Practically Significance of the Study

self and ego identity. Ego identity is the images that we have in our social roles. The changes in our body ego, ego ideal and ego identity may occur in any life stages. Although inborn capacities are important in personality development, ego is mostly formed by the society. Erikson‟s view that personality is influenced by the social and historical factors is contrast to Freud‟s beliefs that personality is mostly influenced by the biological factor. According to Erikson, humans have their ego since they were born, but to realize it, the society is needed. One of Erikson‟s contributions to the personality theory is the extension of Freud‟s development theory up to school age, youth, adulthood, and old age. Erikson believes that ego develops in each of the life stages according to the epigenetic principle. In epigenetic, the growth of the organs of a baby develops step by step. Similarly to this principle, ego also has its own stages and develops according to its time and each of the ego develop after the previous step is done. Erikson in Feist and Feist, 2008: 248 described the epigenetic principle by saying that “anything that grows has a ground plan, and that out of this ground plan the parts arise, each part having its time of special ascendancy, until all parts have arisen to form a functioning whole”. In addition, “epigenesist means that one characteristic overlaps one another in space and time” Evans in Feist and Feist, 2008: 248.

b. The stages of psychosocial development

There are eight psychosocial development stages according to Erikson; infancy, early childhood, play age, school age, adolescent, young adulthood, adulthood and old age. All of these stages follow the epigenetic principle, one stage occurs after another stage has been experienced. Each of the life stages has its own interaction of opposites called contrary disposition. It is a conflict between the syntonic harmony element and dystonic conflict element. As an example, in adolescence, people will experience identity versus role confusion. Identity is the syntonic element since it is a positive element, and role confusion could be considered as the dystonic element since it is the cause of the problem of this stage. Although both elements contradict each other, both are needed for a person to make himher able to develop in life. Identity could make a person stand firm in life and ease himher on pursuing life goals, since heshe knows who she is and her objectives to be born in this world. While role confusion is needed because it could make a person think deeply on hisher identity and the purpose in life. Trial and error in searching their identity is a normal and a positive matter in creating a better personality. In each stage, the conflict between the dystonic and syntonic elements results in the production of basic strength. As an example, the conflict between identity and role confusion leads to the emergence of fidelity. This occurs when a person experiences more syntonic element than dystonic element. On the contrary, too little basic strength will lead to the emergence of core pathology. A person