Perception, Knowledge, and Action in Infancy

(Under Cognitive Development)

Cognitive development in infancy focuses on how infants perceive their

environment, how they gain knowledge, and how they begin to act on
the world around them. This chapter explores the foundation of
perception, the growth of knowledge, and the development of motor
actions that allow infants to interact with their surroundings.

1. Perception in Infancy

Perception is the process of receiving, interpreting, and responding to

sensory information. Infants have basic perceptual abilities at birth
which improve over time:

• Visual Perception: At birth, vision is blurry, but by 2–3 months,

infants can track objects, recognize faces, and perceive depth.
• Auditory Perception: Infants can hear from birth and show
preference for familiar sounds like their mother’s voice.
• Touch, Taste, and Smell: These senses are well-developed in
newborns. They prefer sweet tastes and respond to touch with
reflexes.
• Intermodal Perception: The ability to combine information from
different senses (e.g., hearing and sight) begins to develop around
3–4 months.

2. Knowledge Development in Infancy

Infants begin building knowledge through experiences. Two major

theorists contribute to our understanding:

• Jean Piaget (Sensorimotor Stage):

 o Infants (0–2 years) learn through sensory experiences and
motor activities.
o Key concept: Object permanence – understanding that
objects continue to exist even when not seen (around 8
months).
• Core Knowledge Theories:
o Infants are born with innate knowledge systems in areas like
language, number sense, and physical objects.
o This challenges Piaget’s view of a blank slate, suggesting
infants have more built-in understanding than previously
thought.

3. Action in Infancy

Actions are how infants physically interact with the world, and they play
a critical role in cognitive development:

• Motor Skills:
o Gross motor skills (e.g., crawling, walking) develop first.
o Fine motor skills (e.g., grasping) develop later.
• Action as Exploration:
o Infants learn about objects by touching, mouthing, and
manipulating them.
o Motor actions lead to learning – e.g., dropping a toy teaches
about gravity.
• Perception-Action Loop:
o As perception improves, infants act more purposefully.
o As they act, they gather more information to refine their
perceptions.

Conclusion
The interplay between perception, knowledge, and action is essential in
early cognitive development. Infants are active learners who explore
their world through their senses and actions, gradually constructing a
more complete understanding of their environment.

Visual Perception from Birth to Six Months

(Under Cognitive Development in Infancy)

Visual perception refers to how infants receive and interpret visual

information from their environment. In the first six months of life, visual
perception develops rapidly and plays a key role in understanding the
world, forming attachments, and learning through observation.

1. At Birth (0–1 Month)

• Vision is blurry; infants can see only 8–10 inches away (about
the distance to a caregiver’s face).
• Black-and-white vision is stronger than color perception.
• Infants are attracted to high-contrast patterns, such as
checkerboards or human faces.
• Their eye muscles are weak, so they have poor control over eye
movements.

2. One to Two Months

• Begin to track moving objects slowly with their eyes.

• Can start to fixate on caregiver’s face or familiar objects.
• Color vision starts to improve, especially red and green.

3. Two to Three Months

 • Depth perception begins to develop as infants start to perceive
distance.
• Show preference for complex patterns and symmetrical shapes.
• Begin to smile in response to visual stimuli (social smiling).
• Improved coordination between eye and head movements.

4. Four to Five Months

• Binocular vision becomes more refined (using both eyes

together).
• Infants recognize familiar faces and objects from different angles.
• Visual tracking of fast-moving objects improves.
• Can reach accurately for objects they see (hand-eye coordination
begins forming).

5. Six Months

• Vision becomes nearly adult-like in clarity and focus.

• Can see across a room, though not as sharply as adults.
• Strong color vision and full depth perception.
• Infants show clear preference for familiar faces and react to
unfamiliar ones (stranger anxiety may begin).

Conclusion

From birth to six months, infants go through major changes in visual

perception. They move from blurry vision and basic light sensitivity to
being able to track, recognize, and respond to people and objects. These
developments support learning, bonding, and the foundation for future
cognitive and motor skills.
Topic 1: Infants' Perception of People

Infants are biologically prepared to perceive and respond to people from

the moment they are born. This ability is crucial for developing social
interaction, attachment, and emotional regulation.

1. Preference for Human Faces

• Newborns show a strong preference for face-like stimuli over

other shapes.
• Within the first few days, they can differentiate between their
mother’s face and others.
• Infants prefer moving facial features like blinking eyes or smiling
mouths.

