2.

The 5th stage of Erikson’s life stage theory suggest that there are distinct
tensions during the adolescent stage of development. Describe what these
tensions are. How did these tensions affect your own identity development as a
teenager?

The fifth stage of Erikson's life stage theory is identity versus role confusion. Tensions for an
adolescent can be knowing him/herself, what s/he is going to do with his/her life, fitting in groups
and experiencing things. Knowing him/herself is important to an adolescent because if he or she
knows him/herself, his/her abilities, he or she can shape his/her life according to the attributes and
abilities that s/he has. Adolescents try experiencing things such as fitting into social groups,
experiencing things to know about themselves and potential of their personality even if they have to
take risks. As a result to these tensions, these experiences may result in change in behavior,
personality and look of an adolescent. In addition, these experiences continue to happen until the
adolescent get over this identity and role confusion.

In my adolescence years, I was trying to know myself by listening to my family's and my friends'
thoughts about me. Everything about a person is not visible and observable from inside as well as
outside. The people around me observed and made comments on my identity. Sometimes these
comments were not reflecting the truth and sometimes they were. Those reflecting the truth were
highly useful to become aware of myself, my identity and my role in the society. By this way I
began to know myself. Those not reflecting the truth caused confusion such as me not being careful
in my relationships. I thought and still think that people who are close to you wants you to be
perfect with no mistakes. I think this was the reason of the false comments. This became a tension
in my relationships and I became obsessed with my relationships and tried to be caring and over
sensitive as a result of this tension. At some point it started egocentric thoughts. I began to think
that people were judging me by looking at how I am good at my relationships. This also affected my
attitude towards people and relationships including social groups. Due to the fact that I was trying
to keep good relationships with people in my social group even if they are not the type of friend I
wanted; comments, such as don't be friends with these particular people, came from my family
especially from my father who observed this relationship and conclude that I should not be friends
with these particular people.