TOPIC SEVEN Personality Development in Early Childhood

Introduction In the last topic we covered cognitive and language

development and noted that both genetics and environment
influences these aspect of development in early childhood. In
this topic we cover personality development. Specifically we
focus on the definition of personality and qualities of
personality development, theories of personality development
particularly psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Eric
Erikson, and factors contributing to personality development.
Topic Time  Compulsory online reading, activities, self-assessments &
practice exercises: 5 hours
Topic Learning  Participation in one chat
Requirements
 At least two elaborate contributions to the discussion topic.
You may also start your own discussion thread.
 Timely submission of the assignments

Learning On completion of this topic you should be able to:

Outcomes
 Outline qualities of personality development.
 Describe components of personality development
according to Sigmund Freud.
 Describe Freud’s stages of psychosexual development.
 Describe Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development.
 Discuss factors that affect personality development.

Topic Content 1.1 Overview of personality development

Personality is the development of the organized pattern of

behaviours and attitudes that form the characteristics of each
person. These traits go together to distinguish persons as
individuals. Both nature (genetics) and nurture (environment)
combine in the process of personality development. There are
four fundamental qualities of personality. These are:

i) Consistency
 Personality doesn’t change over short period of time. It is
therefore possible to predict pattern of behaviour of an
individual.

ii) Integration

Personality is a unified whole and indivisible i.e. different

aspect of personality work together in harmony. Aspects of
personality are physical, mental, social, moral, economical
and cultural. If one aspect is affected, the total pattern of
behaviour becomes affected.

iii) Changeability

Personality can change over a period of time.

iv) Individuality

Every individual, including identical twins, has a unique

personality. People differ in personality because no two
individuals can have the same cluster of genes and
environmental experiences.

There are different perspectives on the nature of personality

development. In this topic you will be exposed to
psychoanalytic perspectives of Sigmund Freud and Erik
Erikson.

1.2 Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality

development

Sigmund Freud was a physician and lived from 1856-1939.

Central to Freudian psychoanalytic theory is the notion that
human beings have basic biological urges or drives that must
be satisfied. According to Freud these biological urges are the
source of psychic (mental energy) that fuel human behaviour
and is channeled in new direction over the course of human
devepment.

Each individual has fixed amount of psychic energy and as the

child develops, the energy is divided among three components
of personality as follows:
a. The Id

At birth all psychic resides in the Id. The Id’s entire mission
is to satisfy instincts. It obeys “pleasure principle” seeking
immediate gratification. For example, when infants are wet
or hungry, they simply fuss and cry until their needs are
met; they are not known for their patience. The Id is the
impulsive, irrational, and selfish part of the personality and
it is with us throughout the life span.

b. The Ego

The ego is the rational side of the individual that operates

according to the “reality principle” and tries to find realistic
ways of gratifying instincts. The ego begins to emerge
during infancy when the psychic energy is diverted from the
Id to energize important cognitive processes such as
perceptions, learning and problem solving. For example,
the hungry toddler may be able to do more than merely cry
when he/she is hungry. He/she may hunt down mum, lead
her to the kitchen and say “bread”. As the ego matures
further, children become more able to postpone their
pleasures until a more appropriate time or devise logical
and realistic plan for meeting their needs.

c. The Superego

The superego is the individual’s internalized moral

standards. The superego develops from the ego and strives
for perfection rather than for pleasure or realism. It begins
to develop as 3-to-6 years old children internalize (take as
their own) the moral standards and values of their parents.
 Once the superego emerges, for example, children have a
parental voice in their heads that tells them it would be
wrong to satisfy their Id by grabbing or stealing other
children’s toys, and that voice makes them feel guilty or
ashamed when they violate society’s rules and standards.

The three parts of the personality do not see eye to eye; there
is a conflict between them. In the mature healthy personality,
a dynamic balance operates. The Id communicates the basic
needs, the ego restrains the impulsive Id long enough to find
realistic ways to satisfy these needs, and the superego decides
whether the ego’s problem solving strategies are morally
acceptable.

According to Freud, psychological problems often arise when

psychic energy is unevenly distributed among the Id, the ego
and the superego. For example, the sociopath who routinely
lies and cheats to get his way may have a very strong Id and a
normal ego but a very weak superego.

Freud developed a stage theory of personality called

psychosexual stages of development. The stages are called
psychosexual because each stage represents a fixation of
libido on a different area of the body.

Freud believed that as a person grows physically, certain areas

of their body become important as sources of potential
frustration (erogeneous zones), pleasure or both. He believed
that life was built around tension and pleasure. All tension is
due to the buildup of libido (sexual energy) and all pleasure
comes from its discharge.

