Erikson (1968) developed Psychosocial Stages which emphasized developmental change throughout the human life span. At each stage there is a crisis or task that we need to resolve. Successful completion of each developmental task results in a sense of competence and a healthy personality. Failure to master these tasks leads to feelings of inadequacy.

1. Ms. Hemangi Narvekar
Clinical Psychologist

2. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
• There is a set of principles that characterizes the pattern and
process of development and growth. These principles or
characteristics describe typical development as a predictable
and orderly process.
• Although, there are individual differences in children's
personalities, activity levels, and timing of developmental
milestones, such as ages and stages, the principles and
characteristics of development are universal patterns.
• An understanding of infant growth and development patterns
and concepts is necessary for parents and caregivers to create
a nurturing and caring environment which will stimulate
young children's learning.

4. What is Psychosocial Development?
• Erikson (1968) developed Psychosocial Stages which
emphasized developmental change throughout the human
life span.
• At each stage there is a crisis or task that we need to resolve.
Successful completion of each developmental task results in a
sense of competence and a healthy personality. Failure to
master these tasks leads to feelings of inadequacy.

6. Trust vs. Mistrust
• Caregivers who are responsive and sensitive
to their infant’s needs help their baby to
develop a sense of trust; their baby will see
the world as a safe, predictable place.
• Unresponsive caregivers who do not meet
their baby’s needs can engender feelings of
anxiety, fear, and mistrust

7. Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt
• We observe a budding sense of autonomy in a 2-year-old
child who wants to choose her clothes and dress herself.
Although her outfits might not be appropriate for the
situation, her input in such basic decisions has an effect on
her sense of independence.
• If denied the opportunity to act on her environment, she
may begin to doubt her abilities, which could lead to low
self-esteem and feelings of shame.

8. Initiative vs. Guilt
• Initiative, a sense of ambition and responsibility,
occurs when parents allow a child to explore within
limits and then support the child’s choice. These
children will develop self-confidence and feel a
sense of purpose.
• Those who are unsuccessful at this stage—with
their initiative misfiring or stifled by over-
controlling parents—may develop feelings of guilt.

9. Industry vs. Inferiority
• Children begin to compare themselves with their
peers to see how they measure up.
• They develop a sense of pride and accomplishment in
their schoolwork, sports, social activities, and family
life.
• If children do not learn to get along with others or
have negative experiences at home or with peers, an
inferiority complex might develop.

10. Identity vs. Role Confusion
• Adolescents who are successful at this stage have a strong
sense of identity and are able to remain true to their
beliefs and values in the face of problems and other
people’s perspectives.
• When adolescents are apathetic, do not make a conscious
search for identity, or are pressured to conform to their
parents’ ideas for the future, they may develop a weak
sense of self and experience role confusion. They will be
unsure of their identity and confused about the future.

11. Social-Emotional Development
• The expression of feelings about
self, others, and things describe
emotional development.
• Learning to relate to others is social
development.
• Emotional and social development
are often described and grouped
together because they are closely
interrelated growth patterns.
• Feelings of trust, fear, confidence,
pride, friendship, and humour are
all part of social-emotional
development.

12. Temperament
• Children, from birth, differ in the ways they react to their environment.
• Temperament is the innate characteristics of the infant noticeable soon
after birth. 9 Dimensions (Chess and Thomas, 1996) given are:
1. Activity level,
2. Rhythmicity (regularity of biological functions),
3. Approach/withdrawal (how children deal with new things),
4. Adaptability to situations,
5. Intensity of reactions,
6. Threshold of responsiveness (how intense a stimulus has to be for the
child to react),
7. Quality of mood,
8. Distractibility,
9. Attention span, and persistence

13. TYPES OF TEMPERAMENT
1. Easy Child who is able to quickly adapt to routine and new
situations, remains calm, is easy to soothe, and usually is in a
positive mood.
2. Difficult Child who reacts negatively to new situations, has
trouble adapting to routine, is usually negative in mood, and
cries frequently.
3. Slow-to-Warm-Up Child has a low activity level, adjusts
slowly to new situations and is often negative in mood.

14. Infant emotions
• Emotions are often divided into two general categories: Basic
emotions, such as interest, happiness, anger, fear, surprise,
sadness and disgust, which appear first, and self-conscious
emotions, such as envy, pride, shame, guilt, doubt, and
embarrassment.
• At birth, infants exhibit two emotional responses: Attraction
and withdrawal.
• At around two months, infants exhibit social engagement in
the form of social smiling as they respond with smiles to those
who engage their positive attention.
• Pleasure is expressed as laughter at 3 to 5 months of age, and
displeasure becomes more specific as fear, sadness, or anger
between ages 6 and 8 months.

15. Infant emotions
• In contrast, sadness is typically the response when infants are
deprived of a caregiver (Papousek, 2007).
• Fear is often associated with the presence of a stranger,
known as stranger wariness, or the departure of significant
others known as separation anxiety. Both appear sometime
between 6 and 15 months after object permanence has been
acquired.
• Further, there is some indication that infants may experience
jealousy as young as 6 months of age (Hart & Carrington,
2002).

16. Self - Regulation
• Emotional self-regulation refers to strategies we use to
control our emotional states so that we can attain goals.
• Young infants have very limited capacity to adjust their
emotional states and depend on their caregivers to help
soothe themselves.
• By 4 to 6 months, babies can begin to shift their attention
away from upsetting stimuli (Rothbart et al, 2006). Older
infants and toddlers can more effectively communicate their
need for help and can crawl or walk toward or away from
various situations.
• Temperament also plays a role in children’s ability to control
their emotional states, and individual differences have been
noted in the emotional self-regulation of infants and
toddlers.

17. Sense of Self
• During the second year of life, children begin to recognize
themselves as they gain a sense of self as object.
• Lewis and Brooks found that somewhere between 15 and 24
months most infants developed a sense of self-awareness.
• Self-awareness is the realization that you are separate from
others (Kopp, 2011). Once a child has achieved self-
awareness, the child is moving toward understanding social
emotions such as guilt, shame or embarrassment, as well as,
sympathy or empathy.

18. Attachment
Socially, young children and particularly infants tend to focus
on the adults who are close to them mainly the people who care
for them.
This forms the basis for attachment which is the strong
emotional tie felt between the infant and the significant other.
 Attachment Behaviours such as kicking, gurgling, smiling and
laughing shows that infants care for, and respond early to,
people who are important to them.
Crying and clinging are also attachment behaviours of infants
which are used to signal others. Infants as early as one month
old show signs of attachment in the form of anxiety if they are
cared for by an unfamiliar person. They may show distress signs
such as irregular sleeping or eating patterns.

23. Separation anxiety
• Separation anxiety is attachment behaviour of infants. This is
when a child shows distress by often crying when unhappy
because a familiar caregiver (parent or other caregiver) is
leaving.
• The first signs of separation anxiety appear at about six
months of age and are more clearly seen by nine months of
age.
• Separation anxiety is very strong by 15 months of age and
begins to gradually weaken around this time also.
• It is also important to understand separation anxiety as a
normal developmental process in which children are fearful
because their familiar caregivers are leaving them.

24. References
Lally, M. & Valentine-French, S. (2017). Lifespan
Development: A Psychological Perspective.
USA: College Lake County.
Shaffer, D. R., & Kipp, K. (2010). Developmental
Psychology: Child and Adolescence ( 8th Ed.).
UK: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.