Emotional Development Term Paper

Emotional Development

Well-Rounded Emotional Development as the Key Towards Cultivating a Healthy Self- Esteem

In the study of psychology, Erik Erikson is one of the major proponents who helped develop the domain of socio-emotional development among humans. His studies generated the model of human socio-emotional development, where he proposed the Eight Stages of Development. These stages are enumerated as follows:

Trust vs. Mistrust

Autonomy vs. Shame

Initiative vs. Guilt

Industry vs. Inferiority

Identity vs. Identity Confusion

Intimacy vs. Isolation

Generativity vs. Self-Absorption

Integrity vs. Despair

These stages of socio-emotional development characterize the dichotomous nature that humans undergo during their socio-emotional development. The primary goal that these stages of development depict was that an individual undergoing socio-emotional development learns to reconcile these opposing natures of each stage. That is, as the individual grows older, s/he socio-emotionally develops in the normative pattern proposed by Erikson: an individual who has learned to trust, develop autonomy, developed initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity, and integrity.

This normative pattern to socio-emotional development is proposed in order to develop an emotionally healthy individual. Inherent in this well-rounded development is the cultivation of an individual with a healthy self-esteem.This paper discusses the influence of well-rounded socio-emotional development to the creation of self-esteem wherein emotional and cognitive development coincides properly together.

According to Branden (2000), self-esteem remains an important concept because "[m]an cannot exempt himself from the realm of values and value-judgments" (113). This being the state of an individual's social landscape, he then becomes susceptible to being influenced by people who considers it important to develop a healthy self-esteem. Self-esteem is influenced by two important factors: the individual's perception of himself/herself and people's perception of the individual. The fusion of these two factors creates the individual's self-esteem; a healthy self-esteem, then, is one that is borne out of a healthy development of the individual as perceived by the self and others.

What makes self-esteem important for the individual is that it gauges his/her will to understand (114). This means that an individual who has self-esteem is one who is willing to understand himself/herself and the experiences s/he encounter everyday in the society. The "will to understand" is….....