Psychosocial Development and Identity Statuses

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Erikson is the first developmental theorist to consider development in adulthood. Erik Erikson's psychosocial model of human development is often used in the fields of psychology, counseling, and education. Some specific applications include:

• Developing interventions and strategies to support healthy development
• Understanding the emotional and social development of children and adolescents
  
• Identifying and addressing developmental challenges at different stages of life
• Guiding individuals through difficult stages of development, such as identity crises
• Helping individuals to understand the impact of past experiences on their current behavior and relationships

Erik Erikson's psychosocial model of human development has been widely studied and discussed by experts in the field, and as such, it has received both praise and criticism. Some of the ways that the theory has been praised include:

• Conceptualizing development as a lifelong process: Erikson's theory focuses on development across the entire lifespan, which is a more comprehensive approach than theories that focus on development in childhood only.
• Emphasizing the importance of social and emotional development: Erikson's theory highlights the role of social and emotional development in human development, which is an important aspect of development that is often overlooked by other theories.
  
• Providing a framework for understanding different aspects of development: Erikson's theory provides a framework for understanding how different aspects of development, such as cognitive, physical, and emotional development, are interconnected.
• Offering a holistic view of human development: The theory takes into account the interplay of different factors such as biology, culture, and historical context, in shaping human development.
• Generating further research: Erikson's theory has generated a significant amount of research in the field of developmental psychology, which has led to a deeper understanding of human development.

Some of the criticisms that have been raised against Erikson's model include:

• Lack of empirical support: Some researchers have argued that there is a lack of empirical evidence to support Erikson's theory. They point out that many of Erikson's proposed stages and the corresponding conflicts are not well-defined, and that there is a lack of research to support the idea that people go through these stages in a fixed order. Culture-bound: Critics have noted that Erikson's theory is heavily influenced by Western culture and may not be applicable to other cultures. They argue that the theory is not culturally sensitive and may not be appropriate for individuals from other backgrounds.
• Culture-bound: Critics have noted that Erikson's theory is heavily influenced by Western culture and may not be applicable to other cultures. They argue that the theory is not culturally sensitive and may not be appropriate for individuals from other backgrounds.
  
• Gender bias: Some critics have pointed out that Erikson's theory is gender-biased and does not take into account the impact of gender roles and expectations on development.
  
• Simplistic: Some experts point out that Erikson's theory is too simplistic and doesn't take into account the complex interactions between different factors that influence human development.
  

It is important to note that these criticisms are not necessarily conclusive, and that Erikson's theory continues to be widely studied and discussed by experts in the field.

His theory has a development lens that considers the evolving nature of life and consciousness across the lifespan by focusing on the development of the ego as it mediates the pressures of the social world.

General Notes

Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development:

• is epigenetic, assuming that there are ground plans in which parts arise in the “time of special ascendancy” (see p. 53) “anything that grows has a ground plan, and that out of this ground plan the parts arise, each part having its time of special ascendancy, until all parts have arisen to form a functioning whole.
• is psychosocial in that there are conflicts between the inner (psycho) and outer (social) worlds that emerge and re-emerge throughout life…
• involves widening social spheres of influence throughout the lifespan beginning with mother alone and ending with all of mankind
• involves crises which suggests that each period of life is perhaps the most challenging, urgent or ripe for the resolution psycho-social conflict that the individual has met up to that point
• proposes balances, more like ratios, with proper balancing more towards the positive dimension (systonic) than the negative dimension (dystonic) of each stage/crisis. Improper balancing is like having “baggage” or “hang-ups” Fortunately, each balance can be revisited in each subsequent stage. For example, when you are falling in love, the baggage related to trust/mistrust may re-emerge.
• is psychodynamic (see p. 52) in that “neurotic conflict” and problems relate to “conflicts which every child must live through in his childhood” and “every adult carries these conflicts with him in the recesses of his personality”
• defines healthy growth and development as:
  • inner unity of personality
  • increased good judgment
  • increased capacity to do well
  • (He is drawing from Jahoda (1950)’s healthy personality as actively mastering the environment, showing a certain unity of personality, and perceiving the world and oneself correctly.)

