Question

A young woman passes through adolescence without developing a strong sense of personal identity. According to Erikson, what difficulty will she experience during young adulthood?

Answer 1

Answer: a. She will have problems with intimacy.

Explanation:

Erik Erikson was a psychologist who developed the Theory of Psychosocial Development which aimed to show how humans developed in life.

In the 5th stage known as Identity versus confusion, the human passes through adolescence. Here is where things are quite confusing as the person tries to navigate who they are with a lot of outside influence from family, friends or society in general bearing in on them. With all these influences, it is important that one develops a strong sense of personal identity for the next stage being young adulthood.

The Young Adulthood stage of life is the next stage and is known as the Intimacy versus isolation stage. At this stage, the major focus is forming intimate, loving relationships with people. A person who like the young woman in the question, fails to develop a strong sense of personal identity will find themselves having problems with developing intimacy with people as they will constantly doubt themselves and avoid people because of it leading to them having less committed relationships.