Erikson's Theory Of Adolescence

Adolescence is largely accepted as the period between puberty and adulthood. There is no age bracket for the periods of development that an individual goes through – each of them overlap each other, yet each is distinct. Erikson, in his theory of psychosocial development speaks about how the individual’s social surroundings develop the identity of the person and his personality. And this development happens in stages.
Adolescence is one such stage that Erikson characterizes as Identity vs Role Confusion.

‘’The adolescent is in the psychosocial stage between childhood and young adulthood where she will learn to make new mean¬ing of the morality acquired during childhood and will begin to adopt new ethics that she will develop and embrace

But most of them fail to come to a consensus about why it’s caused. It is not solely caused by biological changes and nor is it due to the social environment but both these factors are widely accepted as the main causes. Storm and stress as a period is inevitable because puberty is biologically inevitable. And post these major biological changes the individual tries to make sense of his existing strengths and weaknesses and how he can use them in his current environment and how it molds him into the person he will become. In this stage – the individual interacts more with his peers than he does with his family because he has just begun to have diversified social interactions. He has new tastes, new likes and dislikes and must choose amongst them. He has to make that choice because that is what shapes his personality and sense of

Larson & Richards (1994) stated that adolescence has more to do with cognitive and environment factors and less to do with puberty. When it comes to cognitive development, it is different in the age group of 12 – 18 (period that falls under the larger period of adolescence) and different in the age group of 6 – 12. The former age group is more likely to make complex decisions and is faced with more choices – half of which he may not have permission to make or knowledge to carry out. This is one of the many reasons this age group suffers from ‘storm and stress’. But the same factors that cause some children distress is also what develops their