Question

Talk about a particular incident from your own life that illustrates where you were in one of the stages discussed by Erikson, Piaget, or Kohlberg. In other words, you can talk about a moment you felt one of Erikson’s “crisis” decisions, a time you remember achieving one of Piaget’s tasks or stages, or a moral dilemma you experienced that illustrates where you were in Kohlberg’s theory. Make sure to describe the incident and how it relates back to the theory/reading, explaining specifically which stage this incident illustrates and why.

Answer 1

Kohlberg's theory: He gave the theory with 3 morality stages i.e conventional, pre-conventional and post conventional. As far as I remember an incident, it was an incident of the pre conventional stage. According to Kohlberg the child in this stage is controlled by external forces or authority figures with respect to morality. So, once I was with my parents visiting a monument. I was very attracted to a person's digital camera. I tried to steal it, in fact I did it already. So, my mom immediately noticed and scolded me and then explained me about that stealing is bad and you should never do that again. Hence, this moral learning came from an external figure of authority.

Piaget's theory: I will discuss the formal operational stage where children of 12 and above begin to think more abstractly , can solve complex problems, experience social and political changes in the environment. So, in my case, I had an incident with my shyness. I was a timid girl who could not do a home stay without my mom since I felt quite scared among other people, but slowly I realized I can connect and react with people, share my thoughts more independently and also developed deductive reasoning.

Erickson's theory: I will discuss the Identity vs role confusion stage. This is accounted by roles that the child has to play when he or she is in teenage. They experience identity crisis and can happen when some social expectations are not met. In school, I was quite jealous with my classmate, a girl who always came 1st in class and I could not cover the same distinction with good marks as hers. I was quite jealous and wanted to make my own name and identity that people should know me. Even my mother used her name to refer to my marks that actually made me feel very low and dishearten. With this I could not stand out in the crowd with my name as a separate identity and I used to have some bad moods when I did not talk to anyone at my home or class.