Each of the psychosexual stages is associated with a particular

conflict that must be resolved before the individual can
successfully advance to the next stage. The resolution of each
of these conflicts requires the expenditure of sexual energy
and the more sexual energy expended at a particular stage,
the more the important characteristics of that stage remain
with the individual as he/she matures psychologically.

Some people do not seem to be able to leave one stage and

proceed on to the next (e.g. thumb sucking in adulthood). This
maybe because the needs of the developing individual at any
particular stage may not have been adequately met in which
case there is frustration. On the other hand, the person’s
needs may have been so well satisfied that he/she is reluctant
to leave the psychological benefit of that stage. This is
referred to as overindulgence.

Both frustration and overindulgence (or a combination of both)

may lead to what psychoanalysts call fixation at a particular
stage. Fixation refers to the theoretical notion that a portion of
the individual’s libido has been permanently “invested’ in a
certain psychosexual stage and thus a person will behave in
some ways that are characteristics of infancy or early
childhood.

Freud’s Psychosexual stages of personality development are :

i) Oral stage (0-1 year)

In this stage libido is centered in a baby’s mouth. It gets

much satisfaction from putting all sorts of things in its
mouth to satisfy libido. Characteristics that are displayed at
this stage are oral or mouth oriented such as sucking, biting
and breastfeeding.

According to Freud, oral stimulation could lead to oral

fixation in later life e.g. personalities such as smokers, nail-
bitters, finger-chewers and thumb suckers. People with
such personalities engage in such oral behaviours
particularly when under stress.
ii) Anal stage (1-3 years)

The libido now becomes focused on the anus and the child
derives great pleasure from defecating. However, the child
is aware that their wishes can bring them into conflict with
the demands of the society as parents demand that they are
toilet trained and impose restrictions on when and where
the child can defecate. The nature of this first conflict with
authority can determine the child’s future relationship will
all forms of authority.

Early or harsh toilet training can lead to the child becoming

an anal-retentive personality who hates mess, is obsessively
tidy, punctual and respectful of authority. They can be
stubborn and stingy. An anal expulsive, on the other hand,
underwent a liberal toilet training regime during the anal
stage. In adulthood the anal expulsive is the person who
wants share things with others. Their personality is also
messy, disorganized and rebellious.

iii) Phallic stage (3 to 6 years)

Sensitivity now becomes concentrated in the genitals and

masturbation (in both sexes) becomes a new source of
pleasure. The child becomes aware of anatomical sex
differences which results into the following conflicts:

a) The Oedipus complex

This occurs in boys. The conflict arises because the

boy develops sexual (pleasurable desires) for his
mother. He wants to posses his mother exclusively
and gets rid of the father. However, he thinks that
if the father finds this out, the father would take
away what he loves and fears loosing the most i.e.
his penis.

The little boy then sets out to resolve this conflict

 by imitating, copying and joining in the masculine
dad-type behaviours. This is called identification. It
means internally adopting the values, attitudes and
behaviours of another person. The consequence of
this is that the boy takes on the male gender role,
and adopts an ego ideal and values that become
the superego.

The Oedipus complex is one of Freud’s most

controversial ideas and one that many people reject
outright.

b) The Electra complex

The girl, on the other hand, desires the father but

realizes that she does not have a penis. This leads
to the development of ‘penis envy’ and the wish to
be a boy.

The girl resolves this conflict by repressing her

desires for her father and substitutes the wish for a
penis with the wish for a baby. The girl blames the
mother for her ‘castrated state’ and this creates
tension. The girl then represses her feeling to
remove tension and identifies with the mother to
take on the female gender role.

iv) Latency stage (6 years to adolescence)

No further psychosexual development takes place during

this stage (latent means hidden). The libido is dormant and
the sexual energy is directed towards school work, hobbies
and friendships. Much of the child’s energies are channeled
into developing new skills and acquiring new knowledge and
play becomes largely confined to children of the same sex.

v) Genital stage (adolescence to adult)

 Libido is redirected back to the genitals. This a time of
adolescent sexual experimentation, the successful
resolution of which is settling down in a loving one-to-one
relationship with another person. Sexual instinct is directed
to heterosexual pleasure, rather than self pleasure like
during the phallic stage.

1.3 Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages of personality

development

Erik Erikson was a neo-Freudian who was also concerned

himself with the inner dynamic of personality. He proposed
that personality evolves through systematic stages. Compared
to Freud, Erikson placed:
1. Less emphasis on the sexual urges as drivers of
personality development and more emphasis on social
influences such as parents, teachers, peers, schools etc.
2. Less emphasis on the irrational selfish side of human
nature and more emphasis on the rational ego and its
adaptive powers.

3. Less emphasis on the lasting imprint of early experiences

and more emphasis on the potential for growth
throughout life.

Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development has eight

distinctive stages. Like Freud, Erikson assumes that a crisis
occurs at each stage of development. According to the theory,
successful completion of each stage results in a healthy
personality and the acquisition of basic virtues (characteristic
strengths which the ego can use to resolve subsequent crises).
Failure to successfully complete a stage can result in a reduced
ability to successfully complete further stages and therefore a
more unhealthy personality.

Erikson’s Psychosocial stages are:

i) Trust versus mistrust ( birth to I year)

During this stage, the infant is uncertain about the world in

which they live. To resolve these feelings of uncertainty the
infants look to their primary caregivers for stability and
consistency of care. If the infants can count on their
caregivers to feed them, relieve their discomfort and come
when beckoned; and if the care they receive is consistent,
predictable and reliable, they will develop a sense of trust
which they will carry with them to other relationships. They
will also be able to feel secure even when threatened.

On the other hand, if caregivers neglect, reject or respond

inconsistently to their infants, they will mistrust others and
will not have confidence in the world around them or in their
abilities to influence events. This infant will carry the basic
sense of mistrust with them to other relationships. It may
result in anxiety, heightened insecurities and an over feeling
of mistrust in the world around them.

Success in this stage will lead to virtue of hope. By

developing a sense of trust, the infant can have hope that
as new crises arise, there is a real possibilities that other
people will be there as a source of support. Failing to
acquire the virtue of hope will lead to the development of
fear.

ii) Autonomy versus doubt and shame (1 to 3 years)

During this stage, children rapidly develop a variety of

physical and mental abilities. For the first time they are
able to do many things for themselves. They begin to walk,
climb, push, and pull and hold on to an object or let it go,
and communicate effectively.

Children take great pride in these newly developing skills

and abilities and want to do as many things for themselves
as possible. Thus children experience autonomous will.
Although still dependent on their parents, they begin to see
themselves as forces in their own right.

They want to exercise this autonomous will and the key

question becomes this, “to what extent will the world,
inform of parents, allow them to do what they are now
capable of doing at their pace and time?” Do parents let the
child proceed at his/her own pace, or do they become
annoyed and show impatience and anger when the child
doesn’t behave correctly?

When children are not allowed to exercise their autonomy,

they develop a feeling of shame in their relation with others
and a sense of doubt about themselves. Children need to
explore and experiment, to make mistakes and test limits.
If parents promote dependency, child’s autonomy is
inhibited, and the capacity to deal with the world
successfully is hampered.

Success in this stage will lead to virtue of Will. If children in

this stage are encouraged and supported in their increased
independence, they will become more confidence and
secure in their own ability to survive in the world.

If, on the other hand, children are criticized, overly

controlled, or not given the opportunity to assert
themselves, they begin to feel inadequate in their ability to
survive, and may then become overly dependent upon
others, lack self-esteem and feel a sense of shame or doubt
in their own abilities.
iii) Initiative versus guilt (3 to 6 years)

During this stage, the child’s motor and mental abilities

have become more fully developed. He or she is able to do
more things and strongly wants to do so. The primary
feature, during this period, involves the child regularly
interacting with others at school. Central to this stage is
play, as it provides children with opportunity to explore
their interpersonal skills through initiating activities.
Children begin to plan activities, make up games, and
initiate activities with others.

If they are allowed the freedom to select meaningful

activities, they tend to develop a positive outlook
characterized by the ability to initiate and follow through, If
they are not allowed to make some of their choices and are
even ridiculed, they develop a sense of guilt over taking the
initiative. Typically they withdraw from taking an active
stance and permit others to make decisions for them.

It is at this stage that children begin to ask many questions

as their thirst for knowledge grows. If parents treat the
child’s questions as trivial, a nuisance or embarrassing or
other aspects of their behaviour as threatening then the
child may have feelings of guilt for “being a nuisance”. Too
much guilt can make the child slow to interact with others
and may inhibit their creativity. Some guilt is necessary
otherwise the child would not know how to exercise self
control or have a conscience. A healthy balance between
initiative and guilt is important. Success in this stage will
lead to the virtue of purpose.

iv) Industry (competence) versus inferiority (6 to 12

years).

To develop a sense of industry (competence), children must

master the important cognitive and social skills such as
reading, writing, cooperative team work and so on.
Teachers begin to take on important role in the child’s life
as they teach the child specific skills.
 It is at this stage that the child’s peer group will gain
greater significance and will become a major source of the
child’s self esteem. The child now feels the need to win
approval by demonstrating specific competencies that are
valued by society, and begin to develop a sense of pride in
their accomplishments.

If children are encouraged and reinforced for their initiative,

they begin to feel industrious and feel confident in their
ability to achieve goals. If this initiative is not encouraged,
if it is restricted by parents or teachers, then the child
begins to feel inferior, doubting his/her own abilities and
therefore may not reach his or her full potential.

