The Peri-operational-Based Sub-stages: Peri-participatory Social Cognition

Abstract

This third chapter presents the actual stages of the present Neo-Eriksonian model, and their five sub-stages , which focuses on childhood. It includes two original Eriksonian stages – initiative vs. guilt and industry vs. inferiority – which are placed in the second and fourth sub-stage slots of the current model. The three new sub-stages added involve superordinate, identification, and personality/role acts (including tryouts), respectively. The identification sub-stage hearkens to the Freudian Oedipus/Electra situation/complex resolution. The role/personality tryout acts refer to the preteen’s exploratory activities toward teen and adult-like functions. Because childhood is involved, and the original Piagetian stages in this age period concern pre-operations and concrete operations, in the present model, the age period involved (childhood) is referred to as peri-operational. The corresponding Neo-Eriksonian stage is also referred to as a peri-one (peri-participatory). Erikson referred to the mutuality with the environment, and the present model acknowledges this but also refers to participation and relational co-regulation in the developing child. The child moves from a quasi-participation that corresponds to the preoperational stage to a fully participatory one, which corresponds to the concrete operational stage. The child grows through the cognitive egocentrism of the 2-year-old at the beginning of the stage into the capacity to take third-order perspectives of the other at the end of childhood. Despite these normative acquisitions, when the environment is not supportive, the child gravitates to the negative poles of the Neo-Eriksonian oppositions described. They include problematic identifications and personality/role tryout confusions.