...DEVELOPMENT PSYCHOLOGY: WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO CRITICALLY LOOK AT DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES? . The term development is very broad and multi-dimensional that it is a topic dealt with in almost every discipline. Psychology is also a multi-dimensional discipline, and when encompassing development it constructs a field of study known as developmental psychology. The main focus of this area is on human growth throughout the lifespan. Originally, developmental psychology was concerned with infants and children, but the field has since expanded to include adolescence, adult development and aging. This is due to the fact that although childhood is obviously a time of tremendous change, people also continue to grow and develop during the early adult, middle age, and senior years. Inclusive in this field are related topics such as child development, intellectual development, cognitive development, and the aging process. In simpler terms then, developmental psychology is defined as the scientific study of age-related changes that occur in human beings cross different domains over the course of life. The direct focus of developmental psychology on human growth involves thorough observation and examination in order to be able to categorise and label a being. This marking of belonging to a certain group is another transformation underwent...
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...Running head: The Construction of a Developmental Game Part II: The Construction of a Developmental Game Appropriate for Adults: A Slide Presentation With Accompanying Notes Part II: The Construction of a Developmental Game Appropriate for Adults: A Slide Presentation With Accompanying Notes Rationale for Part II Project Application As an instructor, this writer is charged with the responsibility of challenging students to strengthen critical thinking skills while developing an understanding of course material. College students taking an adult development course are expected to apply critical thinking skills when studying developmental theory and research. This requires that they examine their own assumptions and discern their hidden values. In addition, critical thinking involves their evaluation of evidence and the assessment of conclusions. An important aspect of such a scientific approach is the attitude of humility. Critical thinking requires the humble scrutiny of competing ideas. Students must understand that they may have to reject their own preconceptions (Myers, 2004). One must acknowledge the potentially biasing effects of preconceived ideas. Such ideas can evolve from a number of sources including culture and environment. In contemporary American culture, some regard the aging process view as being undesirable. For them, the term old connotes an inevitable future involving physical frailty, narrow-mindedness...
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...Developmental Pyschology The scientific study of human development aims to understand and explain how humans change throughout their lifetime. In the beginning this approach aimed towards infants and children to study the mind so that education and learning could be more effective but it now includes aging, adult development, adolescence, and the whole lifespan; basically early life to death. It also includes scientific inquiry which means its recognizes humans of all societies and cultures who are in a constant rate of change and growth. The branches included are all the aspects of human growth, such as emotional, physical, social, intellectual and personality development. Charles Darwin was actually the first to be credited with conducting the first systematic study dealing with developmental psychology. This study of psychology also branches into sociology, education and health care because of its association, not only with the physical aspects, but with cognitive and social forms as well. Developmental psychology also plays an important role in numerous subjects such as anthropology, education, history, sociology and psychology. Those subjects apply to many careers pertaining to the study of human development. The three goals of developmental psychology are to describe, explain, and to optimize development. With developmental psychology comes tons of research. Majority of study begins with hypothesis. The goal of the research is to analyze the interested area and collect...
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...to acknowledge the situation, which corresponds to Kubler-Ross’s stage of “Denial”. Later, Tex becomes very difficult, lashing out at his family, which corresponds to Kubler-Ross’s stage of “Anger”. Thus, Peter’s description of Tex’s experience goes along with the first two of Kubler-Ross’s stages of dying. General Perspective of the Concept Kubler-Ross’s stages of dying theory falls under the general perspective of developmental approaches to psychology. Like several other developmental theories, it is a stage theory. Kubler-Ross proposes that there are five stages to the process of dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This is a true stage theory which holds that persons go through this series of stages in this particular order. At first, the dying person tries to evade the reality of the diagnosis (denial). As the reality of the diagnosis sinks in, the dying person tends to lash out at family and caregivers (anger). Subsequently, the dying person develops the hope that death can be postponed or delayed, often by making promises to God (bargaining). Her last two stages are depression and acceptance. Quote #1 – Name of Person Here Psychological Concepts in Quote Identify the psychological concept or concepts in the quote using correct terminology from the course. If the concept is closely associated with the writings of a particular theorist (such as Bandura,...
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...Actually, like most kids, I loved all things chocolate. As time went on, my love for chocolate and sweets began to decrease. I believe that developmental and cognitive psychology, are the subfields to best describe the reasons for my preference. I believe that cognitive psychology would explain the emotional connection and emotional development for the love of the food. Developmental psychology would explain how the preference for the food has changed over time. Cognitive and Developmental Psychology Developmental psychologists study the human growth and development that occurs throughout a persons’ entire life. This subfield includes physical development, but also cognitive, social, intellectual, perceptual, personality and emotional growth. The study of human development is important to all forms of psychology, education and history. Developmental psychology helps us to better understand how people change and grow and then apply this knowledge to help us realize our future potentials. Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental processes. This includes how people think, perceive things, remember and learn. The core focus of cognitive psychology is on how people retain, process and store information. There are numerous practical applications for cognitive research, such as improving memory, increasing decision-making accuracy and structuring educational curriculum to improve learning. Biological Contributions Sometimes behavior is often species specific...
