Industry vs Inferiority

At around 6-11 years of age, also known as middle childhood, according to Erikson's Psychosocial stage of development, we enter his 4th stage known as Industry vs. Inferiority. If we are grown into a trusting environment in which we learn how to explore freely, we move away from this isolating inferiority when entering the stage for schooling. This speaks to how we socially adapt and interact with our new peers, and how we make an industry of friends. This stage tells us how our development allows for us to work with others, and when this is successful we have breached the appropriate industry side of the psychosocial stage. Yet, when negative influences of the atmosphere and those around us at home, or school, than we are forced to feel incompetence atmost this being the inferiority aspect of the stage.

As school age children, we seek peer acceptance and research shows that most of us fall into one of the four following categories: popular children, rejected children, controversial children, and neglected children.

• Popular children, are those children who are well liked, and get highly positive votes. But, there are two types of these popular children. The first is the popular-prosocial kind who is both socially and academically competent, and show cooperation, kindness, and sensitivity to peers. The other is popular-antisocial who enhance their popular status by aggressive behavior, and also defy authority to be seen as the "tough kid."
• Rejected children are those who are disliked, and receive many negative votes from peers, there are also two types of this category. One is the rejected-aggressive children who show high rates of conflict and aggression. Then the other type is rejected-withdrawn, who is more socially incompetent around peers.  
• Controversial children are those who receive both negative and positive votes by peers, being both liked and disliked. They often appear disruptive, but will also engage in positive behavior.
• Neglected Children are not really mentioned a lot, and they engage in minimum rates of interaction. They tend to prefer to be on their own, yet can withdraw from that pattern whenever they choose.

Learning about peer acceptance and the different categories, I most consider middle school and the different attitudes we held as developing pre-teens, and I can think of someone for each category above.  I remember this really nice girl, who got along with everyone, was very pretty, and she would fall into the popular-prosocial type. And then, there was another kid who was very aggressive yet gained his popularity for being able to come up with the best disses for those who were less popular, and he would be considered popular-antisocial. Although many of us feared him, we respected his "mucho" attitude in a sense, in which he gained popularity. In considering the rejected type, I could name a number of students in my grade who were either really aggressive or socially awkward, in which they received high ratings of being disliked all around. I myself would say that I fell into the controversial role, I understood the importance of doing my work and even being nice to others, but I often acted out sometimes when I was bored or seeking attention. What my teachers and parents later realized, was that I was more advanced in my work load and became bored with the "easy" teachings to my peers, so I benefitted more in gifted classes. I also remember a couple kids that would fit the neglected type, who seemed mysterious and kept to themselves, yet once in a while would step out of their shell and intrigue us. While these stages aren't exactly set in stone, they do speak volumes to the way we being to socially interact with peers and it shows how past experiences and home life contribute to our psychosocial growth into adulthood.