QUESTION

Briefly explain Piaget's and Erikson's theories of development. Who had a better theory of human development: Erikson or Piaget? Please offer detail to explain your choice. What tips would you give to someone who has just suffered a major loss, now that you know the stages of grief?

ANSWER

Piaget's and Erikson's Theories of Development

Erikson's or Piaget's theories are social concepts that explain human development
stages' experiences and effects on mental and cognitive growth. Piaget's theory explains the
child’s cognitive development changes involved in the process of abilities and cognitive
development. It involves the late progressiveness and actions to mental operations during a
child’s cognitive development process (Taylor, 2018). On the other hand, Erik Erikson was a
competent psychologist who developed the social world in the post-Freudian era. The scholar
evaluated personality development and worked out for social environment in the human
psych development process. Erikson’s theory expounded on personality development in a
determined manner as exposed in eight psychosocial development stages starting from
infancy to adulthood (Taylor, 2018).
However, Erikson’s theory is better than Piaget’s because it focuses on creating a
super understanding of development through human life. Still, Piaget evaluated the infancy to
late teenage years of human development. The weakness of Piaget’s theory is limiting the
understanding of human cognitive development towards the adulthood stage (Taylor, 2018).
By applying Erikson’s theory, sociologists can understand the qualitative and distinct life
stages humans experience from birth to death. Erikson’s theory did not focus much on
societies and culture during the human development stages, which assures universality
recognition in this theory (Taylor, 2018). Notably, theorist Erikson explained that every
human development stage is fairly universal and acknowledges one stage to another as fairly
contextual in experiences.
A person who has faced a significant loss should understand that Erikson’s theory
expounds that a conflict in one stage may not be resolved but can be done later in life. Based
on Erikson's theory, stage V, one should identify the best role in life to avoid confusion. One
may fail to have a good choice (Taylor, 2018). Also, facing a loss is a stage of life, and there

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is an opportunity to resolve the conflict or the crisis in later life (Taylor, 2018). In that
position of life conflicts, one can identify choices to avoid role confusion by identifying
personal values and appropriately learn from this mistake causing major loss.