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...Psychological Perspective Paper Introduction Psychology is the study of human and animal behavior. There are various perspectives within psychology and the upcoming paragraphs deal with 6 psychological perspectives: Behavioral, Cognitive, Biological, Developmental, Psychodynamic, Sociocultural and Evolutionary. Psychological Perspectives All six perspectives seek to explore and examine human behavior and makes use of varying techniques in order to do so. Each perspective tries to search for answers to different questions, which exist about behavior. Each of these perspectives is different hence they have there own reasoning and explanation. Among the perspectives of psychology, many have been accepted some whereas others have had difficulty in being accepted. Behavioral Behavioral Psychology is a branch is psychology that claims that all behavior is learned through conditioning. The field is also known as behaviorism. The idea behind it is that all people acquire their behavior by interacting with their environment through classical condition or operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is the involuntary, or automatic, response to a stimulus (i.e. fight or flight response) where as Operant conditioning is that of a learned behavior through positive/negative reinforcement (consequences) or positive/negative punishment. (What Is Behavioral Psychology, 2011) Cognitive Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental processes including how people...
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...Developmental psychology is studying how we –humans- develop throughout time. But what most people may ask is, what forces us to change as we pass through life? And there are multiple answers for this question. It could be because of the people we hang around, to the schools we attend. One specific researcher who specialized in developmental psychology is German biologist Konrad Lorenz, he studied imprinting, which is a form of early learning that occurs in some animals during a critical period. Lorenz wanted to know why do baby goose followed their mother around in a single line. He often asked himself “Do they follow mother goose because of an inborn tendency (nature), or do they learn to follow their mothers because of nurture? Which brings...
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...Introduction Over the past decade or so, research into the understanding of how children development is shaped by their social contexts resulted in increased efforts. Bronfenbrenner believed that a person’s development was affected by everything in their surrounding environment(Developmental Psychology, 2013). He therefore divided the person’s environment into five incomparable levels(microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and the chronosystem) and has had a particularly wide and significant influence in shaping our understanding of how different levels of the system in the social context interact in the process of child development.Thus this essay will discuss these different environmental levels by referring to my educational background and examining the influences in my life. Microsystem Beginning with the first level of Bronfenbrenner's theory: the microsystem which is the system closest to the person and the one in which they have direct contact. Some examples would be home, school, daycare, or...
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...Psychodynamic theory, which is also called psychoanalysis, is a type of psychotherapy that explores the individual's emotions and unconscious thoughts so that the person can be understood better. The psychodynamic theory describes persona concerning unconscious psychological courses that we are not fully aware such as wishes, fears, and ambitions. Learning psychodynamic principles enable students to navigate a complex client characteristic and behavior including defenses and relationships. It also can help students realize and understand why their sincerity may not be enough to prevent the chaos that is happening in clients’ life. Furthermore, acquiring knowledge and understanding of developmental psychology and the emotional stages that people...
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...disassociation of a serious problem or, an overstatement of facts that occur. In the familiar movie, PSYCHO, the main character, Norman Bates, is a classic example of Hollywood’s description of mental illness. He epitomizes the worst in all that we fear about the mentally ill. Norman exhibits traits that positively match all of the criteria, determining abnormality; although some of his actions could be considered outside of the norm, with regard to several of the said criteria. Explaining these criteria, and how Norman is characterized within the spectrum of this generalization, will describe the positive and negative qualities of the films’ portrayal of mental illness. If I had to choose the mistakes in perceptual psychology between the nature aspect of perceptual psychology and the empirical side is a matter of how you see how humans acquire their perception. The nature aspect believes that humans are born with their perception intact. The empirical side believes that humans learn this behavior from their environment and background. There is no correct answer to the debate as experiments for both sides have considerable...
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...Foundations of Psychology Identifying the major schools of thought in psychology and examining their major underlining assumptions; has been very interesting in many aspects of my research. In researching the branches of psychology, provided to me were different answers regarding how many branches of psychology there are. Using my sense of reason, I chose to use the answer of 10 for my paper in Foundations of Psychology. 1. Abnormal Psychology ~ the study of particular behavioral abnormalities in a person’s psyche. • A young girl with a twin brother who was very close emotionally. The brother passed away because of a sudden accident. The once vicarious, outgoing and lively girl became very introverted and shy. Her once successful existence was facing fast; from failing grades to no social interaction except with her parents, whom she clung to for dear life. This girl showed early signs of fear of abandonment. 2. Behavioral Psychology ~ the studies in behavior of an individual (human or otherwise) go gage the psychological state of that individual. The most common term used for behavioral neuroscience or biopsychology or psychobiology is Behavioral Psychology. • A normal 18-year-old young man who loved partying and spending time with his boyfriend, the young man was gay. This created much heartache for him because of him experiencing constant insults and arguing with his family. The young man found solace...
