Question

Once children reach the preschool stage (ages 3-6 years), they are capable of originating activities and asserting control over their world through social interactions and play. What is the primary developmental task of this stage?

1) autonomy vs. shame/doubt
2) generativity vs. stagnation
3) initiative vs. guilt
4) intimacy vs. isolation

Answer 1

The correct answer is: "initiative vs guilt"

The question is refered to Erickson's steps of psychosocial development. This theory appoints that each stage in life poses a challenge. Two opposing forces act over the person, who has to be able to resolve the trade-off, by adopting the positive force (initiative, in this case) and discarding the negative one (guilt), in order to sucessfully advance in the development of his/her psychosocial personality. The sucessful resolution of one step enables to arrive to the next step.

When the period 3-6 years old the second step should be over and this third step starts, initiative vs guilt, starts. At this point, children begin to acknowledge that they can exercise certain control over the world and start to test different possibilities through their social interactions, mainly games with peers.