During this stage, the children are influenced by fantasies and have difficulty conceptualizing time. The third stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is the concrete operational stage. During this stage, the children learn to think abstractly and make rational judgments when they observe an experience. The children’s accommodation during this stage increases. The last stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is the formal operational stage which brings the children’s cognition in its final shape. The children during this stage already knew how to reason out deductively and capable of hypothetical reasoning (Piaget’s Cognitive Stages, 1990).
Erikson, a famous psychoanalyst stated eight stages of development. He believed that each of us forms our basic belief about ourselves and how we associate with others socially. These basic beliefs formed will eventually control us on how we make our choice as we associate or form relationship with others. Erikson described each of the eight stages of development as a choice between two opposing beliefs. He believed that child’s ego subsists from birth and that his behavior is not totally self-protective. Erikson believed that the interaction of the body, mind and cultural influences determine the way of development.
Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget are two of the famous theorists who focused their interest in children and the stages of their development. Both of them searched to explain the cognitive and psychosocial development of children. Both Piaget and Erikson have a significant impact in psychology. Piaget concluded that children “construct” knowledge by exploring the world by making and testing assumptions. Erikson developed a comprehensive model of development of children’s social capacities.