2. Recognition of Voices

• From birth, infants recognize and prefer the mother’s voice,

especially because they have heard it in the womb.
• By one month, they can distinguish between different speakers.

3. Early Social Interaction

• Around 6–8 weeks, infants show social smiles in response to

human faces and voices.
• Eye contact and mutual gaze strengthen the infant’s bond with
caregivers.

4. Perceiving Emotions

• By 3–4 months, infants can identify basic emotions such as

happiness and anger in facial expressions.
• Around 6 months, they begin showing stranger anxiety,
indicating they can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar
people.

5. Imitation
 • Infants as young as a few weeks old may imitate facial gestures
such as sticking out their tongue.
• This reflects early understanding and connection with others.

Topic 2: Infants' Knowledge of the World

Infants start life with some basic understanding of the world, which
grows through sensory exploration, motor actions, and observation.
Their cognitive abilities develop rapidly within the first year.

1. Sensorimotor Learning (Piaget)

• Infants (0–2 years) are in the sensorimotor stage, where they learn
by using their senses and motor skills.
• They explore the world by touching, looking, hearing, and
moving.

2. Object Permanence

• By 8–9 months, infants understand that objects continue to exist

even when out of sight.
• This shows that memory and internal representations are
developing.

3. Cause-and-Effect Knowledge

• Infants begin to understand causal relationships, such as pressing

a button to produce a sound.
• This supports problem-solving and goal-directed behavior.

4. Categorization

• Even by 3–4 months, infants can group objects based on shape,

size, or color.
• This ability reflects early conceptual understanding.
5. Core Knowledge

• Some theories suggest that infants are born with basic knowledge
systems, such as:
o Physical knowledge (e.g., gravity, object support)
o Numerical understanding (e.g., recognizing quantity
differences)
o Biological and social awareness

Conclusion

Infants are not passive beings but active learners. They can perceive
people around them and build knowledge about their environment
through constant interaction. These early abilities form the foundation
for future cognitive, social, and emotional development.

The Drawbridge Study (Object Permanence)

The Drawbridge Study is a famous experiment by Renée Baillargeon

(1987) that challenged Piaget’s theory about when infants develop object
permanence.

🔍 Purpose of the Study

To test whether young infants understand that objects continue to

exist even when they are out of sight — a concept known as object
permanence.

🧪 Method

• A screen (like a drawbridge) rotated back and forth in front of the

infant.
• In the impossible event, a box was placed behind the screen, but
the screen continued rotating as if the box had disappeared.
 • In the possible event, the screen stopped when it touched the box
— consistent with reality.

🧠 Findings

• Infants (as young as 3.5 months) looked longer at the impossible

event.
• This shows they were surprised that the screen moved through the
space where the box should have been.
• Suggests that infants do understand object permanence much
earlier than Piaget thought.

✅ Conclusion

The drawbridge study showed that even young infants mentally

represent hidden objects, which means they have basic physical
knowledge of the world at an early age.

2. Infants Discriminate Different Numbers of Items (Numerical

Knowledge)

Infants also show signs of early numerical awareness, even before they
learn to count or speak.

🔢 Numerical Discrimination in Infancy

• Studies show that infants can discriminate between sets of

different numbers of items (e.g., 2 vs. 3 or 1 vs. 2).
• This is observed through looking-time experiments — infants
look longer at surprising numerical changes.

🧪 Example Study

• Infants were shown puppets appearing and disappearing behind

a screen (e.g., 1 + 1 = 2 puppets).
 • When the screen was lifted and the number was incorrect (e.g., 1
instead of 2), infants looked longer.
• This suggests they expected a correct outcome, indicating basic
addition or quantity awareness.

📈 Limitations

• Infants are better at distinguishing larger differences (e.g., 1 vs. 3)

than smaller ones (e.g., 3 vs. 4).
• Their ability depends on the ratio between the numbers, not just
the count.

✅ Conclusion

Infants are born with a core knowledge of numbers. They can perceive
and compare quantities, which forms the foundation for later
mathematical understanding.

Chapter 6: Emotional Development and Attachment Relationships

Topic: Emotional Development

Emotional development in infancy and childhood refers to the process

by which children begin to experience, express, and manage emotions. It
also includes the development of emotional communication, regulation,
and understanding of others’ emotions.

1. Basic Emotions (First Year)

Infants are born with the capacity to express basic or primary

emotions, which are universal and appear early:

• At birth: Distress, contentment

• By 6 weeks: Social smiling
• By 3–4 months: Laughter, interest
 • By 6–8 months: Anger, sadness, fear (especially stranger anxiety)

These emotions are closely tied to the infant’s survival and

communication with caregivers.

