AS and A Level: Developmental Psychology
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critically discuss whether children can recover from intutionalisation of privation
At the age of 18 months till they were 7 years old were locked in a cellar away from human company and were starved and beaten. When they were discovered they had no speech, were terrified of people and had serious health problems. They were taken to a special school for children with learning difficulties for intense rehabilitation and they were adopted by two sisters who provided a strong emotional bond with the new family. After a final study took place they found that they twins had attained average intelligence and had developed into happy and sociable boys who then attended mainstream school.
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2 explanations of love
Sternberg believed that the type and strength of a couples love could be determined by measuring the strength of these 3 components. In order to accommodate these interactions between the 3 components, Sternberg developed a typology of love relationships. Where one or more of the components is absent, a rather different type of love may exist. E.g. relationships based on passion alone (having a crush on someone) or intimacy and passion without commitment (a holiday romance). Sternberg recognised that one of the limitations of his initial theory was that it told you where you were but not how you got there.
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Critically consider evolutionary explanations of s*x differences in parental investment. (24marks)
There are different levels of parental investment seen in females and males, one being the theory of Trivers (1972) he said that in most species males and females do not share this parental investment equally. He suggested that mammal females investment is far greater than males as the females effort during pregnancy is a huge part of the investment as she carries the baby for 9 months and deals with the physical and emotional effort that goes into pregnancy. Due to this females have to be choosier concerning potential mates for there future offspring as they can produce less gametes than men and in parental investment males only to give a teaspoon of s***n.
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Discuss research into relationships in adolescence
In fact, Frey and Rothlisberger (1996) found in a study of Swiss adolescents that that peers were of little help when it came to stressful times, and that mothers in particular were more receptive to the emotional needs of their children. This approach may, however, be criticised for a lack of cultural validity. It is only individualist cultures in particular who value the ideas of autonomy, with collectivist cultures valuing togetherness and group identity. This renders to the need for autonomy obsolete, indicating that peer relationships are in fact not a requisite for healthy development; or at least not for the aforementioned purposes.
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Outline and evaluate one or more pro-social theories of moral understanding
if they have the cognitive capability to do so. In contrast with Piaget and Kohlberg's theories, Eisenberg believed that children have a more advanced capability for moral understanding and justification of moral behaviour than previously thought. This is an advantage as the aforementioned theories are frequently criticised for undermining children's abilities. Also in contrast to Piaget and Kohlberg, Eisenberg presented participants with much simpler dilemmas, in which there is a simpler child character. This may increase internal validity, because it is impossible to assess a child's moral understanding by presenting them with a dilemma which they do not fully comprehend.
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Discuss research into the formation of identity in adolescence
This implies that, in such cultures, there are not many decisions with regard to life in the future as there are in modern individualist cultures. The population validity of Erikson's explanation of adolescent identity formation can also be questioned since, much like other psychoanalysts, his theory was grounded on case studies. Although they provide a deep insight into how the human brain may work, using case studies in the development of theories may be open to misinterpretation on the part of the researcher, as the majority of people studied are psychologically abnormal.
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Describe and evaluate one or more cognitive development theories (CDT) of gender identity
(3.5 - 4.5 years old) and gender constancy where the child is aware their gender is an unchanging quality. (4.5 to roughly 7). Research that can support this theory was done by Slaby and Frey, where they showed children pictures of boys and girls. The responses were appropriate to Kolhbergs theory and thus supporting CDT. This study has proved to be reliable as it has been similarly repeated and the same results were found. However the criticisms of this are said to be that the interview had an element of interviewer bias as he was asking leading questions. Also the pictures shown lack ecological value as there were not realistic to real life. Damon too, studied gender appropriate behaviour.
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Discuss research into the effects of daycare
Cognitive development is associated with the growth of the child's mental abilities, like language, memory and perception. Some believe that day-care can help those abilities flourish and some believe that it suppresses those abilities (Russell, 1999). There is debate over whether day-care affects social development as well, which is the ability of the child to interact with other children well, and how they react to relationships, family and how aggressive you are in later life. Some think that children who attend day care become more popular in later life, yet some think that children who attend day care are more aggressive when they grow up.
