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Julie (age 4) dresses herself in her favorite fairy dress and gathers her teddy bear and tea set. She then announces to her family that it is time for a tea party! By playing along with Julie’s play-acting, her family encourages her imagination and sense of self. In Erikson’s third stage, initiative versus guilt, the crisis is between feeling validated or feeling shame for making decisions.
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With the insistence of her mother, Julie (age 9) learns to play the piano, just like each of her siblings before her. Unbeknownst to her mother, Julie dreams of flying airplanes one day, and her lack of passion for the musical arts begins to show in her piano lessons. The crisis between pleasing her mother by becoming a pianist and disappointing her by pursuing her own dream is an example of Erikson’s fourth stage, industry versus inferiority stage.
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After flying cargo planes around the world for 20 years, Julie (age 49) decides to slow down a bit and commit to a life in one city for a while. Feeling suffocated by the lack of action, she decides to become a flight instructor at an aeronautical university. In Erikson’s seventh stage, generativity versus stagnation, Julie counters the threat of becoming stagnant by investing in the education of the next generation of pilots.