Based on Freud’s Personality theory:

id is the part of the personality structure that contains the basic drives. The id acts according to the "pleasure principle", seeking to avoid pain

ego it seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bringing grief

super-ego is the moral ‘conscious’ which includes the individual's ego ideals and spiritual goals that criticizes and prohibits fantasies, feelings, and actions.

Loevinger used sentence completion paradigm where subjects had to complete sentences like -

My main problem is ...Being with other people ...The thing I like about myself is...

Stage 1: Infancy

• pre-social stage

• baby has a very id-like ego (focused on gratifying immediate needs)

• very attached to the primary caregiver – mother

• understanding of this stage is more speculative because pre-verbal infants we cannot use sentence completions and instead must rely on observations

   

Stage 2: Impulsive Stage

Toddlers

ego continues to be focused on bodily feelings, basic impulses, and immediate needs

dependent and demanding

immersed in the moment and in their own needs to think or care much about others

experience the world in egocentric terms, in terms of how things are affecting me

     

Stage 3: Self-Protective Stage

early and middle childhoodexploitive, manipulative, hedonistic (self

indulgent), and opportunisticgoal is simply to “get what I want without getting

caught” blaming others when anything goes wrong individuals who remain in the stage into

adolescence and adulthood tend to get into trouble

research using Loevinger’s sentence completion test shows that a high proportion of juvenile delinquents and inmates score at this self-protective stage

 

Stage 4: Conformist Stage

around five or six – also common stage later in elementary school and in junior high school (however, a number of people remain at this stage throughout their lives)

view and evaluate themselves and others in terms of externals (how one looks, the music that you listen to, the words or slang that you use, the roles people assume to show what group they are in and their status within the group)

invested in belonging to and obtaining the approval of important groups (peers)

what is right and wrong is clear to them—namely, what their group thinks is right or wrong.

Stage 5: Self-Aware Stage

most common stage among adults

self-aware ego shows an increased awareness of deeper issues and the inner lives of themselves and others

“what do I think” - as opposed to what my parents and peers think about such issues as God and religion, morality, mortality, love and relationships

not at the point where they reach much resolution on these issues, but they are thinking about them

more aware that they and others have unique feelings

and motives, different from those that might be prescribed by the feeling rules they have learned from movies and books and other people     

Stage 6: Conscientious Stage

tendency towards self-evaluation and self-criticism continues

values responsibility, achievement and the pursuit of high ideals and long-term goals

Greater self-reflection experiencing the self and the world in more

complex waysexperiencing one’s own feelings and

expressing them in more personal terms  

the preceding three stages—the conformist, self-aware, and conscientious stages—are the most common for adults

there are fewer and fewer people at the stages we are about to examine

Loevinger suggested that we all have a hard time understanding stages that are more than one level above our own, so for many of us who are at the middle stages it can be hard to fully grasp the highest stages

Stage 7: Individualistic Stage

focus on relationships increasesrelationships tend to be more valued broad-

minded tolerance of and respect for the autonomy of both the self and others

heightened sense of individuality and self-understanding can lead to unique ways of expressing the self

awareness of inner conflicts  

Stage 8: Autonomous

increasing respect for one’s own and others’ autonomy

cherishes individuality and uniqueness and self-actualization

individuals’ unique and unexpected paths are a source of joy

relationships are appreciated as an interdependent system of mutual support

Stage 9: Integrated

ego shows wisdom, broad empathy towards oneself and others

capacity to reconcile a number or inner conflicts and make peace with those issues that will remain unsolvable and those experiences that will remain unattainable

integrated ego finally has a full sense of identity