Development Psychology - Essay Example

Development Psychology The use of Development Psychology in understanding and supporting the development of children’s Cognitive and Social Abilities with reference to children and law Development Psychology is the scientific study of progressive psychological changes that occur in Human beings as they age. Originally concerned with infants and children’s, and later other periods of great changes such as adolescence and aging, it now encompasses the entire life Span. Development Psychology investigates key questions, such as whether children are qualitatively different from adults or simply lack the experience that adults draw upon. It also deals with other basic research fields in psychology including Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology and Comparative Psychology. Cognitive development is primarily concerned with the ways in which infants and children acquire cognitive abilities. Social psychology is the study of the nature and causes of human social behavior, with an emphasis on how people think towards each other and how they relate to each other, in the assignment we will study about children social behavior, how children think and act towards certain situations, and how the law supports and helps their behavior. For supporting and understanding the use of Development Psychology in the development of children’s Cognitive and social abilities with reference to children and law, many theories, which explains the child’s behavior under some circumstance and many articles were been written and to support them many experiments were been done. This paper is a study of some of the important theories and journal articles written on children’s concepts and categories that deals with the child’s behavior under some circumstances and some experiments done on children’s, how they behave to certain conditions, and how law supports these statements. We shall start with the important theories; Piaget theory of mind and kohl burgs stages of moral development, which explains the child behavior under certain conditions. In child abuse cases, evaluating the veracity of the accusations is particularly difficult because in most situations, no physical evidence exists, and the alleged perpetrator and the child victim are the only witness to the crime. The steady increase in allegations and the child victim are the only Witness to the crime. The steady increase in allegations of the abuse combined with the difficulty Evaluating children’s report, has increased the need for researchers to develop valid and reliable tolls for assessing the veracity of children’s accusations. Piaget’s theory states that, all development emerge from action; that is to say, individuals Construct and reconstruct their knowledge of the world because of interactions with the Environment. Based on his observations of children’s application of rules when playing, Piaget determined that morality, too, could be considering a development process. In addition to examining children’s understanding of rules about games, Piaget interviewed children regarding act such as stealing and lying. When asked what a lie is, younger children consistently answered that they are “naught words”. However, older children were able to explain that it is not right, and it was not true. According to Piaget, the thinking of young children is been characterized by Egocentrism, that is to say that young child are unable to simultaneously take into account his or her own view of things with the perspective of someone else. Lawrence Kohlberg also developed a model of moral development, modifying and elaborating Piaget’s work, based on an individual’s responses to moral questions called moral dilemmas. Kohlberg’s theory attempts to explain how children develop a sense of right or wrong. Kohlberg identified six stages of moral reasoning grouped into three major levels. At the first stage, a child’s thinking and judgment to certain conditions are been characterized by a concrete, individual perspective. The second stage focuses on the instrumental, pragmatic value of action; it explains how an individual follows the different rule under different circumstance. The third stage explains persons who define what is right in terms of what is been expected by people close to one’s self, and in terms of the stereotypic roles that define being good. The perceptive is that of the local community or family. Stage 4 marks the shift from defining what is right in terms of local norms and role expectations to defining right in terms of the laws and norms established by the larger social system. One must obey the law except in extreme cases in which the law comes into conflict with other prescribe social duties. Obeying the law is been seen as necessary in order to maintain the system of laws, which protects everyone. Stage 5 has received substantial empirical support. Stage 6 remains as a theoretical endpoint, this rationally follows from the preceding five stages. In essence, devise this last level of Moral judgment entails reasoning rooted in the ethical fairness principles from which moral laws would have. Laws are been evaluated in terms of their coherence with basic principles of fairness rather than upheld simply based on their place within an existing social order. Thus, there is an understanding that elements of morality such as regard for life and human welfare transcend particular cultures and societies and to be upheld irrespective of other conventions or normative obligations. Kohlberg’s theory states that one should obey the law under any circumstance, and a child should be explained about what is right and what is wrong under any conditions. The law also supports such conditions and help people out of it. For easily understanding these theories, the best example is Cartoon series “Recess” in which younger children’s of 4th – 6th grade make their own rules follow them accordingly and everyone has his/her own thinking in understanding situations, which is been presented very nicely in the series. This series also shows how parent can help their children’s in the worst situation accordingly to their thinking. It also shows situations, where a child is under pressure due to some reason and how he/she takes help from his classmates and how his/her classmates help him. Now we shall move to the articles to understand the development of children’s Cognitive and Social Abilities with reference to children and law. In the article Young Maltreated Children’s Competence to take the oath by Thomas D. Lyon and Karen J. Saywitz, two studies examined 192 maltreated young children’s competence to take oath. Study 1 found that despite serious delays in receptive vocabulary, a majority of 5- years-olds correctly identified truth and lying statements and recognized that lying is bad. However, as the age group changed the answers were also different, though 4-years-olds did not understand the immortality of lying, they identified the all the statement as truth. 