Erikson, Piaget & Psychology Theories & Concepts Explained

The Sensorimotor Stage: How Babies Build Intelligence One Touch at a Time

An eight-month-old watches her mother slide a toy under a blanket. A month earlier, this would have ended the game entirely, out of sight meant gone for good. Instead, she reaches straight for the blanket and pulls it away. That shift in understanding sits at the center of the sensorimotor stage, the opening chapter of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development....

The Phallic Stage of Development: What Really Happens

Around age three, something shifts. The phallic stage of development is the third of Freud’s five psychosexual stages, and it’s where a young child’s curiosity about bodies collides with equally strong feelings about mom and dad. Freud believed this collision produces two of psychology’s most talked-about ideas: the Oedipus complex in boys and the Electra complex in girls. Neither is...

Freud’s Psychosexual Stages: What Each One Really Explains

Picture a coworker who rewrites your emails before sending them, or a friend who can’t sit through an awkward silence without cracking a joke. Sigmund Freud had an explanation for both, and it starts in early childhood. Freud’s psychosexual stages describe five phases of childhood development, each tied to a different part of the body, that Freud believed quietly shape...

Mesosystem Examples: The Bridges Connecting a Child’s World

A second grader is falling behind in reading. His teacher notices the struggle within the first two weeks of the semester and calls home that same afternoon. His parents already suspected something was off, and within days the three of them have a plan: consistent phonics practice at home using the same method the teacher uses in class, weekly check-ins,...

7 Exosystem Examples That Shape a Child’s World

A mother gets passed over for a promotion. A school board votes to cut the art program. A neighborhood loses its only after-school center. None of these events happen anywhere near a child, yet each one changes that child’s day-to-day life. These are exosystem examples, and they reveal something most people miss about development: a huge amount of what shapes...

How Good People Justify Bad Acts: Bandura’s Moral Disengagement Theory

Most people like to think they’d never quietly go along with cruelty. Yet history and everyday life keep showing the opposite. Psychologist Albert Bandura’s moral disengagement theory explains this uncomfortable pattern: how ordinary, otherwise decent people carry out or ignore harmful acts without feeling the guilt you’d expect. The theory doesn’t argue these people lack a conscience. It argues their...