Human Development - Case Study Example

Personality Development Name Institution Course Date Personality Development Introduction Human development is an area that has been studied extensively by psychologists and sociologists. From the existing literature and theories, it has emerged that childhood life experiences have a huge impact on the behaviors and personality of an individual (Wrightsman, 1994). In order to understand how childhood life experience affects the behaviors and personality of an individual during adulthood, various theories have been developed that in this regard that attempts to explain the process of human development and the influence of life experiences on an individual's personality. Erik Erikson's psychosocial and John Bowlby's attachment theories are some of the developmental theories (Scheck, 2014). This paper will analyze how childhood life experiences affect adulthood personality of an individual using Erikson's psychosocial and Bowlby's attachment theories. The analysis will be based on the interview I conducted with an Australian-born woman with roots from the Middle East. The case study begins by providing a brief description of the two developmental theories after which the theories will be used to analyze the case study. Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Theory Erik Erikson is regarded as one of the psychologists whose work has contributed significantly to the area of human development. His contribution in the field of human development particularly became evident in the late 1950s and early 1960s, where together with his colleague came up with a psychoanalytic theory of psychosocial development. Erikson's theory proposes eight stages that an individual pass through from the time they are born to adulthood. Erikson argues that, at each of these stages that people pass through in their lives, people experience psychosocial predicaments that impact personality development either positively or negatively (Scheck, 2014). According to Erikson (1993), the crisis experienced at each of the stages is psychosocial in nature since they involve a person's psychosocial needs, which antagonizes with the societal needs. Erikson's theory maintains that successful completion of each of the eight stages is critical as it results in the development of a healthy personality coupled with the acquisition of basic virtues. Erikson (1993) defines basic virtues as the strengths that a person needs to overcome the subsequent crisis. The psychosocial theory maintains that the failure of an individual to successfully complete any of the eight stages of human development can affect the ability of a person to complete subsequent stages and this can result in the development of unhealthy personality and sense of self. Erikson's eight stages of the psychosocial crisis include "trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, ego identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation and ego integrity vs. despair" (Erikson, 1993, p. 4). John Bowlby's Attachment Theory Attachment theory is the other theory that helps in understanding the human development process and how life experiences affect personality development. Attachment theory is a development psychology concept that focuses on the importance of attachment to an individual's personal development. Attachment theory holds that when one is able to form a physical and emotional attachment to another, this provides them with a sense of security and stability to grow, develop, and take a risk in life because they know that there is someone beside them for support (Holmes, 2006). John Bowlby is one of the psychologists who have contributed significantly to the concept of attachment theory that helps in understanding human development. According to Bowlby (2008), how a child grows and develops is heavily dependent upon the ability of the child to form a strong relationship with at least one of the parents. Based on his study of childhood development and temperament, Bowlby concluded that having a strong attachment to a caregiver gives a sense of foundation and security to the extent that when the attachment is lacking, a lot of developmental energy is utilized in the search for security and stability. Overall, the psychologists noted that lack of attachment to a caregiver (parent) makes a child more fearful and unwilling to endeavor to seek out and discover new experiences (Bretherton, 1992). Contrastingly, a child who enjoys strong attachments to a parent understands that they have someone beside them for support and thus tend to be more eager to learn new experiences in life. It can be deduced from the theory that, a child who has a strong attachment to a caregiver develops successfully because they have most of their immediate needs met. Accordingly, they are able to spend a lot of their time interacting with their natural environment which promotes healthy development. On the other hand, babies that lack strong attachment experience development challenges as they struggle to have their immediate needs met. This implies that they end up spending most of their time struggling to meet their needs, thus ending up lacking time to observe and interact with their environment. As for Bowlby, a parent's obligation as a caregiver increases over time to ensure that the immediate needs of the child are met. Early on in a child's life, Bowlby (2008) argues that the duty of the parent is to ensure that they are strongly attached to their children and give them the security and support during these formative years. However, as a person transitions from childhood to adulthood, a parent's role is to ensure that they are available to the child who now needs periodic support. Case Study Analysis The two theories relate to the findings in the case study in many ways. It can be seen from the interview that the interviewee went through the eight stages of development proposed by Erikson that includes trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, ego identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation and ego integrity