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...December 2012 Women in Psychology Over the years, women have become increasingly dominant in the field of psychology. According to the Women’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor, in 2010 women made up 66.7% of the psychology. The most common types of psychology include clinical psychology, counseling psychology, school psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology and experimental or research psychology. Even though there has been a major increase of women working in the field of psychology lately, things have not always been like this. Beth Doll, who has a PhD in psychology, remembers her difficulties when she was studying to get her PhD. Despite her impressive qualifications and a master's degree in clinical psychology, a doctorate advisor discouraged her from pursuing her PhD, worried she would forgo completing the program to start a family. Doll chose not to heed this advice and went on to complete her doctorate in school psychology in 1983. Doll says, “That simply won't happen today, in part because women have moved into some positions of power," She is now an educational psychology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and chair of the Council of Directors of School Psychology Programs. Though there are advancements, women psychologists still earn about nine percent less than men. This number increases with experience level. There are still certain fields in psychology that are mainly male dominated...
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...Applications of Piaget and Vygostsky’s cognitive developmental theories in a practical classroom environment Piaget and Vygotsky have antonymous beliefs when dealing with the concepts of cognitive development. Vygotsky believes in development through social behaviour whilst Piaget believes in individuals acquiring knowledge on their own. Both however, believe that the interaction between development and learning hold significant implications for a child’s growth. This essay discusses some of the philosophical beliefs of each theorist in regards to a scenario based in the classroom of a year five teacher named Ann. Ann reinforces classroom lessons through the outdoor environment, exemplifying Piaget’s theories of constructivist based learning as well as teaching methods that cater to the concrete operational stage of cognitive development. Ann also displays Vygotsky’s cognitive theory involving the zone of proximal development and peer to peer or teacher-peer scaffolding within a group environment. The essay will examine Ann’s teaching methods and how they relate to these cognitive developmental theories. Ann’s socially-constructive pedagogical approach as described by Howell (2012) will help children build their knowledge base through collaborative learning as well as independent work, known as scaffolding. Ann would apply the technique of scaffolding by providing assistance and offering feedback relating to new information (Woolfolk, 2004). Vygotsky (1978) put forward a theory...
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...Saint Leo University PSY325 Developmental Psychology Course Description: A survey of the major areas in human development with an equal emphasis placed on child, adolescent, and adult development. The course examines developmental changes over the entire life-span and the processes underlying these changes. All major areas are reviewed including biological, cognitive, language, personality, emotional, moral, social, and career development. This course is an upper level elective course in the major. It is a course that is highly desirable for students in Social Work, Education, Human Services, Pre-Med, and Pre-Nursing. The sub-discipline of Developmental Psychology also draws heavily upon almost every other field in psychology. Prerequisite: PSY121 Textbooks: Berk, L. E. (2014). Exploring lifespan development (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN-13: 978-0-205-95738-5 Course Objectives: Developmental Psychology is perhaps the most interdisciplinary field within psychology. It encompasses genetics, learning, physiological psychology, perception, cognitive psychology, intelligence, personality, gender issues, social influences, and psychological disorders. It uses a similar methodology as other fields but also utilizes some innovations specific to human development research. This course is a lifespan development course. That is, it will examine in detail how we develop physically, mentally, morally, and socially from the moment of conception through adulthood and old age...
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...and integrate developmental theory, moral development, and gender and cultural influences. Erikson Erikson’s developmental theory will be used to analyze my life stage by stage. I will compare Erikson’s theory of development to Lawrence Kohlberg’s model of moral development and analyze how these theories have affected my development from birth to adulthood. Last I will evaluate hoe factors can be explained within the context of gender differences and environmental, cultural, and ethnic influences. We all have different personality traits many are inborn temperament traits and others were learned based on our environment and the support we receive in growing up. Erikson became a leading figure in the psychosocial study of human growth and development, formulating nine stages, with a “conflict” or “crisis” to be resolved at each stage for healthy development to occur (Crandell, Crandell, Zanden, p. 39, 2009). Each stage builds on the preceding stages and the crisis in each stage should be resolved by the ego in that stage. As employed by Erikson (1968a, p. 286), a crisis is not “a threat of catastrophe but a turning point, a crucial period of increased vulnerability and heightened potential.” More importantly he said, “remember that conflict and tension are sources of growth, strength, and commitment” (Erikson & Erikson, 1997) (Crandell, Crandell, Zanden, p. 39, 2009). Erikson first stage of psychosocial development is trust vs. mistrust the developmental period is from...
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