Prime Adaptive Ego Quality

Week 15 – Development from Infancy to Adulthood
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December 2, 2017
What is the direction of development over the life course? What are the threads of continuity and change that transform individuals from infancy to adulthood? How useful is the psychosocial theory as a framework for conceptualizing lifespan development? What does the theory emphasize? What does it ignore? How do the capacities for generativity, integrity, and immortality build on prime adaptive ego qualities that emerged during the earlier stages? What are some of the later adulthood and elderhood challenges that require new coping skills and creative solutions?
Erikson’s psychosocial theory has been one of the most well-known theories in the field of psychology with regards to the stages of development. In general, the psychosocial theory states that throughout a person’s life, different series of crisis present themselves and each of these crises is crucial to the individual’s personality development (Cherry, 2016). Ideally, Erikson stated that these qualities must be resolved in order for the individual to fully be in line with the most optimal direction of development, which is the “prime adaptive ego quality” (Percypsych101.com, n.d.). In comparison to other theories of personality development, Erikson’s place a great amount of importance towards the effect of social interactions. Accordingly, his theory states that social interactions determine whether individual resolves his crisis or fail to do so. However, this also suggests the idea that a loss or a change of the “influential individuals” in one’s life could particularly affect the development of an individual. In a newsletter published by the AIA National Resource Center (2004), they found out that connections of very young children with their “primary caregivers” are crucial for their development. This posits that a “thread of continuity” between relationships is important. Nonetheless, as a person grows up, the effects of these threads could change and vary depending on a number of factors. In this article, the author would first discuss the effects of changes on this “thread of continuity”. In the succeeding section, the author would try to provide an explanation for the usefulness o (Cherry, 2016)f Erikson’s Psychosocial theory in providing a good explanation for an individual’s development. The said section would also enumerate some of the gaps in this theory. Lastly, the author would focus on the continuity of development and/or change as an individual progresses to the latter phases of his/her life. Nonetheless, the author of this article believes that despite the inherent limitations of Erikson’s theory – particularly the preciseness of his eight stages in all cultures – it presents a good insight towards issues of the continuity of change and development (e.g. foster children and grieving), for the fact that focuses on changes that are influenced with social relationships.
As stated earlier, the main direction of an individual’s development is oriented towards the achieving competence, or in Erikson’s terms, the prime adaptive ego. In line with this,...