2. Development of Self-Conscious Emotions (After 1 Year)

As infants grow, they develop self-awareness, which leads to more

complex emotions:

• Around 18–24 months: Embarrassment, shame, pride, guilt,

jealousy
• These are called self-conscious emotions because they require an
understanding of the self in relation to others.

3. Emotional Regulation

Emotional regulation is the ability to control and manage emotional

reactions. It begins to develop gradually:

• In infancy: Babies rely on caregivers to soothe and calm them

(e.g., rocking, feeding).
• In toddlerhood: Children start using self-soothing behaviors
(e.g., thumb-sucking, walking away).
• By age 3–5: They begin using language (“I’m sad”) and coping
strategies (deep breathing, distraction).

Parental support is crucial for teaching healthy regulation strategies.

4. Role of Temperament
Each child has a unique temperament — their natural emotional
reactivity and behavior style (e.g., calm, easily upset, sociable, shy).

• Temperament influences how children express and manage

emotions.
• Easy, difficult, and slow-to-warm-up are common temperament
types (Thomas & Chess).

5. Social Referencing

From about 8–10 months, infants engage in social referencing — they

look to caregivers for emotional cues when unsure (e.g., a baby checks
the mother’s face before approaching a stranger).

This shows early understanding of others’ emotions and helps guide

behavior.

6. Cultural and Environmental Influences

• Culture affects how emotions are expressed and valued.

• Parenting styles, family environment, and peer relationships also
impact emotional development.

✅ Conclusion

Emotional development is a critical part of early childhood. It allows

children to understand themselves, connect with others, and handle
life’s challenges. Healthy emotional development lays the foundation
for mental health, social skills, and resilience in later life.
Emotion Understanding

Emotion understanding refers to a child's ability to recognize,

interpret, and predict emotions in themselves and others. This is a key
part of social and cognitive development.

🌟 Developmental Stages:

✅ Infancy (0–1 year):

• Infants respond to facial expressions (e.g., smile when someone

smiles).
• Begin social referencing at 8–10 months: looking at caregivers’
emotions to decide how to react.

✅ Toddlerhood (1–3 years):

• Recognize basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, scared).

• Begin to name emotions in themselves and others (“I’m sad,”
“Mama angry”).

✅ Preschool Age (3–5 years):

• Understand that emotions can be caused by internal or external

events.
• Realize people can feel differently about the same situation.
• Start to understand emotion regulation strategies.

✅ School Age and Beyond:

• Understand mixed emotions (e.g., happy and sad at the same

time).
• Can infer emotions from context (e.g., a friend losing a toy =
sadness).
• Begin to understand emotional display rules (e.g., hiding feelings
in public).
🎯 Importance:

• Supports empathy, moral development, and social relationships.

• Children with better emotion understanding have fewer
behavioral problems.

2. Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation is the ability to monitor, evaluate, and modify

emotional reactions in socially acceptable ways. It helps children
manage feelings like anger, fear, or excitement.

🧠 Developmental Stages:

✅ Infancy:

• Infants rely on caregivers (external regulation) — e.g., being held

or rocked to calm down.
• May use simple self-soothing behaviors (thumb sucking, looking
away).

✅ Toddlerhood:

• Start to develop self-regulation (e.g., covering eyes when scared,

asking for help).
• Begin using language to express emotions (“I don’t like this!”).

✅ Preschool Age:

• Learn cognitive strategies (e.g., thinking of something else, deep

breathing).
• Understand delayed gratification (e.g., waiting their turn, not
throwing tantrums).

✅ School Age:
 • More flexible use of strategies.
• Can suppress or hide emotions in social situations (following
display rules).

🛠️ Factors Influencing Emotion Regulation:

• Parenting style (supportive vs. harsh)

• Temperament (some children are naturally more reactive)
• Attachment security
• Cultural expectations

🎯 Importance:

• Linked with academic success, social skills, and mental health.

• Poor emotion regulation may lead to aggression, anxiety, or
withdrawal.

✅ Conclusion

Both emotion understanding and regulation are essential for healthy

emotional and social development. They help children navigate
relationships, express feelings properly, and cope with stress, forming
a strong foundation for life.

Attachment Relationships & Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment

🧠 Definition of Attachment

Attachment is the emotional bond that forms between an infant and

their caregiver, which provides the child with a sense of security and
comfort.

�� �Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment

John Bowlby, a British psychologist, developed the most influential
theory of attachment. He believed that attachment is biologically
programmed — children are born with a tendency to form attachments
to help survival.

🔑 Key Concepts of Bowlby’s Theory:

1. Attachment is innate

• Just like sucking or crying, babies are genetically programmed to

form attachments.
• This helps them stay close to caregivers, increasing the chance of
survival.

2. Monotropy

• Bowlby said infants form one special bond, usually with the
mother (called monotropy).
• This primary attachment is more important than any others.

3. Internal Working Model

• Early attachment experiences form a mental template (internal

working model) for future relationships.
• A secure attachment leads to trusting relationships, while an
insecure one may cause emotional or social difficulties.

4. Critical Period

• Bowlby believed there is a critical period (birth to 2.5 years) for

forming attachments.
• If a child does not form an attachment during this time, it may lead
to long-term emotional problems.

5. Separation and Loss

 • Bowlby warned about the dangers of maternal deprivation (loss
or long separation from the mother).
• This could lead to emotional and behavioral problems like
affectionless psychopathy or delinquency.

2. Different Types of Attachment (Ainsworth's Strange Situation)

Mary Ainsworth, a student of Bowlby, developed the Strange

Situation experiment to observe how infants behave when separated and
reunited with their caregiver.

🧪 Procedure:

• In a lab setting, infants (aged 12–18 months) are observed during:

o Separation from caregiver
o Interaction with a stranger
o Reunion with caregiver

📊 Attachment Types Identified:

1. Secure Attachment (Type B)

• Child uses caregiver as a secure base to explore.

• Shows distress when caregiver leaves but is easily comforted
when they return.
• Caregiver is responsive and sensitive.

✅ Outcome: Positive self-esteem, healthy relationships.

2. Insecure-Avoidant Attachment (Type A)

 • Child is independent, shows little distress when caregiver leaves,
and avoids them on return.
• Caregiver is often emotionally unavailable or unresponsive.

❌ Outcome: May struggle with intimacy and express emotions less.

3. Insecure-Resistant / Ambivalent Attachment (Type C)

• Child is very clingy, shows intense distress on separation, but

resists comfort on return.
• Caregiver is inconsistent in meeting the child’s needs.

❌ Outcome: Emotional insecurity, clinginess, anxiety in relationships.

(Optional) 4. Disorganized Attachment (Type D)

• Added later by other researchers.

• Child shows confused or contradictory behavior — e.g.,
approaching caregiver but then freezing.
• Often seen in abused or neglected children.

⚠️ Outcome: Risk of serious emotional or behavioral problems.

✅ Conclusion

Attachment relationships play a vital role in emotional and social

development. Bowlby emphasized the importance of a secure base,
while Ainsworth identified different attachment styles based on
caregiver behavior. These early bonds deeply influence future mental
health and interpersonal relationships.
Chapter 7 – Early Social Interaction with People and Objects

This chapter explores how infants begin to socially engage with people
and objects around them. These early interactions are foundational for
cognitive, emotional, and social development.

🌟 1. First Encounters with Others

• From birth, infants are socially oriented and respond to faces,

voices, and touch.
• Newborns prefer human faces and can imitate facial expressions
(e.g., tongue out).
• By 6 weeks, infants show social smiles in response to human
interaction — an early sign of bonding.
• These first encounters often happen through feeding, cuddling,
and eye contact with caregivers.
• These early exchanges lay the foundation for attachment,
communication, and emotional understanding.

🧠 2. Scaffolding (Bruner’s Concept)

• Scaffolding refers to the support provided by caregivers or

adults to help a child learn a new task or skill.
• Coined by Jerome Bruner, inspired by Vygotsky’s theory of the
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
• The adult adjusts their level of help based on the child’s needs and
abilities.

🔹 Example:

• A parent helping a child stack blocks may guide their hands at

first, then slowly reduce help as the child learns.
🎯 Importance:

• Encourages learning through interaction.

• Builds confidence, promotes language development, and
strengthens parent-child bonding.

�� �3. Dyadic Interaction

• A dyadic interaction is a two-person social exchange — typically

between infant and caregiver.
• Involves eye contact, turn-taking, facial expressions, and
vocalization.
• These interactions help infants learn the rhythm of conversation
(even before talking), such as "serve and return" communication.

🔹 Features:

• Responsive caregiving
• Emotional connection
• Mutual attention

🎯 Benefits:

• Fosters trust, language development, and emotional regulation.