Each stage fosters a virtue/basic strength that emerges at the end of the stage

Stage	Virtue/Basic Strength… Emerges If Successfully Balanced
Basic Trust v Basic Mistrust (nonconscious sense)	Hope & Drive (faith, inner calm, grounding, basic feeling that everything will be okay - enabling exposure to risk, a trust in life and self and others, inner resolve and strength in the face of uncertainty and risk)
Autonomy v Shame & Doubt	Willpower & Self-Control (self-determination, self-belief, self-reliance, in confidence in self to decide things, having a voice, being one's own person, persistence, self-discipline, independence of thought, responsibility, judgment)
Initiative v Guilt	Purpose & Direction (sense of purpose, decision-making, working with and leading others, initiating projects and ideas, courage to instigate, ability to define personal direction and aims and goals, able to take initiative and appropriate risks)
Industry v Inferiority	Competence & Method (making things, producing results, applying skills and processes productively, feeling valued and capable of contributing, ability to apply method and process in pursuit of ideas or objectives, confidence to seek and respond to challenge and learning, active busy productive outlook)
Identity v Role Confusion	Fidelity & Devotion (self-confidence and self-esteem necessary to freely associate with people and ideas based on merit, loyalty, social and interpersonal integrity, discretion, personal standards and dignity, pride and personal identity, seeing useful personal role(s) and purpose(s) in life)
Intimacy v Isolation	Love & Affiliation (capacity to give and receive love - emotionally and physically, connectivity with others, socially and inter-personally comfortable, ability to form honest reciprocating relationships and friendships, capacity to bond and commit with others for mutual satisfaction - for work and personal life, reciprocity - give and take - towards good)
Generativity v Stagnation	Care & Production (giving unconditionally in support of children and/or for others, community, society and the wider world where possible and applicable, altruism, contributing for the greater good, making a positive difference, building a good legacy, helping others through their own crisis stages
Integrity v Despair	Wisdom & Renunciation (calmness, tolerance, appropriate emotional detachment - non-projection, no regrets, peace of mind, non-judgemental, spiritual or universal reconciliation, acceptance of inevitably departing)

See Erikson's psychosocial development theory.

Joan Erikson's 9th stage

Joan Erikson basically refused to let her husband have the last word. After Erik died in 1994, she published The Life Cycle Completed: Extended Version where she proposed a ninth stage. It’s not some neat new set of challenges—it’s more like peeling back the paint and saying, “Hey, when you’re actually in your nineties, this stuff doesn’t stay tidy.”

Her point: in extreme old age, the “gains” of earlier stages start to unravel. Autonomy, intimacy, generativity, integrity—these all get revisited, but often in reverse. Physical decline, dependence, and losses mean that instead of basking in integrity, you might be dragged into despair again. She didn’t frame it as a brand-new developmental task so much as a return, under harsher conditions, to old conflicts that need to be re-negotiated. For example, instead of Erikson’s “integrity vs. despair,” Joan wrote about “gerotranscendence vs. despair”—the possibility of transcending self and body to focus on spirit, relationships, and meaning, even when the body is betraying you.

As for evidence: it’s more theoretical and descriptive than empirically validated. Joan based it on her own experience of aging and observations of her peers. Scholars have taken it seriously—especially in gerontology and late-life studies—but it doesn’t have the kind of large-scale longitudinal data Erikson’s main eight stages are supported by. It’s more of a reflective add-on than a rigorously tested model. Some researchers have linked her ninth stage to Lars Tornstam’s concept of gerotranscendence, which has gotten more empirical study (interviews, surveys of older adults, etc.), but Joan’s framing itself sits closer to philosophical reflection than hard data.

So: yes, Joan added a ninth stage. No, there isn’t much “evidence” in the strict psychological sense. It’s a widow’s footnote to her husband’s theory—half memoir, half expansion. But it resonates with a lot of people who actually live into that age bracket.

Gerotranscendence sounds like something ripped out of a wellness retreat brochure, but it’s actually a legit concept from Lars Tornstam, a Swedish sociologist. He argued that really old age (we’re talking late 80s, 90s) isn’t just about decline and despair. Instead, some people shift into a new perspective on life—a reorientation he called gerotranscendence. The idea is that aging can bring a broader, more cosmic view, less obsession with the ego, and more focus on connection, meaning, and acceptance of death. It’s like the “wisdom” stereotype, but with research behind it.

Tornstam laid out three main dimensions:

1. Cosmic dimension – A sense of being part of something bigger than yourself, less fear of death, more comfort with mystery.

2. Self dimension – Less interest in superficial social roles, more acceptance of one’s flaws, less need to prove yourself.

3. Social/relational dimension – Preferring deep, genuine relationships over superficial ones, feeling less bound by society’s expectations, sometimes even relishing solitude.

Now the part you actually wanted: empirical support. Tornstam spent decades interviewing and surveying older adults (mainly in Scandinavia but later internationally). A few key findings:

• Surveys: He developed the Gerotranscendence Scale, and cross-sectional studies show older adults often score higher on dimensions of gerotranscendence than middle-aged adults. Not everyone “achieves” it, but there’s a trend.

• Qualitative studies: Interviews with the very old consistently turn up themes of reduced materialism, more spirituality, less concern with social status, and greater acceptance of life as it was lived.

• Correlational data: Higher gerotranscendence scores are linked with well-being, life satisfaction, and less depression in late life. In other words, the people who “transcend” report better psychological outcomes even when physical health is in decline.

