Erikson, Piaget & Psychology Theories & Concepts Explained

Theory of Mind Development: Why Kids Fail Sally-Anne at 3

A three-year-old watches a puppet hide a marble, then confidently predicts the puppet will search wherever the marble really is. Two years later, the same child gets it right and may even laugh at the puppet’s mistake. That leap is the heart of theory of mind development, and psychologists have spent decades mapping what changes in between. The path runs...

ABC Model of Attitude: Why Feelings, Actions and Beliefs Clash

You know exercise is good for you. You even like how it feels afterward. Yet your running shoes have been sitting by the door since March. The ABC model of attitude explains this kind of mismatch: it treats every attitude as three separate parts instead of one single opinion, and those parts do not always point the same way. That...

Social Norms in Psychology: The Unwritten Rules Running Your Day

You step into a crowded elevator and, without a word, everyone turns to face the doors. Nobody announced a rule. Nobody is checking. Yet you comply, and facing the back would feel strangely exposed. That quiet pressure sits at the heart of social norms in psychology: shared expectations that steer behavior without any written rulebook. Norms do far more than...

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory in Adolescence: Why Same-Age Teens Differ

Picture two 16-year-olds in the same city. Same grade, similar marks, similar talents. One is certain she will be a doctor because that has always been the plan. The other changes his mind about who he is every few months, and his parents seem fine with it. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory in adolescence offers a way to explain that gap....

Moral Development in Adolescence: Why Some Teens Only Conform

A history test is circulating in the group chat, and nearly everyone in class has the answers. One student refuses to look. Another shares them because everyone else is doing it. A third copies only after the teacher steps out of the room. Same situation, three very different moral responses. Moral development in adolescence helps explain why teens facing the...

Integrity vs Despair: Why Some Age in Peace and Others Don’t

A 78-year-old man opens a shoebox of old photographs. One picture makes him smile. The next one, taken the year his first marriage ended, makes him go quiet for a long time. Erik Erikson believed moments like this sit at the heart of integrity vs despair, the last of his eight psychosocial stages. What happens next depends less on how...