💬 4. Intersubjectivity

• Intersubjectivity is the shared understanding between two

people in communication.
• It begins to emerge by 2–3 months, as infants become more
attuned to the caregiver's emotions and responses.
 • By 9 months, this becomes more complex, leading to joint
attention (when infant and adult focus on the same object or
activity).

🔹 Example:

• A baby looks at a toy, then at the caregiver to "share" the

experience.

🎯 Significance:

• Foundation for language acquisition, empathy, and social

cognition.
• Encourages cooperation and mutual emotional connection.

✅ Conclusion

Early social interactions, whether through first smiles or shared focus on

objects, are crucial for human development. Concepts like
scaffolding, dyadic interaction, and intersubjectivity show how babies
actively engage with their environment and learn through responsive,
shared experiences with others.

. Proto-Conversation

• Proto-conversation refers to the early, pre-verbal social

exchanges between infants and caregivers.
• It involves back-and-forth vocalizations, facial expressions, and
gestures, similar to a real conversation but without words.
• Begins in the first few months of life, where the infant and adult
take turns “talking” and “listening.”
• This interaction helps infants learn the rules of communication
like timing, turn-taking, and attention.
2. Infant-Directed Speech (IDS)

• Also known as “motherese” or “parentese.”

• IDS is a special way adults talk to babies characterized by:
o Higher pitch
o Slower tempo
o Exaggerated intonation and clearer pronunciation
o Simple, repetitive words and sentences
• Purpose:
o Captures infants’ attention
o Helps infants discriminate sounds and learn language
o Promotes emotional bonding

3. Adult-Infant Interaction

• Adult-infant interactions involve responsive communication,

where adults interpret and respond to infant cues such as cries,
gestures, and facial expressions.
• Includes activities like playing, talking, singing, and reading to
the infant.
• This interaction supports:
o Language acquisition
o Emotional development
o Social bonding
• Quality and sensitivity of adult responses influence the infant’s
social and cognitive outcomes.

4. The Magic Number THREE

• This concept refers to the typical pattern of turn-taking in early

conversations between adults and infants.
• Often, proto-conversations or early exchanges involve three parts:
 1. Adult vocalizes or gestures
2. Infant responds with a sound or gesture
3. Adult replies again, completing the “conversation cycle”
• This three-step rhythm helps infants learn conversational flow and
keeps their attention engaged.
• It also mirrors adult-adult conversation patterns, preparing infants
for later social communication.

✅ Summary

These early interaction patterns—proto-conversations, infant-directed

speech, adult responsiveness, and the “magic number three”—are
vital for building communication skills and social bonds from
infancy. They form the foundation for language, emotional connection,
and social understanding.

Premature Babies, Incubator, and Kangaroo Experience

• Premature babies are those born before 37 weeks of gestation and

often need special care to survive and develop properly.
• They are usually placed in an incubator, a controlled environment
that maintains temperature, humidity, and protects from infections.
• However, incubators limit physical contact with parents, which
can affect bonding and emotional development.
• To address this, the Kangaroo Care or Kangaroo Experience
was developed:
o It involves skin-to-skin contact where the baby is held
against the parent’s bare chest.
o Benefits include regulation of the baby’s temperature,
heart rate, and breathing, improved weight gain, and
stronger emotional bonding.
o It also supports breastfeeding and reduces stress for both
baby and parents.
2. Gestures to Communicate with Others

• Before infants develop language, they use gestures as a primary

means of communication.
• Common early gestures include:
o Pointing (to draw attention or indicate interest)
o Waving (hello or goodbye)
o Reaching (requesting an object)
o Showing or giving (sharing objects or attention)
• Gestures help infants express needs and desires and are an
important step in language development.
• Caregivers usually respond to these gestures, encouraging social
interaction and communication skills.

3. Permanence of Objects (Object Permanence)

• Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to

exist even when they are out of sight.
• This concept is a key milestone in cognitive development during
infancy, first studied by Jean Piaget.
• Typically develops around 8 to 12 months of age.
• Example: When a toy is hidden under a blanket, an infant with
object permanence will look for it, knowing it still exists.
• Mastery of object permanence shows the infant’s growing mental
representation ability and marks the beginning of goal-directed
behavior.

✅ Summary
 • Premature babies benefit greatly from incubators and kangaroo
care for survival and emotional development.
• Infants use gestures to communicate before language develops.
• Understanding object permanence is a crucial cognitive milestone
indicating that infants realize the world exists even without direct
sensory input.