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Frueds Work
This is material to which you have no immediate access. You cannot bring unconscious material into the conscious except under extreme situations, for example; with the use of Freudian therapies. The unconscious drives our behaviour although we are unaware of it. The unconscious drives our behaviour without us knowing it and is said to consist of thoughts and desires that have been locked away in our minds by using defence mechanisms because we were unable to deal with the thoughts or they were inappropriate.
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Describe and evaluate one psychological perspective on personality
A suggestion can be made by another, but ultimately it is the one making the conscious choice that incurs the consequences. This Erickson suggests that our personality continually develops throughout various stages in our lives. This makes total sense to me, we all have various stages in our lives to go or in this case grow through. Be it family, friendship or simple social interaction at a less personal level. All this will have an ultimate impact upon ourselves, and how we deal and come through each stage will logically leave its imprint within us on a conscious and subconscious level.
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Minority Influence
However this study does lack ecological validity as it is not a real life situation. There is also a gender bias which poses problems with generalisations. The demand characteristics could have been affected as the people may have guessed what the study was about as they were all tested for good eyesight. There may also be ethical problems such as deception and confidentiality as people are not being told at the start what was going to happen. Nemeth and Moscovici 1974 looked at the seating positions, if you chose a seat at the head of the table then are more likely to yield to you.
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Discuss the relationship between s****l selection and human reproductive behaviour
After comparing t******e size of gorillas, chimps and humans, it was found that gorillas had the smallest testicles followed by humans and chimps. This supports Short's theory as gorillas are polygynous creatures, as the alpha male heads a harem and so have little sperm competition, compared to chimps who are promiscuous and so experience greater sperm competition. This supports intrasexual selection, as it is evidence of competition between males. Intersexual selection refers to what males and females find attractive in the opposite s*x.
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Outline two explanations of attachment and evaluate their ability to explain attachment
However, this approach is unfalsifiable. The ideas we're talking about are theoretical, hence they cannot be tested or measured. This means we can't prove it right or wrong and therefore it questions how reliable it can be. It is suggesting that food is the main priority in attachments and allows no consideration for attention and care giving. Another explanation of attachment is the behaviourist approach or the learning approach. This was tested by Pavlov who conducted an experiment on the salivation of dogs to see if he could get an automated response. Each time he fed them, he would ring a bell before hand to see if it could form a new stimulus/response action.
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Discuss research into the effects of environmental stressors on aggressive behaviour
The theory claims that as the temperature increases, the negative mood increases. But if the temperature becomes uncomfortable, we are said to display aggressive motives as well as looking for an escape, if an escape is possible the aggressive behaviour will come to an end. But if escape isn't possible the aggressive behaviour will persist. Anderson examined data and found that crime was most common in the hotter months and years. The relationship was strongest for violent crimes. Baron and Bell found experimental evidence for a direct link between temperature and aggression.
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How age affects short term memory
This showed all of the letters were momentarily available in sensory memory. Sperling concluded that we do have a visual memory store that contains a mental snapshot of what we have just seen. This mental image fades away rapidly, so that by the time a subject has reported 4.5 items, this image is no longer available to provide more information. The matrix grid of words I will be using: Playground Yellow Fire House Sound� Tree Holiday Music Aim and Hypothesis In this experiment I aim to find out how ones age affects their short term memory.
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Abnormal Behaviour - Humanistic model
OUTLINE ONE MODEL OF ABNORMAL BEHAVIOUR AND CONSIDER ITS STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS. The model I have chosen to focus on is the Humanistic model. The Humanistic model emphasizes that people are able to make choices in life freely and that these choices channel towards fulfilment and happiness and a sense of self-worth. From a humanistic perspective, behaviour is first determined by individual's ability to choose how to think and act. A lot of work was carried out by Carl Rogers (1951)
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child labour
Like in the industrial revolution children are forced to work today because of family poverty and lack of education. The worst forms of child labour are hazardous and exploitative. Work is carried out in slave like conditions and children suffer from a variety of illnesses and conditions. A United Nations report provided us with example of this: - * In Malaysia, children may work up to 17-hour days on rubber plantations, exposed to insect and snake bits. * In the United Republic of Tanzania, they pick coffee, inhaling pesticides. * In Morocco, they hunch at looms for long hours and little pay, knotting the strands of carpet for export.
