Erik Eriksen is a remarkable individual. He has no college degrees yet is Professor of Human Development at Harvard University. He came to psychology via art, which explains why the reader will find him painting contexts and backgrounds rather than stating dull facts and concepts. He has been a training psychoanalyst for many years as well as a perceptive observer of cultural and social settings and their effect on growing up. This is not just a book on childhood. It is a panorama of our society. Anxiety in young children, apathy in American Indians, confusion in veterans of war, and arrogance in young Nazis are scrutinized under the psychoanalytic magnifying glass. The material is well written and devoid of technical jargon. The theme of the volume is that it is human to have a long childhood which will leave a lifelong residue of emotional immaturity in man. Primitive groups and

Childhood and Society.

The constructs of reflective and defensive responses to rupture in knowing are proposed and evaluated as a discipline-independent theoretical foundation for the analytic educational framework of Threshold Concepts (TC). Two premises underlie this work: crucial elements of student experience of difficulty as they encounter existentially unfamiliar, educationally critical content of their respective disciplines occur in common across all disciplinary contexts; and these crucial elements constitute core issues defining the framework of Threshold Concepts. Universally relevant elements require investigation that transcends discipline boundaries in order to be understood well and addressed effectively. From the perspective of phenomenological analysis, student experiences of difficulty under these circumstances are considered to be founded in reflective and defensive responses to rupture in knowing, and to originate in universal human patterns of encounter and response to the existentially unfamiliar (what appears initially as the unknowable unknown), rather than to result from individual inadequacies or to differ in kind according to the context in which it occurs. A comparison of process and structure in the TC community with that of a classical scientific community of practice and research illuminates the process of generating candidate theoretical foundations in each.

Threshold Concepts and Transformational Learning

Environmental and other nonprofit activists often confront what Parker Palmer referred to as a loss of heart, particularly where working conditions challenge the capacity of practitioners to sustain their commitment. The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the process of learning and self-renewal in the lives of experienced and committed environmental activists. Findings suggest that their lives are characterized by struggles that represent a profound form of learning, involving recognition and understanding of one’s work as a calling or vocation as well as exemplifying the kind of transformative learning reflected in Jung’s concept of individuation.

"being called awake": the role of transformative learning in the lives of environmental activists

Erik Erikson's theory of human development posits 8 stages of life. This paper gives special attention to the adult stage of generativity vs. stagnation. A review of recent research provides new concepts that can be added to Erikson's chart of development in the form of 7 psychosocial conflicts that give breadth to the central crisis of generativity vs. stagnation. They are inclusivity vs. exclusivity, pride vs. embarrassment, responsibility vs. ambivalence, career productivity vs. inadequacy, parenthood vs. self-absorption, being needed vs. alienation, and honesty vs. denial. Each conflict is connected to one of Erikson's other stages of development. Given this framework, case studies of leaders could provide further knowledge about generativity as the intersection of society and the human life cycle.

Generativity versus stagnation: An elaboration of Erikson's adult stage of human development.

Like goodness, truth, and other human ideals, successful aging may appeal more than it illuminates. It is an image that attracts human interest but defies easy or consensual definition. As growing numbers of people anticipate a long old age, the meaning of successful aging takes on even greater importance. Formulations of the concept become standards by which individuals evaluate themselves and others, as well as visions toward which to strive. In attempting to advance understanding of how these years might be fully experienced, this article examines previous perspectives on successful aging and presents a new alternative. The aim is to illustrate how a developmental orientation adds new challenges and dimensions to the task of growing old successfully. Previous Approaches to Successful Aging Four dimensions of successful aging were proposed in the Kansas City Studies of Adult Life: the amount of activity in which the individual engaged, the ability to disengage, satisfaction with life, and maturity or integration of personality. Williams and Wirths (1965) later derived two additional views of successful aging: a balanced exchange of energy between the individual and the social system, and a stable social system. Of these various formulations, life satisfaction became the most frequently investigated dimension of successful aging. Life satisfaction included the components of zest versus apathy, resolution and fortitude, relationships between desired goals and achieved goals, self-concept, and mood tone (Neugarten, Havighurst, & Tobin, 1961). A vast body of gerontological research was generated by this early formulation, so much so that life satisfaction has been described as the most widely studied variable in the field of aging (Maddox & Wiley, 1976). The abundance of empirical work elaborated and differentiated the concept of life satisfaction far beyond its initial definition. Thus, in addition to the original dimensions, successful aging

Successful Aging: A Developmental Approach

This is Part One of a two-part article that describes a method to facilitate personal transformations in small groups. The Matrix Model forms the operational structure for the method. The roles of ...

Facilitating Personal Transformations in Small Groups: Part I

The validity and reliability of the Self-Description Questionnaire was tested using undergraduate and graduate students. The history and development of the instrument are reported. The validity was...

A Test of Erikson’s Theory of Ego-Stage Development by Means of a Self-Report Instrument

Basic Motivations of Adults in Non-Credit Programs

(1964). Analysis of the Ego-Stage Development of School-Age Children. The Journal of Experimental Education: Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 249-257.

Analysis of the ego-stage development of school-age children

Forty experimental dyads were composed for study designed to test a transactional theory which views interpersonal behavior as being communicated simultaneously on three channels. The term channel is employed here to specify a mode of communication. The dyads ranged from compatability to incompatibility through all possible combinations on the three channels. The dyads were identified from a battery of instruments administered to 200 sub jects. The general hypothesis was that there would be a linear relationship between intra-group compatibility and a set of five dependent variables. Each of the 40 dyads was scheduled for a half-hour discussion period in which the members worked together to solve a case study problem. Following the discussion session each member was given a set of post-meeting instruments to com plete. Results on three of the linear relationships were in the predicted direction.

Robert D. Boyd

Papers

Facilitating Personal Transformations in Small Groups: Part I

A Test of Erikson’s Theory of Ego-Stage Development by Means of a Self-Report Instrument

Basic Motivations of Adults in Non-Credit Programs

Analysis of the ego-stage development of school-age children

Three Channel Theory of Communication in Small Groups.