vs. despair (Erikson, 1993, p. 4). These crisis stages clearly impacted the interviewee's personality development as she narrated during the interview. According to the interviewee, her parents separated and lived separately when she was only one year old. The separation was triggered by a disagreement between the parents and this forced the mother to go back to her parents' home, where the interviewee now had to live with her mother and grandmother. Besides, the interviewee states that she witnessed a number of traumatic and emotional events during her childhood that has had a negative impact on her personality development. She explains that, when staying with her mother at her grandmother's place, her uncle who was not comfortable seeing her mother with other men would sometimes engage the mother in a fight, and this was a horrible and unpleasant experience to the interviewee as a child and felt that they were lost and would even sometimes escape to the neighbors house and too tablets to help ease her trauma. This is in tandem with Erikson's psychosocial theory in which the theorists noted that during the first psychosocial crisis stage (trust vs. mistrust), a child is uncertain about the world and to address the feeling, they turn to their parents for care and security (Wrightsman, 1994). Unfortunately, the case study indicates clearly that the care and support that the interviewee needed at this point in her life was lacking as the parents whom he expected to provide him with care, love, and support lacked as they engaged in fights. Accordingly, because the care was harsh, unreliable, and unpredictable to the interviewee during her childhood, this made her develop a sense of mistrust, which negatively affected her confidence in the society around her. In fact, in circle with Erikson's theory (Bretherton, 1992), the interviewee states that she no longer have trust and confidence in her parents and the world as a whole because of the trauma she had to undergo at the hands of her parents whom she expected to show her compassion, love, and care. At the same time, it emerges that the psychosocial experiences that the interviewee had during her childhood have also affected her adult life in the sense that she now struggles to show love and affection to a partner having learned this from her parents who divorced when she was still a child. In line with Erikson's psychosocial theory (Scheck, 2014), the interviewee did not learn the virtue of love that is developed in the sixth stage of psychosocial crisis as the interviewee did not learn the value of love from her parents who divorced because of a disagreement. Accordingly, the interviewee states that, because of the inability of her parents to stay together in love when she was a child, she also finds herself struggling to show love and affection to her partner now that she is a grown up woman. The interviewee's experience during her childhood days and its impact on the interviewee's personality development are in tandem with the Bowlby's attachment theory. According to Bowlby, how a child grows and develops is heavily dependent upon the ability of the child to form a strong relationship with at least one of the parents. Bowlby (2008) concluded that having a strong attachment to a caregiver gives a sense of foundation and security to the extent that when the attachment is lacking, a lot of developmental energy is utilized in the search for security and stability. In this case study, it emerges that the quality of relationships that the interviewee has had in her later life has been greatly affected by the experience of attachment that she had with her parents during her childhood. According to the case study, it emerges that the interviewee has not had a good attachment experience with the mother and the father. This is because, when she was only one, her parents divorced, meaning she lost the fatherly love and care as she had to remain with her mother who she lived with at her grandmother's place. Although she would expect her mother to be close to her and build a strong attachment with her by providing the love and care she needed as a child, this was never to be as she states that her mother declined to allow her to spend time with her father and would sometimes not even bother to spend time with the interviewee as she says that the mother would in most cases be busy clubbing and having time with guys out. The lack of strong attachment affected the interviewee's successful development as it made it difficult for her to meet her immediate needs. Accordingly, this affected her relationship with her mother whom she does not want to see eye to eye. Because she could not get the love from the mother and father, the interviewee states that she was forced to turn to guys, the same way her mother did so as to get the love and affection that she could not get from her parents. This is in line with Bowlby's attachment theory that states that lack of attachment to a caregiver (parent) makes a child more fearful and unwilling to seek out and to make out for this, they turn to the society for the same attachment (Holmes, 2006). Contrastingly, Bowlby noted that a child who enjoys strong attachments to a parent understands that they have someone beside them for support and thus tend to be more eager to learn new experiences in life. Therefore, it becomes clear that the relationship that the interviewee is having later in her adulthood stage of hanging out with guys in influenced by the lack of strong attachment from the parents whom she expected to be close to her, guide and support her in every situation. However, because the parents could not provide this, she had to seek it out from friends. Conclusion The analysis has found that adulthood personality and behaviors are greatly influenced by childhood life experiences. Using Erikson's psychosocial and Bowlby's attachment theories, it has been demonstrated how a child's life experiences during childhood influence behavior and personality that a person adopts when they become adults. In particular, it emerged from the case study that a person passes through various psychosocial crisis stages in life that can affect the personality of an individual either positively or negatively as demonstrated using the case study. Additionally, in line with Bowlby's attachment theory, it emerged that the relationships that a person develops later in life are affected by a person's attachment experiences during childhood as demonstrated using the case study. References Bowlby, J. (2008). Attachment: Second edition. London: Basic Books. Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Developmental Psychology, 28, 759-775. Erikson, E. H. (1993). Childhood and society. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Holmes, J. (2006). John Bowlby and attachment theory. Mason, OH: Routledge. Scheck, S. (2014). The stages of psychosocial development according to Erik H. Erikson. Chicago, CA: GRIN Verlag. Wrightsman, L. S. (1994). Adult personality development: volume 1: Theories and concepts. Oxford: SAGE. Appendix Questionnaire Adult Attachment Interview Protocol Introduction I’m going to be interviewing you about your childhood experiences, and how those experiences may have affected your adult personality. So, I’d like to ask you about your early relationship with your family, and what you think about the way it might have affected you. We’ll focus mainly on your childhood, but later we’ll get on to your adolescence and to what’s going on right now. This interview often takes about an hour, but it could be anywhere between 45 minutes and an hour and a half. 1. Could you familarise me with your early family orientation, and where you lived? Where you were born? If you moved a lot and tell me about what your family did for a living? Who would you say raised you? (Primary attachment) Did you see much of your grandparents when you were little? Did you have brothers and sisters living in the house, or anybody besides your parents? Are they living nearby now or do they live elsewhere? 2. Could you please try to start from as far back as you can to describe your relationship with your parents as a young child? 3. Could you go back in the early childhood around the age of 5 to 12 and take a minute to choose five ‘words’ that reflect your (relationship) with your mother…then if you can tell me why you chose them. I’ll write them down as you give them to me so you don’t have to worry about remembering them. 4. Now could you go back in the early childhood around the age of 5 to 12 and take a minute to choose five ‘words’ that reflect your (relationship) with your mother…then if you can tell me why you chose them. I’ll write them down as you give them to me so you don’t have to worry about remembering them. 5. Could you tell me to which parent did you feel the closest, and why? - Why isn’t there this feeling with the other parent? 6. When you were upset as a child, what would you do? Can you think of a specific time that happened? “I was just wondering, do you remember being held by either of your parents at any of these times, I mean, when you were upset, or hurt, or ill?” What is the first time you remember being separated from your parents? How did you respond? Do you remember how your parents responded? Are there any other separations that stand out in your mind? Such as schooling… 7. Did you ever feel rejected as a young child? How old were you when you first felt this way, and what did you do? - Why do you think your parent did those things… do you think he/she realized he/she was rejecting you? 8. Were your parents ever threatening with you in any way, maybe for discipline, or even jokingly? 9. In general, how do you think your overall experiences with your parents have affected your adult personality? - Are there any aspects to your early experiences that you feel were a set-back in your development? 10. Why do you think your parents behaved as they did during your childhood? 11. Were there any other adults with whom you were close, like parents, as a child? Or any other adults who were especially important to you, even thought not parental? (At what age were these people present in your life) 12. Did you experience the loss of a parents or other close loved one while you were a young child… could you tell me about the circumstances, and how old you were at the time? How did you respond at the time? Was this death sudden or was it expected? Can you recall your feelings at that time? Have your feelings regarding this death changed much over time? Did you attend the funeral, and what was this like for you? Would you say this loss has had an affect on your adult personality? How does it affect your approach to your own child? 13. Did you lose any other important persons during your childhood? (Same queries) 14. Have you lost other close persons, in adult years? (Same queries) 15. Other than any difficult experiences you’ve already describes, have you had any other experiences which you should regard as potentially traumatic? (Any experience which was overwhelmingly and immediately terrifying. 16. Between your childhood and your adulthood were there many changes in your relationship with your parents (or remaining parent) after childhood? 17. Could you tell me about your current relationships with your parents? Do you have much contact with your parents at the present? What would you say the relationship with your parents is like currently? 18. This question is not about your relationship with your parents, but your current relationship with (specific child of special interest). How do you respond now, in terms of feelings, when you separate from your child/children? 19. If you had three wishes for your child twenty years from now, what would they be? Take your time to think about this one. 20. Do you think you have learned something from your own childhood experiences? 21. During our session we have been focusing a lot on the past, but I’d like to focus ways into the future. I’d like to end the session by asking you what you hope your child (or, your imagined child) might have learned from his/her experiences of being parented by you? Read More

