Over time, many psychologists have had their own take on different theories. Theories direct and guide our perception of thought. Similarities and differences can be broken down through different forms of development by Erik Erikson, Sigmund Freud and Albert Bandura. Sigmund Freud emphasized the influence of the id, believing that the ego only acts from borrowed energy and acts best as a commander. Sigmund Freud considered aggression to be a universal human behavior. According to Freud, we humans are unaware of its presence because we are repressed by the Superego. In Erikson's theory, he explains how the ego is the part of the mind that gives coherence to experiences, conscious or unconscious. Erikson agreed with Freud that the ego is responsible for human behavior and aggression. On the other hand, social learning theorist Albert Bandura suggests that behavior is learned through observation, either accidentally or intentionally. This article examines how Erikson's psychoanalytic Ego theory compares and contrasts with Bandura's social learning theory. Erik H. Erikson was born June 15, 1902, near Frankfurt, Germany. He never knew his mother's first husband or his biological father (Engler, 153). His mother then married a pediatrician, who adopted Erik and gave him his last name. Her parents hid the fact of her adoption from her for many years, which Erikson later called "romantic deception." Ironically, the man who was famous for the term “identity crisis” was experiencing a significant identity crisis himself during his childhood. Erikson struggled with both the quest for his psychological identity and that of his biological identity. The fact that Erikson was raised in a Jewish home, but his genetic background...... middle of paper ......n educator, Erikson was interested in how one could strengthen and enrich the ego of young children. On the other hand, looking at Bandura's perspective on the social learning theory of observational learning, he believed that human behavior is due to a mixture of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors that surround a person. Many psychologists agree with Bandura that behavior arises from the interactions of a person and the environment rather than from either factor alone (Engler, 235). This article concludes that the two theories of social motivation, ego and learning play an important role in infant development and that modeling and aggression are linked. Erik Erikson's theory focused on the social dimensions of Freud's ego theory, while Albert Bandura's theory focused on models that influence learning through their informative function..