Erickson's Psychosocial Stages and Intimacy

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the eight psychosocial stages that humans develop through during their life span, according to psychologist Erik Erickson. It specifically focuses on how in some cultures, intimacy is emphasized more over isolation than others. It provides two examples of these variations - the autonomy expectations of individualistic versus collectivist cultures and degree of intimacy in friendship.

From the Paper:

"In the study (McAndrew & Rybak, 2006), there were also several interesting cross-cultural differences regarding the nine situations that participants rated for intimacy. However, at first the pattern of these differences was not readily understandable. Many of the situations presented to the participants differed in the relative frequency of occurrence in the two countries, causing individuals to evaluate the less commonplace occurrences as more intense since they were more unique. In this situation, researchers may speculate that Poles are less likely than Americans to transfer casual relationships, such as that of being in class with someone, into other contexts."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bell, S., & Coleman, S. (Eds.). (1999). The anthropology of friendship. Oxford: Berg.
• Bond, M. H. (1988). Finding universal dimensions of individual variation in multicultural studies of values: The Rokeach and Chinese value surveys. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 1009-1015.
• Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton.
• Greenberger, E.,& Chen, C. (1996). Perceived family relationships and depressed mood in early and late adolescence:A comparison of European and Asian Americans. Developmental Psychology, 32, 707-716.
• Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

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