Human Development

Chapter 7 Text Assignment

Please answer the following questions:

1. Define resilience and provide examples of children who may display those qualities and/or tendencies:

• Resilience children who are rebound from serious early life traumas to construct successful adult lives. They have special talent, such as to regulate their emotions. They have a high sense of self-efficacy and an optimistic worldview. They possess a strong faith or sense of meaning in life. An example would be Winston Churchill who was beaten by his headmaster in school but later took out Hitler in World War one.

2. Describe how children may be impacted by divorce and the factors that are most critical to the child positively adjusting after the divorce.

• Childrearing tends to become more disorganized as couples struggle with their feelings and try to rearrange their lives. Parents have a hard time talking about the divorce and it leaves the child to become confused, angry and sad. To keep children rebound from this trauma is to keep daily life as consistent as possible. Relocating puts stress on a child. The main key to a long term, however, adjustment lies in the quality of care the parent who gets custody provides

3. What does it mean to be intelligent from the perspective of Spearman, Sternberg or Gardener, and your WISC scores?

• The WISC is the standard intelligence test used in childhood, consisting of a verbal scale, a performance scale, and a variety of subtests. According to Sternberg, conceptions of what it means to “be intelligent” also differ from society to society and among different ethnic groups. Latino parents, for instance, focus more heavily on social competence, while our mainstream culture views intelligence in terms of purely cognitive traits.

4. Compare and contrast intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and provide examples of each as they relate to children’s activities.

• Intrinsic motivation refers to self-generated activities, actions we take purely from our inner desires. Example would be writing short stories because you really enjoy writing them. Extrinsic motivation refers to activities that we undertake in order to get external reinforcers, such as praise or pay, or a good grade. Example would be selecting a major in college based on salary and prestige, rather than personal interest in the major.

5. What is the difference between validity and reliability, as it relates to psychological tests or measures?

• Validity in measurement terminology is a basic criterion for a test’s accuracy involving whether that measure reflects the real-world quality it is supposed to measure. Reliability in measurement terminology is a basic criterion of a test’s accuracy that scores must be fairly similar when a person takes the test more than once.

6. Explain the most critical factors that affect school achievement.

• Schools that serve poor but high achieving children share a mission to have every child succeed. They assume that poor children can do well a high level conceptual work. Teachers support and mentor one another. These same attributes apply to unusually successful schools in middle-class neighborhoods, too.

7. Spanking is a conversation that always sparks great debate. Based on Belsky’s discussion of spanking answer the following:

a. Who is most likely to spank? parents

b. Who is most likely to be spanked: preschoolers

c. When should spanking never be used? On infants

d. What are some guidelines for “healthy” spanking? Positive reinforcements

e. What are the risks of spanking? Lead to future violence

8. Discuss some of the consequences and risk factors for child abuse.

• Parents’ personality problems, intense environmental stress, and lack of attachment to a given child are the main risk factors that provoke abuse. Abused children often have serious emotional and academic problems and are at risk for committing antisocial acts later in life.

9. Place the correct parenting style (Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive, Neglectful) in the correct square, along with an example of everyday parenting that may be employed by a parent with that particular parenting style:

| | |Level of Control/Level of Strict Discipline |
| | |Low |High |
|Acceptance-Love |High | Permissive style |Authoritative Style |
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| |Low | Rejecting-Neglecting Style | |
| | | |Authoritarian Style |
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