ABSTRACT
Jean Piaget (1896–1980) was an influential researcher in the field of developmental psychology. He believed that what distinguished human beings from other animal species was ‘abstract symbolic reasoning’. He was part of a group of writers whose literature formed the basis of the constructivist theory of learning and instruction. He noticed that younger children thought differently from older children.
Erik Erikson (1902–1994) was a developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst who believed that personality develops in a series of stages of psychosocial development, the experience of social experience over the whole life span. One of the main elements of Erikson’s psychosocial stage theory is the development of ego identity. Ego identity is the conscious sense of self that we develop through social interaction. Erikson suggests that our ego identity is constantly changing due to new experiences and information we acquire in our daily interactions with others, with each new experience developing or hindering the development. This will continue throughout life.
