Today we are going to talk about development stages in middle and late adolescence. I hope that you can recall that from our first discussion, I told you that in the Filipino setting, Corpus et al. stated that there are three stages of adolescence and they are early, middle, and late adolescence. I would like to re-emphasize this because for today we are going to look at another theory and you will see for the first time that theories may disagree with each other.
specifically with their definitions of what is early adolescence, what is middle adolescence, and what are the different stages of development. So one theory may contradict what another theory is saying. For example, do you know that there's an emerging concept in psychology called emerging adulthood? And what is emerging adulthood?
It's because they observed that the early 20s is like the second puberty in our life. And in the emerging adulthood, most of us are not really, we do not really feel that we are already in adulthood, but rather we feel as if we're still conquering the issues of adolescence. And what are those issues?
That's what we're going to learn in this discussion. So let's begin. Have you heard about Eric Erickson?
Eric Erickson is a known theorist, and typically we talk about him in theories of personality in college, in the course of psychology. For today, we're going to talk about Erickson's theory here in personal development and this is one of the most famous theories in psychology that I want you to learn about because this will help you understand the stages of development and allow you to understand your struggles as well as you will know what you have to do in various stages. So Erickson proposed that there are eight stages of development. Some would say there are ten, some would say that there are six.
It depends on the theories. For me, I still believe in what Erickson is saying until now because as I grow older, I know that his different crises are appropriate. And what are the crises? He believed that each stage is characterized by a crisis that needs to be resolved.
And don't think of a crisis in a negative way, but rather a crisis is your opportunity for you to be able to develop values and virtues. And if you fail to resolve a crisis in a certain stage, then you will not be able to get the value or the virtue from that stage, but rather your development will not be that good. That's why you have some behaviors that are alarming or you engage in bad behaviors.
Hence, in order for you to live a good life, you need to be able to successfully resolve these crises in a way that you balance them. So what do I mean by that? We will learn that as we go through the different stages of development. First, we have what we call the stage of infancy. And the most important figures at this stage are the parents.
And the crisis in this stage is trust versus mistrust. And what does that mean? We have a conflict. We are asking the question, can I trust the world or not?
And how do the parents allow us to, how do the parents help us resolve this crisis? We know that we can trust the world if our parents if they are there when we need them. But if they are absent during the time that we need them, then we develop a sense of mistrust. Hence, if you're able to resolve this stage in a positive way, you will learn how to trust others.
But be careful, you don't want to be so trusting because you will become gullible. When we say gullible, you do whatever other people tell you to do. That's because of so much trust. On the other hand, if you lack If you were not able to resolve this stage successfully, you will develop what we call mistrust or the inability to trust others.
You think that everyone is always against you and there's no one that you can trust in the world. Hence, you would prefer to be alone rather than to be surrounded by adults. That's why there are people who act, there are adolescents who rebel against their parents. Perhaps there's something wrong with their childhood, but we're not really sure because There are various explanations as to why we engage in such behaviors. After that, we have what we call early childhood, 18 months to 3 years of age.
And still, the parents are the most influential figure. And the crisis in this stage is autonomy versus shame and doubt. Now, what happens in this stage?
This is the stage wherein we develop a lot physically. We learn how to crawl. We learn how to walk, eventually. We learn how to do things, how to play with toys.
So the more that you act on your own, the more that you become autonomous to the point that you make mistakes. from time to time. For example, in your first attempt to walk, you may fall down.
You may hurt yourself. It's crucial that the parents should not be overprotective at this stage because if they are overprotective, then you might develop what we call shame and doubt. You will be ashamed that every time that you will fall down in life or you may doubt your own abilities because you think that your parents must always be there.
to support you and you don't trust yourself anymore. So we need to strike a balance between these two. We don't want people to be overly autonomous to the point that they don't ask for others'help anymore. And if successfully resolved, you'll be able to develop self-control and physical skills physically, but psychologically you will be more independent. The unfavorable side of this equation is that if you are full of shame and doubt, then you will have self-restraint.
You may experience defiance or you will no longer obey what the parents are telling you in your attempt to be autonomous. You may not do the things that you want to do because you think that you're not good enough to do them. And that is for shame and doubt. So you want more autonomy than shame and doubt in order for you to successfully resolve this stage.
Let's proceed. We also have what we call late childhood. And this time the teachers come in. You are now in preschool or you are in the stage wherein you prepare for school. Crisis in this stage is initiative versus guilt.
In this stage, this is the stage wherein you are asked what you want to be in the future. So typically, we have wishes like, I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a doctor.
I want to be a teacher. I want to be someone like this. However, believe it or not, there are kids who might say things like, someday I want to be a criminal. Because I'm from a family of criminals.
Someday I want to use drugs because I see my parents using drugs. So that's the product of too much initiative and poor parenting. We don't want so much initiative, but rather we also want to still guilt.
Because if your child doesn't have guilt, then he might do things without being guilty. For example, he might say, I want to hurt others. I want to become a bully. Then without guilt, then that person will bully other people. If successfully resolved, you will become assertive and you will have a sense of purpose.
You know what you want to be. You have a direction in life and you have the initiative to pursue them. However, too much guilt might result to perfectionism. You might have very high standards.
You might think that you may feel guilty that you're not doing good, that you're not good enough. That's why you may raise the bar and continue overworking yourself until you're quote-unquote satisfied. So we don't want people to be too much perfectionistic.
That's why we want to strike a balance between initiative and guilt. Next, that is followed by the school age. The crisis in this stage is industry versus inferiority.
Because you got exposed to assignments, to schoolwork, learning your ABCs, writing your first sentence. So the more you engage in schoolwork, the more that you become industrious. However, since we are at school, we can be compared to other people and too much comparison with others may result to inferiority. And what is that? Inferiority is the feeling that others are always better than you.
