Theory of Personality Development, Motivation, Eating Disorders - Assignment Example

1)Identify and describe Piagets four stages of cognitive development. Be sure to explain the specific cognitive characteristics of each stage According to the famous psychologist, Piaget, understanding the world happens mainly through four stages. Stage one is the sensorimotor stage which occurs from birth to 2 years and constitutes development of essential spatial abilities and understanding of the world through development of reflexes, habits, coordination between prehension, development of vision, logic and coordination between means and ends, and discovery of new methods to achieve goals. Beginning of creativity and insight also develops in this stage. The next stage is the preoperational change between 2-7 years during which time the child has symbolic functioning, centration, intuitive thought, egocentrism and inability to conserve. In the third stage or the concrete operational stage which occurs between 7 to 11 years, important processes like decentering, reversibility, conservation, serialisation, classification and elimination of egocentrism occur. the last stage is the formal operational stage which commences at 11 years of age, during which time the child acquires the ability to think abstractly and also to draw conclusions from whatever information is available. 2)Identify and describe the four categories of adolescent identity status. Explain how each category helps adolescents deal with identity crises. According to Marcia, there are four stages of adolescent identity status of psychological identity development. The first stage is that of identity diffusion in which the adolescents have not made any commitments and have not experienced any crisis. They have little interest in ideological and occupational choices. In the identity foreclosure status, the adolescent make commitment, but do not experience crisis. In the identity moratorium category, the adolescents are in the midst of a crisis, but their commitments are either vaguely defined or absent. In the identity achievement status, the adolescents have made a commitment and have undergone crisis too. 3)Explain the factors that cause or are associated with eating disorders, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy and juvenile delinquency. Factors associated with eating disorders are environmental factors like family, friends and media, biological factors like abnormally low serotonin levels in brain, abnormal hormonal levels and low cholecystokinin levels, developmental problems like adolescents difficulty in separating from over-controlling parents and traumatic factors. Factors associated with substance abuse are age, family history of substance abuse, friends and relatives, mental illness, chronic pain or disease, psycho-behavioural risk, childhood experiences and trauma. Factors associated with teenage pregnancy are poverty, lower education, adolescent sexual behaviour, lack of access to contraception, contraception failure, sexual abuse, dating violence and inappropriate childhood environment like domestic violence. Factors associated with juvenile deliquency are psycho-behavioural risk factors, mental disorders, family environment like parental supervision, parental conflict or separation, parental abuse and parental neglect and child abuse. 4)Describe the physical, cognitive and social changes that occur in late adulthood. Identify the ways that older adults can cope successfully with these changes. Physical changes that can occur in late adulthood are osteoporosis, menopause in women, reduction in bone density, greying of hair, decreased elasticity of skin, loss of muscle mass and subsequent increase in body fat. The cognitive changes are retainment of broad-spectrum knowledge and vocabulary and decrease in memory. Social changes include decreased interest in pleasurable activities, undiagnosed depression, loss of spouse, retirement,change in financial status, etc. These changes can be coped with successfully by acknowledging and adjusting to the changes, making new friends and maintaining a number of social relationships, spending time over ones past, keeping happiness triggering momentoes, doing exercises and various physical and mental activities, keeping engaged in activities of children and grand children like planning ahead for them, limiting stressful events and engaging in activities than interest them. 5)Identify and describe the four main theories of motivation. Explain arguments against three of the theories. The four main theories of motivation are the incentive theory of motivation, drive reduction theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and need theory. According to the incentive motivational theory, motivation for repetitive behavior is caused by presentation of a reward after occurrence of action. However, this form of motivation can reap harmful effects and thus jeopardise goals. According to drive reduction theories, certain biological drives increase if they are not satisfied. This theory does not explain mechanisms of reduction of drive by secondary reinforcers. The cognitive dissonance theory proposes that motivation occurs when discomfort-leading experiences occur due to incompatibility between two cognitions. According to the need theory, motivation occurs only when the needs are unsatisfied and that an individual advances to an upper level of needs only subsequent to satisfaction of lower level need to the least minimal level. 