One of the main areas of focus in development psychology is the affect the early relationships we experience during childhood, such as those with our parents, can have in our later relationships in adulthood. These adult to child relationships are known as vertical relationships, and the fact that these can then shape our later horizontal relationships (adult to adult) is known as attachment theory. John Bowlby (1940) believed that an infant having a mother figure that represented a permanent source of comfort and security, allows them to build up and ‘internal working model’ of their relationship. Internal working model is a “set of expectations for how oneself and another person will relate to each other” (Wood, Littleton and Oates, 2002, p.29). Bowlby theorised that whatever working model a child form will dictate the approach they take to future relationships.
Success leads to a sense of capability, while failure results in feelings of inferiority.| Adolescence|12 to 18 years|Identity vs. Role Confusion |Teenagers need to progress a sense of self and personal individuality. Achievement of this leads to a capability to stay true to yourself, and failure leads to role confusion and a weak sense of self.| Young Adulthood|19 to 40 years|Intimacy vs. Isolation|Young adults need to form cherished, loving relationships with other people. If you succeed in this you form strong relationships and failure results in loneliness and isolation.| Middle Adulthood|40 to 65 years|Generatively vs. Stagnation |Adults need to produce and cherish things that will outlive them, usually by having children or creating a progressive modification that benefits other people. Completion of this leads to the feelings of effectiveness and accomplishment, while failure results in shallow involvement in the world.| Maturity |60 to death |Ego
The effect on adult relationships of these attachment types developed as a child however was initially investigated by Shaver and Hazer who put out a questionnaire in a newspaper that questioned couples about their childhood experiences (which would determine attachment type as a child) and their current relationships. Here they found a clear link between the two for example, avoidant attachment type as a child would now find sex without love more pleasurable. This shows that early attachment type determined by the relationship of the infant with their primary caregiver can impact and internalise behaviour in adult romantic relationships. To support this, a meta analysis conducted by Fraley found a correlation of early attachment type and relationship type to have a correlation between 0.10 – 0.50. Although this is a positive correlation, it is relatively low although psychologists explained this by concluding that this may be because those that are insecure avoidant tend to be inconsistent.
For example becoming independent from parents, education, finding employment and developing personal relationships. For Erikson, successful transition through the adolescent stage resulted in ego identity, a feeling of security of what and who the individual is. Erikson’s theory suggests that for different individuals, in differing psychological and social circumstances, the achievement of identity is not always a smooth process. He defined further stages of the process identity achievement including psychosocial moratorium which refers to a period where young people can try out different roles before adopting a
Learning carefully to select friends at a young age enables one in his or her early to middle adult years to effectively choose a partner. Individuals do not always follow the necessary processes when selecting a partner. Each party needs to have trust, both physical and mental attraction to one another, take into account various personal views, both political and economic, and share some of the same aspirations. According to Erikson’s theory, the sixth stage of development is intimacy. If there is no intimacy established by early adulthood, the result is isolation.
Identity vs Role-confusion (adolescence, 12-19yrs): the teenager develops a sense of identity, strives for more self-understanding and establishes goals for the future [Existential Question: Who Am I and What Can I Be?] Intimacy vs Isolation (young adulthood, 20-30yrs): a feeling of belonging either with a close group of friends or through marriage [Existential Question: Can I Love?] Generativity vs Stagnation (middle adulthood, 30-50yrs): generativity is Erikson's term for a concern for future generations; in this stage adults assist their growing children or the community to
This process focuses mostly on and individual’s level of ability to adapt to a new environment, and learning to be responsible. Psychological traits of a young adult identify their roles as adults. A holistic model of development connects the age identity and level of a psychosocial maturation, but might develop at different rates. On the one hand, adolescents who age and mature earlier than their peers, typically due to accelerated pubertal maturation and responsibilities often do not have the psychosocial skills to cope successfully with the demands of the new roles and responsibilities that accompany this status. On the other hand, youth that develops age identities later rather than earlier are oftentimes among the first to attain psychosocial
The qualitative study denotes the attachment process that is a major predictor of mental health in adult age of individual. The study heightened the awareness as well as understanding of self-esteem issues that can effectively lead to more accurate therapeutic contexts and treatment plans for clients. The study might lead therapists’ ways to decrease or moderate or even demolish number of issues that clients experiences throughout their childhood. At the same time, mental practitioners can develop relationship that can allow them to work effectively with clients suffering from self-esteem
In the article "Emerging Adulthood" by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, emerging adulthood is a phased where Arnett's differentiates emerging adulthood from adolescence and young adulthood. Arnett's theory was to differentiate and explain how young adolescence become independent at an early age, how some move from their home, some do not continue school once they graduate high school, how others would continue to college, and how some of them do not have sufficent income to become fully independent. However a cultural context of the idea of emerging adulthood is outlined and it is also specified that emerging adulthood exists only in cultures that allow young people a prolonged period of independent role exploration during the late teens and twenties. Arnett's feels the emerging adult should be studied as it's own category of lifespan development. Arnett explains that, “I argue that this period, emerging adulthood is neither adolescence nor young adult but it is theoretically and empirically distinct from them both”.
Their answer would help to get them the proper help they are going to need in order to save their lives. The population that is most likely to present self-mutilate is adolescence and young adults. Reasons for this behavior is to escape from emotional pain such as anger or anxiety, to release tension, to gain control over seemingly out-of-control emotions, or to physically express pain. Interventions I would use in such cases would be a combination of behavioral therapies and medication, family therapy, or educational therapy. Using the Erikson's Model of Psychosocial Stages of Development, the stage I am going to choose is the adolescence stage.