
What is an example of ritualization?
It may be permissible for a woman to wear a bikini on a beach, whereas such attire may cause a stir at work or at school.
Ritualisms
Distorted or exaggerated ritualizations.
They are inappropriate or false ritualizations, and they are the causes of much social and psychological pathology.
What is an example of ritualisms?
A ritualization within a culture might encourage addressing certain accomplished persons with titles and thus encourage a sense of respect for their status. To idolize or worship such persons, however, would be an inappropriate exaggeration of that ritualization and would thus be a ritualism.
A ritualism then is a ritualization that has become mechanical and stereotyped.
What is an example of ritualisms?
A ritualization within a culture might encourage addressing certain accomplished persons with titles and thus encourage a sense of respect for their status. To idolize or worship such persons, however, would be an inappropriate exaggeration of that ritualization and would thus be a ritualism.
A ritualism then is a ritualization that has become mechanical and stereotyped.
What is an example of ritualisms?
A ritualization within a culture might encourage addressing certain accomplished persons with titles and thus encourage a sense of respect for their status. To idolize or worship such persons, however, would be an inappropriate exaggeration of that ritualization and would thus be a ritualism.
A ritualism then is a ritualization that has become mechanical and stereotyped.
What is an additional example of ritualisms?
An elaborate birthday party or wedding. These are not only about celebrating the individual or couple and sharing an experience with friends, they are instead about outshining others and flaunting one’s economic accomplishments.
What do the first five stages of psychosocial development relate too?
Erikson’s first five stages closely parallel to Freud’s proposed psychosexual stages of development in the time at which they are supposed to occur.
First Stage of Psychosocial Development: Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust.
Lasts from birth throughout the first year and corresponds closely to Freud’s oral stage of psychosexual development.
This is the time when children are most helpless and thus most dependent on adults.
What happens if you care for infants in the “Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust” stage.
It will satisfy their needs in a loving and consistent manner, the infants will develop a feeling of basic trust.
Basic Trust.
General feeling of trust in the world and the people in it, which arises if the crisis dominating the first stage of development is resolved positively.
What happens if the parents are rejecting their infants in the “Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust” stage.
They will develop a feeling of mistrust.
What happens if care is loving and consistent during the “Infancy: Basic Trust Vs. Basic Mistrust” stage.
Infants learn they need not worry about a loving, reliable parent and therefore are not overly disturbed when that parent leaves their sight.
First social achievement.
Erikson called the ability of the infant to tolerate the absence of the mother the “first social achievement.”
This maturational change in the child reflect the ability of the child to hold a cognitive image of the mother that is stable and predictable because the mother has, herself, been stable and predictable.
Basic mistrust.
Lack of trust in the world and the people in it, which arises if the crisis dominating the first stage of development is resolved negatively.
