Question

Instructions
Please respond to the following questions in essay format; (number each response so I know which person you are referring to). Your response must be at least 250 words in length (standard margins, 12pt Times font). The format of your response must include headings for each topic listed below. You may include information about your own personal experience, information from the book, and empirical research that you have found from a legitimate research journal (NOT Wikipedia or other similar sites). Please review the information on the syllabus about how to find an empirical research article if you choose to incorporate this.

Topic
Vignettes Human Development
Around what age is each of the following individuals? How do you know? What concepts are they displaying? According to Eric Erikson’s stages of development, which stage of development is each person in and what are the characteristics of that stage?

Kelly needs a lot of sleep these days- about 9-10 hours per night, especially on the weekends! Most of the time however, she doesn’t get enough sleep during the week because she’s up late studying. She is spending more time with her friends and not as much time with her parents and her mom is feeling frustrated with this change. Kelly is also very concerned about what others think of her and always worries that they are watching her and that she is the center of attention everywhere she goes.

Joshua just learned how to walk! His parents watched in amazement as he learned to lift his head, then chest, then the rest of his body. He was a determined crawler and is a curious boy, playing with toys and putting them in his mouth. Now he is more interested in whatever his dad is doing, turning nobs on his dad’s stereo as his father does.

Maria has noticed some difficulties with her memory lately. She takes longer to recall events and form words to explain stories. Maria tends to remember the positive interactions she has with her friends these days and enjoys going on walks with them when she has energy. When Maria thinks about her life, she feels a sense of accomplishment and values her small circle of family and friends.

Answer 1

Vignettes Human Development

Kelly

1. Around what age is each of the following individuals? Adolescence (11-17 years)

2. How do you know?

· “she doesn’t get enough sleep during the week because she’s up late studying” Although teenagers need almost as much sleep as they did in middle childhood (about nine hours), they go to bed much later than they did as children, perhaps because of increased neural sensitivity to evening light and also increased academic workload.

· “She is spending more time with her friends and not as much time with her parents and her mom is feeling frustrated with this change” As children enter adolescence, they resist spending time with the family and become more argumentative. Research in cultures as diverse as the United States and Turkey shows that puberty is related to a rise in parent–child conflict, which persists into the mid-teenage years (Gure, Ucanok, & Sayil, 2006; Laursen, Coy, & Collins, 1998; McGue et al., 2005).

· “Kelly is also very concerned about what others think of her and always worries that they are watching her and that she is the center of attention everywhere she goes.” Adolescents often have an imaginary audience. They believe that they are the centre of attention and everyone is watching their every step very carefully. This also shows a teenager’s personal fable.

3. What concepts are they displaying?

· The fact that teenagers do not spend much time with their parents and show Psychological distancing. From evolutionary perspective at this age our primates used to leave their homes when they reached sexual maturity for them to avoid sexual relations with bloodline relatives. In the current industrialized environment, teenagers are dependent on their parents for longer duration of time. Therefore, a modern substitute to leaving home is psychological distancing.

· Imaginary audience, adolescents’ belief that they are the focus of everyone else’s attention and concern (Elkind & Bowen, 1979). As a result, they become extremely self-conscious, often going to great lengths to avoid embarrassment. The imaginary audience helps explain the long hours adolescents spend inspecting every detail of their appearance and why they are so sensitive to public criticism

· Personal fable Certain that others are observing and thinking about them, teenagers develop an inflated opinion of their own importance— a feeling that they are special and unique

4. According to Eric Erikson’s stages of development, which stage of development is each person in and what are the characteristics of that stage?

Kelly is in the stage of Identity vs identity confusion. Characteristics of this stage are:

· Radius of significant relations now include peer groups and outgroups

· Fidelity is the basic strength of this stage where foundation is layed for continuous sense of identity. Sense of identity is value system that the adolescent formulates that sustains the temptations, impulsivity, thoughtlessness of youth behaviour.

· Sense of own identity emerges- own inherent characteristics like likes and dislikes, anticipated goals, purpose are developed

· Ego- select integrate talents, aptitudes, skills in identification with likeminded people, adaptation to social environment, maintain defence against anxiety and threats to from identity emerges

· Identity confusion- confusion of roles takes place. This state causes isolation, emptiness, anxiety, indecisiveness, inability to make decisions. Inconsistent and unpredictable behaviour is therefore common to experience

· Identity crisis- there is a necessity to resolve transitory failure to form a stable identity or confusion of roles

· Ideology realization- integration of ritualization’s from previous stages takes place. Lack of integrated ideology leads to estrangement that results to identity confusion

Joshua

1. Around what age is each of the following individuals? 9-18 months

2. How do you know?

· “Joshua just learned how to walk” By age of 18 months children start to walk

· “He was a determined crawler and is a curious boy, playing with toys and putting them in his mouth.” This sentence indicates that Joshua has already passed the stage of where he was crawling and exploring his environment through mouth.

· “Now he is more interested in whatever his dad is doing, turning nobs on his dad’s stereo as his father does” Joshua shows intentional behaviour here which can been seen in 8-12 months old children.

3. What concepts are they displaying?

· 8- to 12-month-olds can engage in intentional, or goal-directed, behavior, coordinating schemes deliberately to solve simple problems.

· Deferred imitation —the ability to remember and copy the behavior of models who are not present

4. According to Eric Erikson’s stages of development, which stage of development is each person in and what are the characteristics of that stage?

Joshua is in the play stage of Initiative vs guilt. Characteristics of this stage are:

· Radius of significant relations now include basic family.

· Purpose is the basic strength of this stage results from playing, explorations, attempts and failures, experimentation with toys.

· Initiative combines with autonomy to give quality of planning, pursuing, determination of goals

· Genital fantasies, aggression, manipulation in achieving goals if guilt haunts the child

· The child is eager to learn and strive to grow

· Dramatic ritualization which includes play acting, wearing costumes, imitating adults etc. is common in this stage

Maria

1. Around what age is each of the following individuals? Old age

2. How do you know?

· “Maria has noticed some difficulties with her memory lately. She takes longer to recall events and form words to explain stories” By old age, one’s health starts deteriorating. This includes cognitive functioning as well. The speed of retrieval of information decreases as manifested in memory loss and recalling events.

· “Maria tends to remember the positive interactions she has with her friends these days and enjoys going on walks with them when she has energy” This sentence indicates that Maria lacks energy more days than not which is a common characteristic during old age.

· “When Maria thinks about her life, she feels a sense of accomplishment and values her small circle of family and friends” According to Erickson’s stages, Maria is showing integrity. Her radius of significant relations is her family and friends and she displays a sense of accomplishment.

3. What concepts are they displaying?

· Deterioration of cognitive functions like memory

· Selective memory of events

· Physical health worsens with time

4. According to Eric Erikson’s stages of development, which stage of development is each person in and what are the characteristics of that stage?

Maria is in the play stage of Integrity vs despair. Characteristics of this stage are:

· Radius of significant relations now include “mankind” or “my kind”.

· Wisdom is the basic strength of this stage which develops out of encounter of integrity and despair

· Integrity is the state one reaches after having taken care of things and people, products, ideas and having adopted to successes and failures of existence. Person now perceives that life has some order and meaning within a larger order.

· One who has reached integrity is aware of life styles of others. He preserves personal style of life and defends it from potential threats.

· Despair is the feeling that life is meaningless, end is near, a fear/wish for death. There is no time to attempt alternative styles of life.

· Aging person is less adaptable to changing situations, feeling of wholeness (in the stage of wisdom). This sense of wholeness can counteract feeling of despair.

· Integral ritualization is reflected in wisdom of the ages.

Hope this helps!