So that's the unfavorable result at this stage. The favorable result is feeling that you're good enough, feeling that you're competent and the ability to persevere. despite the different challenges in life.
Because at school, you will no longer be babied by your teacher, unlike what your parents did. And you will now encounter challenges, and you will learn that you have the ability to overcome these challenges. And most importantly, in this subject, let's learn about adolescence. This time, there's a big role coming from significant others. And the crisis here is that identity versus role confusion.
So this is the stage of figuring out what you want. to be. And the favorable result is a sense of self and identity, knowing who you are and what you are not. Not pretending to be someone else. Not pretending to be someone so that you will be liked by others.
The unfavorable results are confusion, indecisiveness, which means that you don't have a direction in your life. You're just a go-with-the-flow person. Even though you are being guided by others, You may be indecisive. You may not be able to decide for yourself because you haven't figured out what is it that you want to be. And other than that, you may also display antisocial behavior.
And let me clarify a common misconception in antisocial behavior. Antisocial doesn't mean quiet or silent in psychology. That's a common misconception. But rather, antisocial behavior refers to the behavior that hurts other people. Bullying is considered antisocial behavior.
Vandalism is antisocial behavior. There are a lot of people... who were not able to form a good identity during their adolescence.
That's why they're easily influenced by their peers. That's why they engage in such activities. So do not be easily influenced by others.
Know who you are and don't try to please others. After that, you now enter what we call young adulthood. And this is the stage of intimacy versus isolation.
When we say intimacy, that can be towards your friends, towards your partner. because you're now looking for a partner, or that can also be towards your work, or that's what we call commitment. And inability to do so may be a product of isolation or not being able to establish good relationship.
You may not also develop commitment towards anything. Instead of being committed to your job, then you might change from one job to another because you want to look for something new all the time, to the point that you no longer know what is it that you want to be. So adolescence and young adulthood are very important stages because, as you can see, they are connected. How are you supposed to find intimacy or commitment if you don't know who you truly are?
So problems in one stage may carry over to other stages. Also, we have what we call adulthood. The crisis is generativity versus stagnation. Why? What happens in adulthood is this.
You can either be a parent or you will have a high position at work. For example. You're now the manager.
And what is generativity? That's about passing your knowledge to others. So as a parent, you teach children.
And as a manager or as a boss at work, you share your knowledge to others. So that's what we call generativity. It allows you to nurture others and be productive.
However, there are people who don't want to share what they know to others. And that is what you call stagnation. That's why they are not so involved with the society.
their money, their knowledge. They only want self-enhancement. That's why they don't want others to become better because they think that if others get better, then they're no longer going to be famous.
Next, we also have what we call old age or the stage of integrity versus despair. In the old age, do you tend to look back at life? Did I have a good life? Or am I full of regrets and that makes you desperate?
And if you're full of good memories, that gives you a sense of fulfillment. But if you are full of regrets that results to a feeling of loss or bitterness, you are envious towards the younger population. You're looking at them and you feel as if there are things that you could have done when you were younger.
So those are the eight stages of Eric Erickson. And I want you to continually learn and relearn this theory. Because eventually you will get to these other stages and you will realize that these crises are accurate in understanding yourself at different stages in your life. Here are some changes during the adolescence.
So you might acquire ability to comprehend abstract ideas. And when we say abstract ideas, these are the ideas that are not concrete. For example, ideas towards freedom, human rights, equality.
you're not able to understand those things yet when you were younger because you're confined to concrete things, but now you have the ability to do so. And that's important because that will be necessary in any job that you will pursue. For example, what if you will have a career in psychology? What if you will have a career in politics?
It's important for you to understand these abstract ideas. Other than that, you may engage in reckless behaviors that are part of the brain. that seeks sensation is fully active at this stage of development.
That's why we seek a lot of excitement. However, the part of the brain that tells us what not to do is not yet fully developed. That's why you continually engage in reckless behaviors out of curiosity without knowing the consequences of your actions.
And typically, the part of the brain that tells you what not to do develops in the early 20s. That's why you're still reckless at this stage and you will have more control over yourself as you mature. So we also engage in experimentation. That's a common activity, meaning you engage in a lot of things trying to figure out who you are.
That's why you join a lot of clubs. You try a lot of sports. You try different things so that you will know what would be the career that you're going to pursue as you get older. So to end this discussion, I would like you to be aware of the different skills that a Filipino adolescent should acquire.
And I want you to develop these important skills as early as in your adolescence so that when you get to young adulthood, you already mastered some of these skills. And it allows you to become a better person, especially if you're a young adult. in the way that you communicate with others. So what are they? The first is being courageous in standing up and being different from your friends because your friends may be a bad influence to you, especially if you don't pick your friends wisely.
So you need to be able to know what is right and what is wrong for you not to engage in the bad behaviors. Other than that, it's important for you to develop your self-esteem. I want you to feel good about yourselves and feel that you're worthy and you don't have to feel that you're not good enough. Avoid those types of feeling and avoid the tendency to please others. Do things for yourself and don't do them just to make others happy because others may exploit you or they may try to pinpoint your weaknesses so that you will try to please them.
And other than that, you'd learn how the media is trying to influence you because not everything that you see online or on TV are accurate. Some of them are misleading. Also be aware, be critical, and be involved in social issues. Other than that, you should also learn how to embrace a healthy lifestyle and also develop your spirituality or your values as well as your virtues. So that is it for this discussion about...
the adolescence and I hope that you learned a lot not just about adolescence but also about life as a whole and the different crisis that we have to undergo in order for us to successfully resolve the different crisis in life.