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Celebrities being bad influences - Persuade/argue coursework
But media is one of the biggest forms of getting out information to the public these days. And with some studies showing that kids spend twice as much time watching TV than school means that the obvious point is that children are looking up to certain celebrities as influences. For example, when you're walking down a street, you may see a group of hooded teenagers that are wearing hats underneath the hood.
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dear lord sharftesbury
That's over eighteen hours a day. What's worse is they only get five hours of sleep. If you reduced the working hours and added more time for sleeping, the tasks would be completed with more speed. The wages for the workers are unreasonably low. From what I have heard the adults are given fifteen pence a week, and children earn five a week. This needs to be changed quickly so that the children can feed themselves and the rest of their family if they need to.
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Gervase phinn on the other side of the dale
Also he uses old phrases like "hale and hearty" and "ship-shape" which shows he is organised ,speaks oddly and he his behind his times, and the fact that he is the only child that does not speak the dale dialect indicates his uniqueness and his inferiority over the other children. Additionally the repetition of the word old-fashioned shows Phinns curiosity in Joseph and emphasises how different Joseph is compared to the other children and how he is dressed as a 1950s school boy and stands out from the rest.
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How does the Simpsons Contravene the Guidlines for Children's Television?
Its not until I think about what Homer has actually done is when I kick myself for it. And Bart is always getting in trouble and in some cases leads a rebellion all over Springfield. Okay, why is that funny and think of your children, if they see their parents laughing at that what's to say they might re-enact Bart's 'teachings'? Will you be laughing then? Moving swiftly on, the cartoon regularly releases a new episode (mainly at Halloween) called 'Tree House of Horrors'.
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The Theories Of Attachment
Bowlby believed that attachment was very important, as it helped to provide food, warmth and protection for young children. If there was a disruption in the attachment then it would conclude in developmental consequences. The learning theory of attachment is a perspective known as behaviourism. Behaviourists believe that people learn how to behave in a certain way in stead of it already been pre-programmed into a child.
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My Childhood lost ?
We were thrilled! I assumed that my life would be a bed of roses from now on. Both Berley and myself bade good bye to our friends and "home" beaming with hope and dreams of a better life ahead. Our "not so lucky" friends wished us best of luck with tears in their eyes. Berley and I would now be brothers living with a wealthy man. We entered his large palatial house with trembling legs. Before long we were taken to the backyard, which, unlike the rest of the house, resembled a slum.
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Evacuation Coursework Part 1
London was the first place from where children were evacuated as this was seen as a major target area. From what I can assess, it seems to be a quite orderly evacuation with teachers and other officials all present. I know from other evidence that this was the case, so source B is useful from this point of view. Children were walking in lines and I can see that they have Gas masks round their necks, a poignant picture. From evidence I have studied, children were told to bring a gas mask, an identity card, a ration book, clothing and personal coupons, so this also suggests that this part of the photograph is valuable evidence.
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evaluate the arguments for and against the introduction of legislation on smacking children
But, the concept of 'reasonable chastisement' dates back to 1860 and is difficult to define in the 21st century. So to protect children from harsh physical punishment the law has been clarified and brought up to date. Smacking is not completely prohibited, thus leading to a debate between the government, parents and child protection authorities. Ministers feared an outright ban would lead to a flood of unnecessary prosecutions, and have been accused of reneging on a pledge to outlaw smacking by telling peers to oppose the complete ban. And although the government agree the defence of 'reasonable chastisement' allows some parents to go beyond smacking, they also take into consideration that
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