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Erikson and the Stages of Personality

 

            The word personality" has many definitions. Personality and the mind are known to some people as "unpredictable." Many have tried to crack its secrets by coming up with various theories. Most people would define personality as an individual's character, or what makes one unique, consisting of a set of characteristics known as traits. This is mostly true, but the proper definition is: personality is an individual's unique pattern of thoughts and behaviors that persist over time and across situations. I believe that the two personality development theories of birth order and Erikson's stages of psychosocial development best describe how the following personality traits developed in me through various socializing agents: competitive, aggressive, problem-solver and critical. Both theories give a very logical explanation to how my personality traits developed. .
             The birth order theory best describes how the personality traits of competitiveness, aggressiveness and critical thinking developed. The birth order theory, as its name shows, focuses on a pattern of traits that develop for a child, based on its order of birth, ie, the first-born child is supposed to be responsible, dependable, competitive etc, due to the fact that siblings born after the firstborn "dethrone" him or her, the siblings halve almost everything the firstborn has, the parents attention, love and so on. The middle child/children is/are speculated to develop these following personality traits: low self-esteem, peacekeeping abilities, independence, as the parents cannot afford to spend a lot of time with the middle child. The youngest child is normally a follower, laid-back, rebellious and liberal. This is because the parents spend even less attention to the youngest child than the middle one, and hence, he/she receives very little discipline, but follows others as the rest of the members of the family boss him/her around.


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