Comparing Erikson And Piaget's Stages Of Development

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1. Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget were both influential theorists focusing on child development in the mid-twentieth century. Both of these theorists described maturation as discontinuous development. On page 8, Berk defines discontinuous development as "a process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at specific times." Erikson and Piaget use stages to express their theories. Erikson's theory contains eight stages, while Piaget's contains four stages. Both theorists emphasize the effect of a child's surroundings and a child's ability to gain knowledge throughout their lifespan. In both theories, mastery of previous steps affects the success in which one masters the next step. In Piaget's theory you can tell that preceding steps are influenced by the previous steps because of the prefixes and words that come before "operational: "preoperational, " "concrete operational," then "formal operational. "Pre" obviously suggests the beginning stages and "formal" suggests the final stages. Although both Piaget's and Erikson's theories were somewhat alike, their theories had more differences. First, Erikson's stages carried on throughout one's life, ending at old age. The last stage of Piaget's theory is extremely broad, 11 years and older. Erikson's stages of development focus more…show more content…
"Nature" is described as hereditary influence. "Nurture" is described as environmental influence. For example, my hair, color and texture, is attributed to nature only. My hair is dark and naturally curly. Everyone on both sides of my family's hair dark, and my mother's side of the family has curly hair. Because my hair is natural it is not affected by the environment. If it was dyed or styled, my hair would be attributed to nature and nurture. However my personality is completely attributed to nurture. As a child, I was shy. However, now I am outgoing and social, due to my environment. Friends and high school played huge roles in bringing out a more social
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