The Development of Self and Gender

1. Existential Self

• The existential self is the most basic awareness of the self that
appears in infancy.
• It is the understanding that “I exist” as a separate entity in the
world.
• Infants realize they have a body and that they are distinct from
other people and objects around them.
• This foundational sense of self is crucial for all future development
of identity and self-concept.

2. Primary Circular Reactions

• Introduced by Jean Piaget as part of his sensorimotor stage of

development (birth to 2 years).
• Primary circular reactions occur approximately between 1 to 4
months of age.
• These are repetitive actions centered on the infant’s own body
that bring pleasure or interesting sensations.
• Examples include sucking their thumb or moving their fingers
repeatedly.
• These reactions help infants learn about their own body and
develop early motor skills and self-awareness.

Secondary Circular Reactions

 • Occur between 4 to 8 months of age in Piaget’s sensorimotor
stage.
• These are repetitive actions focused on the external
environment, not just the infant’s own body.
• Infants repeat actions that produce interesting effects on objects or
people.
• Example: Shaking a rattle to hear the sound repeatedly.
• This helps infants learn cause and effect and explore the world
beyond themselves.

3. Development of Self-Awareness

• The process by which infants begin to understand they are

separate individuals with their own body and mind.
• Typically develops around 18 to 24 months.
• Measured by the mirror self-recognition test: if a child touches a
mark on their face seen in the mirror, they recognize themselves.
• Self-awareness leads to use of personal pronouns ("I", "me") and
understanding of personal feelings and intentions.
• Crucial for emotional and social development.

4. Self-Esteem

• Refers to a person’s overall sense of self-worth or how much they

value themselves.
• Begins to form in early childhood as children start evaluating their
abilities and qualities.
• Positive experiences and supportive relationships boost self-
esteem.
• High self-esteem is linked to better motivation, social skills, and
mental health.
5. Self-Efficacy

• A concept developed by Albert Bandura.

• It is the belief in one’s own ability to succeed in specific tasks or
challenges.
• Self-efficacy influences motivation and persistence.
• For example, a child with high self-efficacy in learning to read will
try harder and keep practicing despite difficulties.
• It develops through successful experiences, encouragement, and
observing others.

✅ Summary

• Secondary circular reactions: Repeated actions with objects to

explore cause and effect.
• Self-awareness: Realizing oneself as a distinct individual, often
tested by mirror recognition.
• Self-esteem: Overall feeling of self-worth developing from
experiences.

Self-efficacy: Belief in one’s ability to perform tasks successfully,

affecting motivation. Alfred Adler’s View

• Alfred Adler was a pioneer in psychology who emphasized the role

of social factors and individual striving in personality
development.
• Key ideas:
o Humans are motivated by a need to overcome feelings of
inferiority and achieve personal superiority or success
(called the inferiority complex).
o Social interest (concern for others and community) is
important for healthy psychological development.
 o He believed personality is shaped by early childhood
experiences but also by conscious goals and choices.
o Focused on the importance of birth order and family
dynamics in development.

Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Man

Erikson proposed that psychosocial development occurs in eight stages

throughout the lifespan, each involving a crisis or conflict that must be
resolved for healthy development:

Outcome if Resolved
Stage Age Range Crisis / Conflict
Successfully

Infancy (0-1 • Feeling safe and trusting

1 • Trust vs. Mistrust
year) others

Early Childhood • Autonomy vs. • Developing independence

2
(1-3 years) Shame & Doubt and self-control

Preschool (3-6 • Taking initiative and

3 • Initiative vs. Guilt
years) leadership

School Age (6-12 • Industry vs. • Developing skills and

4
years) Inferiority competence

Adolescence (12- • Identity vs. Role • Developing a clear sense

5
18 years) Confusion of identity

Young
• Intimacy vs. • Forming loving
6 Adulthood (18-
Isolation relationships
40)

Middle • Contributing to society

7 Adulthood (40- • Generativity vs. and guiding next
65) Stagnation generation
 Outcome if Resolved
Stage Age Range Crisis / Conflict
Successfully

Late Adulthood • Ego Integrity vs. • Reflecting on life with

8
(65+) Despair satisfaction

• Each stage builds on the previous one. Failure to resolve conflicts

can lead to difficulties later in life, but development continues.

✅ Summary

• Alfred Adler: Emphasized overcoming inferiority and social

interest in personality.
• Erikson: Described eight psychosocial stages from infancy to old
age, each with a key conflict to resolve.