ABSTRACT
How Does Psychosocial Theory Answer the Basic Questions that a Theory of Human
Development Is Expected to Address?
Critique of Psychosocial Theory
Strengths
Weaknesses
Key Terms
Psychosocial theory seeks to explain changes in self-understanding, social relationships, and one’s relationship to society as a product of interactions among biological, psychological, and societal processes. Changes in one of the three systems (biological, psychological, or societal) generally bring about changes in the others. From the psychosocial perspective, development results from the continuous interaction of the individual and the social environment. At each period of life, people spend much of their time mastering a unique group of psychological tasks that are essential for social adaptation within their society. Each life stage brings a normative crisis, which can be viewed as a tension between one’s competencies and the new demands of society. People strive to reduce this tension by using a variety of familiar coping strategies and by learning new ones. A positive resolution of each crisis provides a new set of social abilities that enhances a person’s capacity to adapt successfully in the succeeding stages. A negative resolution of a crisis typically results in defensiveness, rigidity, or withdrawal, which decreases a person’s ability to adapt successfully in succeeding stages.