• Cross-cultural replications: Research in Japan, the U.S., and other countries has found similar patterns, which gives the theory some legs beyond Scandinavia.

It’s not perfect—most of the evidence is correlational, and it doesn’t mean all old folks become Zen masters. Plenty end up bitter or despairing, which Joan Erikson herself pointed out. But the data back up Tornstam’s claim that aging can be more than decline—it can bring a qualitatively different way of experiencing life.

So, when Joan Erikson talked about the ninth stage and “gerotranscendence vs. despair,” she was basically syncing Erik’s stage model with Tornstam’s empirical findings. She gave it a poetic spin; Tornstam gave it a scale and some statistics.

Maladaptations and Malignancies

Too much of either the positive or negative side of the stage results in maladaptation and malignancies respectively. Too much of the negative is generally worse than too much of the positive:

Examples of Maladaptions and Malignancies, adapted from Personality Theories - Erik Erikson

Examples	Maladaption	Crisis	Malignancy	Examples
unrealistic, spoilt, deluded	Sensory Distortion	Trust vs. Mistrust	Withdrawal	neurotic, depressive, afraid
reckless, inconsiderate, thoughtless	Impulsivity	Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt	Compulsion	anal, constrained, self-limiting
exploitative, uncaring, dispassionate	Ruthlessness	Initiative vs. Guilt	Inhibition	risk-averse, unadventurous
workaholic, obsessive specialist	Narrow Virtuosity	Industry vs. Inferiority	Inertia	lazy, apathetic, purposeless
self-important, extremist	Fanaticism	Identity vs. Role Confusion	Repudiation	socially disconnected, cut-off
sexually needy, vulnerable	Promiscuity	Intimacy vs. Isolation	Exclusivity	loner, cold, self-contained
do-gooder, busy-body, meddling	Overextension	Generativity vs. Stagnation	Rejectivity	disinterested, cynical
conceited, pompous, arrogant	Presumption	Integrity vs. Despair	Disdain	miserable, unfulfilled, blaming

Perhaps the culminating stage of adulthood is stage seven, as stage eight is more about coming to terms with one’s life and being at peace amid disintegration. Generativity captures how generations are connected. Generations affect one another, and our church community emphasizes the chaining and linking of generations in important ways.

However, the crux and of Erikson’s theory involves identity. This stage seems to be the most central and important. Erikson’s own personal experience with identity is quite fascinating and relates to important insights about the central role of identity in development. Concerning identity, Erikson writes:

What is unique about the stage of Identity, is that it is a special sort of synthesis of earlier stages and a special sort of anticipation of later ones. Youth has a certain unique quality in a person's life; it is a bridge between childhood and adulthood. Youth is a time of radical change—the great body changes accompanying puberty, the ability of the mind to search one's own intentions and the intentions of others, the suddenly sharpened awareness of the roles society has offered for later life.[24]

Three Layers of Personality Development

Dan McAdams is a personality psychologist with a development lens who incorporates Erikson’s emphasis on identity, especially how we narrate our identities. McAdams believes that personality is composed of:

1. Dispositions- Big Five Traits that are largely genetic
2. Characteristics adaptation- coping skills
3. Narrative identity

His work has focused on how adaptive narrative identity relates to generativity. As one example, he highlights the difference between life stories that are wrought with contamination sequences (e.g., Things were alright until my father would come home) versus redemption sequences (e.g., My father was a drug addict, but I am a stronger person because of it).

Think about the great “redemption sequence” that is through Christ. He redeems everything and can make everything right. He is the light of the world that enables the possibility of growth from pain; He is hope itself. He is what enables a narrative in which you are a generating figure and connected to generations; Christ enables the heights of what Erikson says is the hallmark of adult development.

Active Learning Activities

Pondering

1. Every theory is a lens, a view, that both magnifies and overlooks. Let’s evaluate Erikson’s theory; does it provide an understanding that is helpful and useful for interacting with the world and others? Does it provide some level of prediction that is helpful?
2. In what ways have you been able to grow from adversity? Write down a short story about how this happened. Here there are redemption sequences and the extent that those redemption sequences emerge relate to the generativity you are likely to exhibit during the culmination stage of adult development.
3. Look at the 4 stages of Erikson’s theory that relate to adulthood beginning with adolescence and try to understand what each says about adulthood at that period of life. What are the virtues (strengths) associated with each? Do you feel like those are representative of what each stage of development?

Hidden Answer Question

Which stage would Erikson suggest is the most central and important?

Application

For Erikson’s theory, what happens when there is a stage that is improperly balanced? How is that going to affect a person in subsequent stages? If so, what can we do about that?