6) Identify and describe the five stages of Freuds theory of personality development. Describe the psychological problems that may arise during the first three stages. According to Freud, there are five stages of personality development. The oral stage begins at birth and the primary focus of energy is libidal energy. The child derives pleasure by nursing, sucking and putting things to his mouth. Psychological problems which may arise due to disruption in this stage are envy, sarcasm, suspicion and pessimism. The next stage is the anal stage which lasts from 15 months to 3 years of age. In this stage, formation of ego continues.. The main experience in this stage is toilet training. The third stage is the phallic phase which extends from 3 to 5 years. Gratification in this phase occurs through touching of the genitalia. The major conflict in this stage is the oedipal conflict which arises because of awareness of sexual identity. This results in mother being more desirable for boys and father becoming more desirable for girls. The next stage is the latency phase in which the child solidifies habits which were developed in earlier stages. Gratification and drives are not obvious in this phase. Pleasure in this phase is mainly due to secondary process thinking. The problems faced in this stage are inability of the ego to redirect the drive energy to activities accepted by the social environment. The last stage is the genital stage which is characterized by detachment from parents. This stage begins at puberty and lasts until the completion of development. The focus is on genitals with expression of adult sexuality. 7) Describe the three steps to overcoming test anxiety. Explain how best to answer an essay question. Uneasiness, apprehension and nervousness due to fear of failing in exams is known as test anxiety. This can be overcome by preparing properly for the exam, developing a positive attitude and by practicing breathing exercises at the onset of panic. On the day of exam, the student must come to the exam room atleast 10 minutes before the scheduled time. Once the question paper is given, the whole paper must be gone through quickly, to ascertain how much time needs to be alloted for each question. Then the student must visualize as if he or she is at home or library doing home work. Problems or essays which the student is confident about must be done first. First instincts are the best instincts. Essays with more marks must be answered first. Pace must be reasonable and as per alloted time. Deep breathing must be used in case of fear or panic. 8)Describe how gender roles have changed over time. Explain Margaret Meads research on how gender roles vary from culture to culture. Margaret Mead is a dominant figure in anthropology. Between 1925 and 139 in Samoa, she studied seven cultures in the South Pacific and Indonesia in which she focused on the relationship between the individual and culture, particularly in the transmission of culture to children. She applied psychological techniques to gain an understanding of changing of culture, especially gender roles. During her trip to Sepik, she found a different pattern of male and female behavior in each of the cultures she studied. All these roles were different from the expectations of gender role in the United States. Among Arapesh, Mead found that the temperament of both the sexes was cooperative, gentle and responsive. However, among Mundugumor, both the sexes were aggressive and violent and power and position-seeking in nature. In Tchambuli or Chambri, the woman was managerial, impersonal and dominant, while the male was emotionally dependent on the female and less responsible. Thus gender roles vary from culture to culture 9)Identify and describe four common types of stressors. Explain how self-efficacy expectations, psychological hardiness, humor, predictability and social support can help a person handle stressors. The four common types of stressors are: 1. Physicochemical stressor: The external environmental factors like change in climate and weather, pollution, disaster and chemical substances constitute this type of stressor. 2. Social stressor: The stressors are from the social environment and include stressors like change in economic condition, international position of the country, work/home/school environment and relationship bwetween friends and relatives. 3. Biological stressor: These stressors are from the internal environment. Fatigue, lack of sleep, sickness, injury and time rag are common biological stressors. 4. Mental stressor: Factors which arise from psychological state of the person like psychological distess, emotions and unpleasant feelings fall into this category. Self-efficacy expectations affect the persons ability to withstand stress. Those who have confidence in their abilities to meet various challenges in life are less likely to be disturbed by stressors. Psychological hardiness which has characteristics of committment, challenge and control allows persons to interpret stress as a fact of life that makes life more interesting and thus helps them handle stressors. Humor lightens the burdens of life and helps people overcome stress. Ability to predict helps in the moderation of the impact of stress and allows persons to brace themselves for the inevitable and plan for ways to cope with stress. 10)Identify and describe the psychological and biological theories that attempt to explain the causes of mood disorders. Mood disorders involve multiple neural circuits and genetic and non-genetic risk factors. Studies have shown that there are significant changes in the brains of those animal models afflicted with psychiatric illness. These changes include differences in the sizes of specific brain regions, alterations in the morphology of subpopulations of neurons, neurochemical changes at the synaptic cleft, alterations in intracellular signalling and changes in the regulation of gene expression. The specific brain regions which have been implicated in the pathogenesis of mood disorders are hippocampus which is the center for mood and memory; and prefrontal cortex/ anterior cingulated region which are centers for cognition. It has been proposed that certain chemical imbalances in the brain cause clinical symptoms in mood disorders. These imbalances are said to occur in certain neurotransmitters like serotonin and noradrenaline. Even imbalances in dopamine have been noted in mood disorders. The environmental factors which are implicated in the etiology of mood disorders are viral infections, reduced omega-2 fatty acids in diet, stress, reduced sleep, emotions and insults during brain development and sometimes even trivial brain injury. There are many medical conditions which contribute to the development of depression and these include endocrine disorders, collagen vascular diseases, Parkinson’s disease, head injury, certain cancers, asthma, diabetes and stroke. 