Comparing Piaget And Erikson's Theories Of Child Development

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When it comes to child development there are two names that come to mind. Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson. Erik Erikson’s theory of child development focuses on that a person’s social view of self is more important than instinctual drives in determining the behavior. His theory allows for more optimistic takes on the possibilities of human growth. Erikson’s theory breaks the life span into eight stages, where each stage has a conflict between two opposing forces. The first stage is at the infant stage (birth- 18 months) and is characterized by the conflict Trust vs. Mistrust. Following is Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, at the toddler age (18 months-3). Initiative vs. Guilt is the third stage at the preschool age (3-5). The next stage is Industry…show more content…
Piaget introduced the concepts of the way children learn and think. Compared to Erikson’s theory it is defined by four stages instead of eight. Each of the 4 stages is an advance over the previous one. In order to progress from one period to the next, children have to reorganize their thinking process to bring them closer to adult thinking. First of the stages is the Sensorimotor Period (0-2), Preoperational Thought (2-7), Concrete Operations (7-11), and the last stage is Formal Operations (11-adult). During the first period from birth to 2, children experience where they are and start to get to know their senses and motor movements. As they do this they go through cognitive growth in a relatively short period of time. During the second stage from 2 to 7 years old, the child learns how to speak and form words. At this time, the child’s thinking is very egocentric and they classify objects by a single feature. During the 7 to 11 stage, the child can think logically about events. Finally, during the last stage from 11 to adult, the child can think logically and is able to test hypotheses. While doing so, they also become concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological
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