Erik Erikson was a developmental psychologist. His birthday was June 14, 1902.

To commemorate it, we are having a tournament!

One of Erikson's chief contributions to the field is describing stages of psychosocial development. He described eight stages of psychosocial development a human confronts from infancy to adulthood. Each of these stages is centered around a crisis. For infants, for instance, the crisis is "trust vs. mistrust". Can an infant learn to trust the world, or will they instead learn that the world is unsafe, unnurturing, and unpredictable, and learn to mistrust it?

The 8 crises are:

Trust vs. Mistrust

Autonomy vs. Shame

Initiative vs. Guilt

Industry vs. Inferiority

Identity vs. Role Confusion

Intimacy vs Isolation

Generativity vs. Stagnation

and

Ego Integrity vs Despair

Which way these crises resolve is variable and depends on the individual and the situation. Sometimes trust wins out; sometimes mistrust.

But let's ask the important questions...

What would win in a fight?*

To figure it out, we are having a tournament, wherefor what you think would win in these existential matchups. The tournament is going to be running all week, with a new round each day, until the winner is crowned on Friday.

Then, we will know what is the ultimate existential outcome for the human psyche.

Details of the fight, such as battleground, weapons, and criteria for victory and defeat are left as a exercise for the reader.