Attachment theory holds that when one is able to form a physical and emotional attachment to another, this provides them with a sense of security and stability to grow, develop, and take a risk in life because they know that there is someone beside them for support (Holmes, 2006). John Bowlby is one of the psychologists who have contributed significantly to the concept of attachment theory that helps in understanding human development. According to Bowlby (2008), how a child grows and develops is heavily dependent upon the ability of the child to form a strong relationship with at least one of the parents.

Based on his study of childhood development and temperament, Bowlby concluded that having a strong attachment to a caregiver gives a sense of foundation and security to the extent that when the attachment is lacking, a lot of developmental energy is utilized in the search for security and stability. Overall, the psychologists noted that lack of attachment to a caregiver (parent) makes a child more fearful and unwilling to endeavor to seek out and discover new experiences (Bretherton, 1992). Contrastingly, a child who enjoys strong attachments to a parent understands that they have someone beside them for support and thus tend to be more eager to learn new experiences in life.

It can be deduced from the theory that, a child who has a strong attachment to a caregiver develops successfully because they have most of their immediate needs met. Accordingly, they are able to spend a lot of their time interacting with their natural environment which promotes healthy development. On the other hand, babies that lack strong attachment experience development challenges as they struggle to have their immediate needs met. This implies that they end up spending most of their time struggling to meet their needs, thus ending up lacking time to observe and interact with their environment.

As for Bowlby, a parent's obligation as a caregiver increases over time to ensure that the immediate needs of the child are met. Early on in a child's life, Bowlby (2008) argues that the duty of the parent is to ensure that they are strongly attached to their children and give them the security and support during these formative years. However, as a person transitions from childhood to adulthood, a parent's role is to ensure that they are available to the child who now needs periodic support.

Case Study Analysis The two theories relate to the findings in the case study in many ways. It can be seen from the interview that the interviewee went through the eight stages of development proposed by Erikson that includes trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, ego identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation and ego integrity vs. despair (Erikson, 1993, p. 4). These crisis stages clearly impacted the interviewee's personality development as she narrated during the interview.

According to the interviewee, her parents separated and lived separately when she was only one year old. The separation was triggered by a disagreement between the parents and this forced the mother to go back to her parents' home, where the interviewee now had to live with her mother and grandmother. Besides, the interviewee states that she witnessed a number of traumatic and emotional events during her childhood that has had a negative impact on her personality development. She explains that, when staying with her mother at her grandmother's place, her uncle who was not comfortable seeing her mother with other men would sometimes engage the mother in a fight, and this was a horrible and unpleasant experience to the interviewee as a child and felt that they were lost and would even sometimes escape to the neighbors house and too tablets to help ease her trauma.

This is in tandem with Erikson's psychosocial theory in which the theorists noted that during the first psychosocial crisis stage (trust vs. mistrust), a child is uncertain about the world and to address the feeling, they turn to their parents for care and security (Wrightsman, 1994).

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