Erikson vs Gilligan

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Carol Gilligan vs. Erik Erikson Erik Erikson and Carol Gilligan were considered great psychologists and both contributed immensely to the theories of human mental development. They also both attended or worked Harvard University at one point. Even though the two psychologists had many similarities, they also had many disagreements. One disagreement was on how many stages of mental development a human being went through in their life. Gilligan also felt that Erikson had a male bias in his study. She felt that is was her duty to prove that women weren’t just “moral midgets” and had similar mental development stages as privileged white men. Erikson was first to propose that children were more than just simple biological organisms, but also products of their environment. Erikson believed that humans develop throughout their entire life. He believed that there are eight main stages that a human must go through in order to be mentally healthy. The stages range from a child’s first year learning about trust to later in life an adult learning to have integrity. His theory on social and psychological development is a giant leap from Freudian theory. Carol Gilligan felt that Erik Erikson had one major flaw in his theory. She felt that his studies were extremely biased to only privileged white men. Unlike Erikson’s eight stages she had only three. Her stages were selfishness, a social or conventional morality, and finally a principled morality. She believed that women had a judgment based on caring for others and that men’s judgment was based on justice and individual rights. The females in her studies were focused on empathy and a responsibility for others. Gilligan also found in her studies that due to a male-dominant society, women by the age of 15 began to suppress their true opinions. Both psychologists made major contributions to the field of
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