7-years-olds could not define truth and lie or explain the difference between the terms. In the second study, 4 and 5-years-olds performed above chance in identifying the truthful and lying statements made by the story characters, they identified that one is lying, saying some thing bad and will get into trouble. These studies explained that children’s have the capability to understand the truthful and lie statements. Most of the courts in United States require that witness understand the difference between the truth, lies, and the importance of telling the truth. In a case where a child is a witness, the child is under pressure and the process by which young children are questioned about their understanding of the oath in the courtroom has been criticized as both too complicated and too easy (Lyon and Saywitz, 1999). A recurring theme in developing psychology is the potential for understanding children’s abilities due to the use of unnecessary complicated tasks (Flavell, Miller, & Miller, 1993). Courts have many ways to support such children’s the judge can take the statement of the child who is witness outside the courtroom as this will reduce the pressure of the child and it will be easy for the child to overcome his/her pressure. For getting the truth from the child they are many ways, first, one should see that the child is identifying the truth and lie Statements. Then the child is to be showing some videos, as children’s learn fast from videos. During the video, the child is to be showing an example of the case, by which the child will identify or recall what he saw and will tell the truth. (A girl 4 to 5-year-old in India who saw her Mother been murdered by her father by pressing her under a pillow. She recalled the view when she saw a movie in which a man was killing some one the same way her father killed her mother, when she saw the scene from the movie, she said, ‘that is mummy and papa’ ‘that is mummy and papa’. From the girl’s statement and the medical report, it was been proven that her mother was killed. This statement is been given completely on personal experience for the explanation; kindly erase it if you do not feel it is true or not appropriate for the assignment). In some case, child witnesses against family member or stranger, in these condition child in under pressure as he/she witnesses some thing hurting, as he/she witness his/her loved one doing some thing bad. A child’s feeling is hurt and his way of thinking is been changed with reference to something in life. Children’s lie-telling behavior to conceal the transgression of a parent was been examined in an experiment, in which, parent broke a puppet and told his or her children not to tell anyone. Children’s were also been taught to tell the truth, then children were been asked about the puppet, and regardless of whether their parent were present or not most of the children’s said the truth. This experiment proves that though a child witness against family members, the child will tell the truth if he/she is been taught to tell the truth or if the child is been taught to understand the difference between truth and lies. The main challenge for us is to get the truth, for discussing that we can refer two important articles. (Discussing Truth and Lies in Interviews with Children: Whether, Why and How? Mary Lyn, Kang Lee, Nicholas Bala, RCL Lindsay and Lies and Secrets: Implications for Childrens Reporting of Sexual Abuse, Bussey K, Lee K, Grimbeek EJ) which were been written on some experiments. In the article (Lies and Secrets: Implications for Childrens Reporting of Sexual Abuse, Bussey K, Lee K, and Grimbeek EJ) the author states that younger children are more honest than older Children and adults, because of their views on truthfulness. Not all the adults and older children develop personal standards in which they value truthfulness over lying. If they do so, they may easily disregard them by justifying themselves. However, the younger children cannot do this as they have lack of experience and the way they see the world. This is one of the reason courts and law helps the younger children. From some of the examples we can say that even younger children do not tell the truth some times, however, some say that there is no way to predict if a child or adult is telling truth or not. Therefore, parent and professionals who provide safe interviewing situations will likely find more success in obtaining complete and truthful testimony from youngsters. Law for the convince of the children is limited to certain age limit. In the article (Discussing Truth and Lies in Interviews with Children: Whether, Why and How? Mary Lyn, Kang Lee, Nicholas Bala, RCL Lindsay), two studies examined discussion of truth and lying interviews with children. In study1, truth-lie discussion (TLDS) during 132 actual Sexual abuse interviews were been analyzed, focusing on the type of questions asked and the answers given. TDLS were common among all age groups. Study 2 compared the TDLS found from study 1 to study whether the answers of small children’s differ or not. Children’s answers were more convincing than those conducted in forensic interviews. One commonly recommended interview technique is to ask children to distinguish between truth and lying. There appear to be two primary reasons for using this technique: (a) to demonstrate the child competency or reliability as a witness and (b) to increase the likelihood of telling the truth during the interview. Law supports these children’s, if a child is not available to testify at trails, and under certain hearsay exception, the child‘s out-of-court statements may be allowed. The child Out-of-court statements must have to be accept as children’s are very sentimental and they get Depressed very soon, if a child is giving his/her statement in court, he/she should not be cross- Questioned, or one should not make him/her feel scary. Law supports such children and they are Laws passed which were been used to overcome such situations. Reference:  Childrens lie telling to conceal a Parents Transgression: Legal Implications, Victoria Talwar, Kang Lee, Nicholas Bala, RCL Lindsay  Cognitive development, Flavell JH, Miller PM, Miller SA, 1993  Discussing Truth and Lies in Interviews with Children: Whether, Why and How? Mary Lyn Huffman, Amye R Warren, Susan M Larson  Lies and Secrets: Implications for Childrens Reporting of Sexual Abuse, Bussey K, Lee K, Grimbeek EJ 1993 Young Maltreated Children’s Competence to take the Oath, Thomas D Lyon, Karen J Saywitz Read More