James Marcia Identity Statuses

Understand and apply James Marcia’s Identity Statuses

James Marcia's Identity Statuses, adapted from Ego Identity Statuses

		Exploration
		Low	High
Commitment	High	Forclosure: "I've made a choice without thinking."	Identity Acheivement: "I thought about it and I now know what I should do with my life."
	Low	Identity Diffusion: "I don't know and I don't care what I'm supposed to do with my life."	Moratorium: "I'm thinking about what I should do."

Let’s use the term “stages” for Erikson and the term “status” for Marcia. Stage implies a sequential process, whereas status implies a framework for analyzing elements of crisis/exploration and commitment whenever there are questions related to identity throughout life.

Marcia’s whole identity-status framework hangs on two levers: commitment and exploration. Exploration, in his terms, means an intentional search through alternatives—testing possibilities, asking hard questions, sometimes trying on identities—before committing to a coherent sense of self. It’s the opposite of foreclosure, where someone just swallows their parents’ or leaders’ commitments whole without ever kicking the tires.

Now, when you drag this into religious life, “exploration” doesn’t necessarily mean running off to a monastery in Kyoto or converting to Catholicism for a semester just to see how it feels. It can, but it doesn’t have to. Exploration can be internal: engaging other perspectives, reading widely, sitting with doubt, or genuinely considering how another faith frames God, scripture, or community. It’s the process of loosening your grip long enough to see that alternatives exist, even if you ultimately recommit to your own tradition.

In that sense, yes—it’s possible to “consider” other orientations without defecting. Someone in an LDS context might read about contemplative Catholic prayer, Buddhist mindfulness, or Islamic devotion, and not betray their own faith but rather enrich it. That’s still exploration. The key is that exploration introduces contrast. It creates the possibility of choosing one’s faith as my commitment, not just the commitment handed down.

So Marcia would say exploration is valuable because it immunizes you against brittle foreclosure. You can return to your faith of origin with depth because you’ve seen it next to the alternatives. To never explore is to risk having a commitment that collapses at the first serious stress test.

Active Learning Activities

Pondering

1. Every theory is a lens, a view, that both magnifies and overlooks. Let’s evaluate Marcia’s theory; does it provide an understanding that is helpful and useful for interacting with the world and others? Does it provide some level of prediction that is helpful?
2. Consider your vocational identity. What statuses can you relate to in recent years and months?
3. Consider other areas of your life and identity like religion and politics. What statuses can you relate to in recent years and months?

Multiple Choice

1. Jing Yun has always wanted to please his parents, so when he got older his parents said, “No. You don’t do a job that makes you happy. Instead, you get a job that you don’t like so that you get money so you can do what makes you happy.” Even though he wanted to explore other careers, he never did and went into finance because his parents wanted him to. Which identity status best describes Jing Yun’s vocational identity?
   1. Identity Achievement
   2. Moratorium
   3. Foreclosure
   4. Identity Diffusion
2. Which of the following statements best describes the difference between the Moratorium and Foreclosure statuses of Marcia's Identity Theory?
   1. Those at the Foreclosure stage commit to an identity without considering other options, those at the Moratorium stage explore many possible identities without committing
   2. Those at the Moratorium stage have found their identity, those at the Foreclosure stage have not
   3. Those at the Moratorium stage may one day find their true identity, those in the Foreclosure stage never will
   4. Young people are more commonly in the Moratorium stage than the Foreclosure stage

Case Study Application

1. Rudy has changed his college major many times. Since his parents have pointedly objected to paying the expenses for tuition and room and board, Rudy has cheerfully taken on a variety of jobs, ranging from bartender to shoe salesman. He loves college, and his friends are very much the same way. Rudy's grades are generally high, though his record has some incompletes. Rudy's identity status would probably be described as
2. Melissa’s parents are both physicians. In college she majored in French, spending a semester in France studying art and culture. Upon graduation she surprised her parents by announcing that she had applied to medical school. She has had some recent experiences with a hospice nurse and a summer job in healthcare that helped her decide on medical school. Melissa's identity status would probably be described as
3. Lynn's mother is a professor of women's studies who is deeply involved in feminist issues. Lynn very much admires her mother, a strong woman who, as a single parent, struggled to provide for her daughter. Lynn believes that she, too, will be a strong and independent woman. She avoids people, especially men, who either don't see her in that light or try to bring out her feminine nature. She steers clear of her paternal grandmother who, although pleasant, is a very disorganized and artsy person. Lynn's college grades are very high, and her course selections reflect an unwavering commitment to politics and women's studies. Lynn's identity status would probably be described as
4. Daniel is a first-year student at a college an hour away from home. He comes home nearly every weekend but does not really enjoy himself once he's there. He avoids talking to his parents or old high school friends, preferring to play on his phone in his room. He gets angry if his parents ask him questions about school and angrier if they patronize him. Daniel is enrolled in courses he has been told are easy, and he does not have strong feelings about his studies or his grades. Daniel's identity status would probably be described as