Erickson’s Eight Stages of Development as Applied to Advertising

Erickson’s Eight Stages of Development as Applied to Advertising

Karen Bingaman

American Intercontinental University

Aspects of Psychology/SSC1206/Unit 5 Individual Project

Erickson’s stages of psychosocial development can be utilized when trying to ascertain the thoughts, feelings, and attitudes of individuals in every stage of life. These stages can be especially helpful in determining how to advertise to a certain demographic. In this paper, each stage will be described with an example attached to each description for illustrative purposes. These descriptions and examples will aid in the process of determining how to advertise the upcoming theme park and what age range would be best targeted for the advertising campaign.

Erickson’s 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development are as follows as stated by (Keough, n.d.);

Stage 1: Infancy -- Age 0 to 1 Crisis: Trust vs. Mistrust

As stated by (Keough, n.d.), in the first year of development, babies need to depend solely on others for all of their care. Since they can’t provide for themselves, all of their needs must be met by their parents or caregivers and this is when trust begins to form in an individual. If all of the child’s needs are met with minimal to no “prompting” from the child; they will then form a relationship of trust with their caregivers. This attachment will also help them to trust their environments and others as they grow as well. If these needs are not met, the child will learn to be untrusting of their parents, others, and sometimes even themselves. A well-known example of infants building trust would have been seen in Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen when they first appeared on the cast of the show “Full House”. It was easy to see that the babies were happy and healthy and this meant that all of their needs were consistently being met. Infants solve conflict by crying to have their needs met. On the other side of the spectrum, an example of a baby that wasn’t properly cared for would be my niece Alyssa. At the age of 6 she is still only developed in the sense of survival skills she can’t form interpersonal relationships due to the fact that she trusts no one.

Stage 2: Toddler -- Age 1 to 2 Crisis: Autonomy (Independence) vs. Doubt (or Shame)

As it was described by (Keough, n.d.), at this point in the development process, a child is learning to control their own actions and gain personal confidence. If a child is encouraged through this process when they make mistakes and guided to learning the accepted way of doing things, they will develop a sense of confidence in themselves at later stages in life. If a