The child uses social comparisons (e.g. compares

themselves to their peers) and if he/she cannot develop the
specific skill they feel society is demanding (e.g. excelling
academically) then they may develop a sense of inferiority.
Some failures are necessary so that the child can develop
modesty hence a balance between competence and
modesty is necessary. Success in this stage will lead to
virtue of competence.

The psychosocial stages discussed so far are the ones relevant

for this course. However, Erikson discussed other stages which
are beyond the scope of this course and hence will not be
discussed in details at this point. Some of these stages will be
discussed in the subsequent courses in your degree
programme. These stages are:

v) Identity versus role confusion ( 12 to 20 years)

vi) Intimacy versus isolation (20 to 40 years)
vii) Generativity versus stagnation (40 to 65 years)

1.4 Factors influencing personality development

The following are among various factors that influence

personality development in early childhood.

i) The home environment

The home environment that children grow up in has some

impact on what type of personality characteristics they
develop. If families are high conflict and the children are
drawn into many arguments and disagreements, they are
much more likely to become withdrawn or have a
personality that is conflict driven as they grow older.

In addition if a family does not have any sort of structure

within the household, children will be much more impulsive
and may get into trouble more often than children who
come from structured households.

ii) School

School also has an important influence on the personality of

the child. In school both the teacher and peers mold the
child’s personality. The personality of the teacher and his
behaviour towards the child both exercise important
influence on the child’s personality. The child tends to
identify with the teacher and tries to imitate his/her ways,
manners and personality traits.

Besides the teacher, the classmates and playmates

exercise important influence on the personality of the child.
These constitute a group in which every child has his/her
own particular status and roles (e.g. leaders and some are
scapegoats). The roles in the group determines future role
of the individual in a society.

iii) Culture

Culture refers to all the beliefs, customs, ideas, behaviours,

and tradition of a particular society that is passed through
generations. Within a culture there are certain norms and
behavioural expectations. These cultural norms can dictate
which traits are considered important to personality. These
traits may vary from culture to culture based on differing
values, needs and beliefs. For example, people who live in
collectivist cultures tend to value social harmony,
respectfulness and group needs over individual needs.

Gender norms (the behaviours that males and females are

expected to conform to in a given society) can also
emphasize different traits between different genders,
influencing the development of personality. For example, in
most African communities males are expected to be
aggressive and assertive while women are expected to be
submissive.

iv) Traumatic experiences

Traumatic childhood experiences such as physical, sexual or

emotional abuse and neglect are risk factors that increase
the likelihood of personality disorders such as feelings of
insecurity, sense of hopelessness, instability and so on.

Other adverse experiences in childhood which may

heightened children’s risk for developing features of
personality disorder include death of a parent in a formative
stage or divorce of parents, harsh and controlling parenting
style, exposure to assaultive bullying among others.

v) Genetic factors
Despite the environment playing a role in personality traits,
there are still some genetic influences that play a role in the
development of personality traits. Genetic similarities
between the family and child can lead to children having a
temperament and attitude that is similar to their parents.
For example, outgoing parents can have children who are
more willing to take risks as they continue to grow older.
Topic In this topic you have examined the psychoanalytic theories of
Summary
personality development, particularly Freud[s psychosexual
stages of development and Erikson’s psychosocial stages of
development. While Freud focuses on libido (sexual urges) as
the drivers of personality development through the four stages
of personality development, Erikson’s focuses on the influences
of environmental factors such as parents, teachers, schools,
peers and so on as the forces that drive personality
development in his 8 stages of psychosocial development. In
this topic you have also examined genetic and environmental
factors that influence personality development in early
childhood. In the next topic you will examine the role of family
in influencing various aspects of development during early
childhood.
Glossary 1. Id – this is the behavior of personality that only seeks
immediate gratification. For example when an infant cries
he/she demand to be fed immediately.

2. Ego – this is the part of the mind that mediate between

the conscious and the unconscious, and it is responsible
for reality testing and sense of personal identity.

3. Super ego- is the moral part of the mind. It is the

internal representation of the traditional values and
ideals of the society. This is where the conscience
represents the ideal.

Further 1. Caspi, A. & Roberts, B.W. (2005). Personality

Reading development: Stability and change. Annual Review of
Psychology Vol. 56 Pg. 453-484.
http://academic.udayton.edu/jackbauer/Readings
%20595/Caspi%2005%20per%20dev%20copy.pdf

2. Papalia, D., Olds, S. & Feldman, R. (2008) Human

development. 9th Ed. McGrawhill Company

3. Triandis, H.C. & Suh, E.M. (2002). Cultural influences on

personality. Annual Review of Psychology Vol. 53 pg.
 133-160.
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1230873.files/Cu
lturalInfluences.pdf

Assignment

Identify and discuss activities you will advise parents in your community
to undertake to enhance positive personality development of their
children. (This assignment is to be done in your groups and
presented in class)