Psychological Growth and Development - Essay Example

Psychological Growth and Development The human brain is a complex organ. There are four lobes, each with a variety of different functions. It is the main control center for the body, with nerves and neurotransmitters that run between it and the other parts of the body. This constant communication continually shapes the brain. As long as the brain is functioning properly, a person never stops learning, remembering, or sensing things. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of some of the main topics that are of interest to psychologists today. These include: Learning, Memory, Personality, State of Consciousness, and Stress. One type of learning, classical conditioning, is a procedure in which a previously neutral stimulus is paired with one that elicits a response. Most of the research conducted using classical conditioning techniques describe the experimenter presenting a stimulus to a passive animal. Operant conditioning took the central themes of classical conditioning and expanded on them by studying behaviors of animals who were acting on their environments (performing operant behaviors). Edward Thorndike's law of effect for operant conditioning states: Behaviors that are followed by satisfying effects are much more likely to occur again, but behaviors that are followed by unsatisfying effects are much less likely to reoccur. Thus were born the concepts of positive and negative reinforcers. Positive reinforcers increase the likelihood of the desired response recurring. Negative reinforcers tend to elicit an increased response when they are removed. It is important to remember that both positive and negative reinforcers act to increase a particular behavior. The aspect of control is important here. Some studies have found that if an experimental subject does not have any control over its environment, and is unable to remove itself from the negative stimulus, a condition called learned helplessness will occur. In this state, a subject will have learned to be helpless so that in a new situation, even if it has the ability to control the situation, it will not even attempt to do so. The subject has attended to the stimulus and learned that nothing it can do will ever remove it. In this way, attention and memory are inextricably linked. One cannot remember something if one does not first attend to it. The two main types of conscious memory encoding are termed short-term and long-term memory. Short-term memory allows us to temporarily store the very small amount of information that we are currently using. It helps us to selectively attend to the information that is most important to us at the moment, so that our brains will not be overloaded with a lot of extraneous information. Long-term memory is our link to the past. It is a permanent storehouse of all the information we have accumulated about our world. The organization of the data determines how easily this information will be recalled at a later date, and this could be the reason behind the phenomenon of eidetic memory (or photographic memory). People with this ability can recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with great accuracy and in seemingly unlimited volume. It has been shown that anyone's memory can improve either with time or practice, and this is important because these are the details that help make us who we are. Sometimes the memories are good, but sometimes they are bad, and this is where the psychoanalytic concept of repression comes in. Repression is one of the defense mechanisms (strategies that protect the conscious mind from threatening thoughts and feelings) identified by Sigmund Freud. Repression occurs when a dangerous memory is forced from consciousness. The memory just will not be remembered because it is too painful. A related idea is the concept of denial, where an individual is consciously aware of the painful memory, but they choose to ignore its existence. Another defense mechanism is intellectualization, where people try to rationalization the unsatisfactory behavior of either themselves or others by saying, "Well, I had to do it. I had no choice." A further defense mechanism is displacement. This occurs when you project your own unacceptable characteristics and impulses onto someone else. Similar to this is the sublimation mechanism. Negative thoughts and feelings are channeled into activities that are socially valued. For example, a surgeon might redirect his aggressive tendencies to by putting people under the knife. By channeling his potentially inappropriate energies in this way, the surgeon becomes accepted, and acceptance is one of the strongest motivators we have for acting the way we do. According to the Humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers, our self-image is based on our ability to obtain positive regard from others in the form of acceptance, warmth, respect, and love. This regard can be either conditional or unconditional. Conditional positive regard is typified by the statement, "I'll love you if you do this for me." Under this type of regard, the person must meet certain conditions before he/she can be considered worthy of being loved. A typical expression of unconditional regard is, "I still love you, even if I don't like what you just did." This is the sort of regard a parent feels for a child. It is important for every individual to be loved and accepted for who they are, and this acceptance is especially crucial to adolescents within the genital stage. Perhaps this is why there are so many teenagers suffering from substance abuse problems. They are either trying to gain the acceptance of their peers, or they are trying to dull the pain of not being accepted. The issue of substance abuse is a very complex one. Use of drugs and alcohol often leads to physical dependence, which occurs when the drug causes changes in the body's cells so that the body must have periodic doses of the drug to function normally. Over time, an individual may develop a tolerance for the drug, which means that they will need higher and higher amounts of the drug in their systems in order for the same effects to be achieved. Treatment for this problem is especially difficult because of the withdrawal symptoms that can occur once drug usage is suspended. They can become so troublesome that some people will return to using the drug to avoid the anxiety caused by the withdrawal symptoms. Another less life-threatening state of consciousness problem is the experience of sleep disorders, such as sleepwalking, night terrors, and nightmares. While these are not as dangerous as the substance abuse problems, they can still provoke stress, and I know this from experience. Stress is a normal part of everyone's life. All life events involving change are potentially stressful, but some are more stressful than others. The most alarming thing about stress is that sometimes there don't have to be any real threats in place. Imagined stressors, or frustrations, can have the same potentially harmful health effects as real ones. There are five major types of individual and interpersonal conflicts that affect all our lives. These are: approach-avoidance (an individual wants something, but at the same time, he/she doesn't want it); approach-approach (there are two or more good choices, but a decision must be made to the exclusion of all but one); avoidance-avoidance (there are two or more alternatives, but none of them seems desirable); double or multiple avoidance-avoidance (many choices are provided, each with complex positive and negative aspects); avoidance-approach (some ordinarily avoidable goals are so enticing that they cannot be avoided). There are a variety of ways people try to cope with these conflicts, but the main ones that usually present the healthiest results are confrontation (meeting the stressor head-on and overcoming it), compromise (trying to find the "happy medium"), and withdrawal (leaving the situation altogether). Part of growing into a mature adult is learning how to deal with life and the problems it presents you. By using what you've learned and remembered in past situations, and in using effective coping mechanisms that do not include substance abuse, you can find effective ways of facing your demons and relieving the anxieties produced by them. This is the function of the growth and development of the brain - to provide the necessary knowledge for successful navigation through life. Read More