11)Describe the goals and main techniques of psychoanalysis, humanistic therapy and cognitive therapy. Evaluate the effectiveness of each method. In psychoanalysis, the thoughts of the person are verbalised from which the analyst formulates the unconscious conflicts causing the patients symptoms and character problems, and interprets them for the patient to create insight for resolution of the problems. The analyst confronts and clarifies the pathological defenses, wishes and guilt of the person. In humanistic therapy, the therapist focuses on the subjective and conscious experiences of the client, especially on what the person is experiencing in the present. The therapist stresses to the clients that they have natural motivational tendencies toward growth, health, and fulfillment. Through this strong notion, humanistic therapy helps each client achieve those motivational tendencies. In cognitive therapy, the main objective of the treatment is to identify thoughts, beliefs, assumptions and behaviors that are related to debilitating, dysfunctional, inaccurate and unhelpful negative emotions and monitor them. The result expected out of such forms of therapy is to replace or transcend these emotions with more realistic and useful emotions. It is important to know that emotional dysfunction is maintained by metacognitive beliefs, inflexible self-focused attention, and perseverative thinking. 12)Identify and explain the origins of prejudice. Describe what individuals can do to help reduce prejudice. Preconceived opinion, belief or judgement towards a group of people characterised by their gender, social class, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, disability or religion is known as prejudice. There are four approaches about origins of prejudice according to psychologists. According to the arousal approach, as described by traditional psychologists, prejudice is a relationship between aggression and frustration. The intergroup approach of prejudice proposes that prejudice is the effect of group interaction. Reduction of prejudice is a much debated topic. Researchers suggest that socials norms and political correctness concerns can cause motivation and decrease prejudice. According to the justification–suppression model, removing a perceiver’s justification for expressing prejudice should reduce the likelihood of prejudice expression. According to the contact hypothesis, that cooperative interaction with members of a disliked group results in increased liking for those members and generalizes to more positive attitudes toward the group. The vicarious contact hypothesis proposes that knowledge of an in-group member having a close relationship with an out-group member can lead to more positive intergroup attitudes. Thus there are many models which propose reduction of prejudice amongst individuals. 13)Identify and describe Kohlbergs three levels and six stages of moral development. The 3 levels of moral development are preconventional level, conventional level, and post conventional level, autonomous or principled level. At the preconventional level, the child reponds to the cultural labels and rules of bad or good and wrong or right. This level has 3 stages. Stage 0 or Egocentric judgement stage is the stage when the child makes judgements based on what he wants or what he likes or what helps him. Things what he likes or useful for him are judged as good and things what he does not like are judged as bad. He does not follow any rules or obligations. In the Stage 1 or the punishment and obedience orientation stage, the child determines goodness and badness based on the physical consequences irrespective of human meaning. In the stage 2 or the instrumental relativist orientation stage, actions which satisfy ones and others needs are determined as good and those which are do not satisfy ones needs or that of others are determined as bad. In the conventional level, the child perceives the maintenance of the expectations of his family, group, or nation as valuable in its own right irrespective of its consequences. This levels has 2 stages. Stage 3 or the the interpersonal concordance or "good boy-nice girl" orientation stage is when the an individual calls an action as good when the behavior is what pleases or helps others and is approved by them. Behaviour in this stage is judged by intention. Stage 4 or the law and order orientation stage is when the individual is oriented toward authority, fixed rules and maintenance of social order. The third level is the post-conventional level in which the individual makes clear efforts to define various moral values and rules that are valid and can be applied apart for the authority of groups of persons holding the. This level comprises of 2 stages. Stage 5 is the stage of social-contract legalistic orientation stage orientation when the right action tends to be defined in terms of general individual rights and standards which have been critically examined and agreed upon by the whole society. In stage 6 or the universal ethical-principle orientation stage, right right is defined by the decision of conscience in accord with self-chosen ethical principles that appeal to logical comprehensiveness, universality, and consistency. 