Assumptions:

1. Being a consciously experienced sense of self, ego identity is derived from transactions with a person's reality.

2. People must strive to reach and to maintain a strong sense of ego identity.

3. The desire for competence is a motivating force behind people's actions.

4. Although a psychosocial crisis is a turning point with potential for growth, it leaves a person vulnerable. (In this sense "crisis" indicates a level of importance rather than a specific event.)

5. Conflict arises from the struggle between attaining some psychological quality versus failing to obtain it.

6. Conflict never ends; issues are simply re-confronted in different forms throughout a person's life.

7. People experience eight stages of psychosocial development, each stage focusing on a particular transaction with the social environment and some conflict and/or crisis to resolve.

8. Individuals must negotiate each stage by developing a balance between the characteristics that give the stage its name.

9. This theory rests on the principle of "epigenesis" which means the focal issue at any given stage exists in some form in every other stage.

10. For adequate human functioning, basic trust is necessary.

Motivation:

1. Successful management of a stage enhances a person's feelings of competence.

2. The goal of each stage is to reach a successful balance between the two extremes it presents with resolution closer to the positive side than the negative.

3. When people successfully emerge from a crisis, they have a positive orientation toward future events pertaining to that conflict.

4. Successfully emerging from a stage establishes ego quality, ego strength and virtue, all of which become permanently ingrained in the personality.