At what stage of development would Erikson place Robert? Why? How do Erikson’s psychosocial stages differ from Jung’s stages of development?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

One could place Robert in Erikson’s “middle adulthood” stage because of his age (56); middle adulthood extends from about the age of 35 to 59. However, one could also argue that Robert is in the “mature adulthood” stage because of his contemplation of death; it is in the mature adulthood stage that one examines one’s life because of advancing age.
Erikson’s stages differ from Jung’s in a number of ways. First, they differ in number. Erikson divides up the lifespan into a larger number of stages: Erikson discussed eight stages, whereas Jung only discussed four. More specifically, Jung combined all of childhood (from birth until puberty) into one stage (although he did talk about three substages), whereas Erikson discussed four stages that occur up until puberty. Similarly, Jung only discussed two stages during adulthood but Erikson discussed three.
The two sets of stages also differ in that according to Erikson a crisis occurs at each of his eight stages that had to be resolved. No such crisis exists in Jung’s stages. Finally, they also differ in that Erikson’s stages are based on social influences on personality, whereas Jung’s are not.