14)Describe the physical, cognitive and social changes that occur in late adulthood. Identify the ways that older adults can cope successfully with these changes. Physical changes that can occur in late adulthood are osteoporosis, menopause in women, reduction in bone density, greying of hair, decreased elasticity of skin, loss of muscle mass and subsequent increase in body fat. The cognitive changes are retainment of broad-spectrum knowledge and vocabulary and decrease in memory. Social changes include decreased interest in pleasurable activities, undiagnosed depression, loss of spouse, retirement,change in financial status, etc. These changes can be coped with successfully by acknowledging and adjusting to the changes, making new friends and maintaining a number of social relationships, spending time over ones past, keeping happiness triggering momentoes, doing exercises and various physical and mental activities, keeping engaged in activities of children and grand children like planning ahead for them, limiting stressful events and engaging in activities than interest them. 15)Identify three general tips for studying for a test. Describe the three steps to overcoming test anxiety. Explain how best to answer an essay question. Uneasiness, apprehension and nervousness due to fear of failing in exams is known as test anxiety. This can be overcome by preparing properly for the exam, developing a positive attitude and by practicing breathing exercises at the onset of panic. On the day of exam, the student must come to the exam room atleast 10 minutes before the scheduled time. Once the question paper is given, the whole paper must be gone through quickly, to ascertain how much time needs to be alloted for each question. Then the student must visualize as if he or she is at home or library doing home work. Problems or essays which the student is confident about must be done first. First instincts are the best instincts. Essays with more marks must be answered first. Pace must be reasonable and as per alloted time. Deep breathing must be used in case of fear or panic. 16)Define health psychology. Describe how stress affects the immune system. Explain how stress can contribute to headaches, heart disease and cancer. Health psychology is the study of social, cognitive, behavioural and emotional factors that influence development of disease and illness, the course of illness, maintenance of health and the response of the patient and the family to disease and illness. Stress causes release of adrenocorticotrophic releasing hormone or ACRH from the hypothalamus which in turn causes release of various other hormones, mainly the catecholamines and cortisol which are known as the stress hormones. Cortisol, being a steroid, is immunosuppressant and hence increased levels of this hormone may result in increased susceptibility to infections. Also, if secreted continuously due to persistent stress, there may be flaring up of the allergic disorders, because in the long run, steroids derange the immune system. In the heart, adrenaline acts on the B1 receptors of the heart resulting in increase in the heart rate (positive chronotropic effect of adrenaline) and also the force of contraction (positive ionotropic effect of adrenaline) leading to increased cardiac output. Adrenaline also stimulates the alpha receptors of the blood vessels, thus increasing the blood pressure. Chronic stress impairs the immune system’s capacity to respond to hormonal signals. It down regulates glucocorticoid expression and diminishes glucocorticoid sensitivity of interleukin-6. Inflammation plays a role in the pathogenesis of allergic, autoimmune, rheumatologic, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases and contributes to the symptomatology of many infectious diseases. 17)Identify and describe the three main biological treatments for psychological disorders. Explain the possible side effects of these treatments. The 3 main biological treatments for psychological disorders are pharmacological therapy, transmagnetic stimulation and electroconvulsive therapy. Pharmacotherapy is based on the fact that psychological disorders occur due to changes in various neurotransmitters. The main pharmacological drugs are antidepressant and antipsychotropics. All anti-depressants act via monoamine neurotransmitters serotonin or noradrenaline. They down-regulate (decrease or desensitize) some receptors in a delayed time course, which is reflected by the time to onset of therapeutic effects. Antidepressant drugs actually induce plastic changes in neuronal connectivity, which gradually lead to improvements in neuronal information processing and recovery of mood. Common antidepressants are imipramine, desipramine, etc. Psychotropic drugs are also known as neuroleptic medication or major tranquilizers. Common antipychotics include risperidone, haloperidol and fluphenazine decanoate. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a procedure that uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain to improve symptoms of depression. The electromagnet creates painless electric currents that stimulate nerve cells in the region of your brain involved in mood regulation and depression. Electroconvulsive therapy or ECT is one of the psychotherapeutic methods in which electric current is passed through the brain of the patient to cause convulsions. It is one of the treatments for severe depression. There is no clear cut understanding as to how ECT works. Research has shown that release of certain brain chemicals and stimulation of growth of new blood vessel in certain areas of brain probably helps improvement of the condition of the patient. Some researchers propose that ECT works by alteration in the post-synaptic response to the neurotransmitters in the central nervous system 7)Describe how you would conduct a survey that identified the most popular flavors of ice cream. Identify your target population and what kind of sample you would use. Explain what method of observation you might use to help generalize your findings Conducting this type of survey may be done using a questionnaire in which the question would be "Which is your most favourite flavour of icecream?" Against this question, multiple choices of all the favours available must be kept in the answer section. The questionnaire has to be circulated among local icecream shops and any customer who comes to pick up the ice cream must be asked to check against the favorite flavour of his choice. The survey can be conducted over a months time and then after statistical analysis of the results, the flavour against which the highest number of checks have occurred will be the most popular flavour. Read More