Question

You will read and research at least three scholarly sources and then identify, discuss and place each concept in proper context. After you have identified each concept you will then explain ways each concept can be applied to your own life with examples. I hope you enjoy your research and the personal application.

Please select four of the following concepts or theories.

1. Social changes in life-span development
2. Memory
3. Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment
4. Issues related to gender and sexuality
5. Motivation and emotion
6. Personality
7. Health psychology, stress and coping strategies
8. Psychological Disorders and other Mental Health Issues
9. Concepts of interpersonal relationships

Answer 1

Memory: In the most popular way memory refers to the process of encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. Hence, it a 3 stage process, where initially we try to understand and decode the stimuli and the information present in the environment, then we store the information to be used later, as and when required and the last stage is retrieval where we retrieve the information from our memory to be used.

There are 3 types of memory.

1. Sensory memory: The information is stored for a very short period of time, for a fraction of seconds. For example, iconic memory, you saw someone wearing a red colored shirt. This information from the environment will stay in your memory for a very short fraction of seconds.

2. Short term memory (STM): This is also known as working memory, information from the long-term memory enters the STM to be retrieved. For example, you want to write an answer to a question which you learned, the information is stored in your LTM and to use this information, it is transferred to STM.

3. Long term memory (LTM): Information is stored here for a long period of time through rehearsal and becomes someone permanently. For example, the name of your parents or how to do swimming or the place where you first lived. All this information were rehearsed a long time back but you still remember them

LTM is of 2 types:

1. Procedural memory: As the name suggests it is the memory of how to do certain things. In other words, the procedure to carry out a task. For example, your memory of how to ride a bicycle is still intact even when you haven’t rodded a bi-cycle for years

2. Declarative memory: It is a memory of facts. Now, declarative memory is further divided into 2, namely semantic memory and episodic memory

Semantic memory is the memory of factual information about an event in the past. For example, you remember the name of your first school.

Episodic memory is emotional experiences, feelings, and events in which you were emotionally invested. For example, you still remember how bad you felt when your dad scolded you when you were 12.

Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment

Positive reinforcement: It is the phenomena when something is added to the environment to increase the occurrences or likelihood of a behavior. This is specially used in which children so that they learn the right behaviors quickly. For example, every time a child finishes his homework on time his teacher or mother appreciated him or give him chocolate. Another example could be every time you perform well at the office you boss appreciates you in front of everyone. The main premise of this is to increase the desired behavior in the person.

Negative reinforcement: This practice or technique is used when we have to increase the occurrences of desirable behavior of a person by removing something undesirable from the environment where the person is functioning. For example, 2 colleges are in constant conflict with each other and unable to focus on their work so the HR manager shifts them in different departments/ floors so that they concentrate on work by removing the undesirable stimuli.

Punishment: It is the practice of reducing the undesirable behavior of a person by either adding something undesirable to the environment ( for example you are not performing well in your school you parents prevent you from going out ) or by removing something desirable from the environment ( for example, because you are not performing well your parents confiscate your phone or don’t give you a pocket money).

Personality

It is the set traits, characteristics, and behaviors of the person which remains consistent over the period of time and which determines an individual fix way of deals with situations. Personality is formed by both biological and social factors.

The understand personality various psychologists have come up with their own theories and explanations. For example, Sigmund Freud considering personality as an interplay of unconscious drives and conflicts. For example, if someone is a smoker, he/she must have ad fixation at the oral stage. Behaviorists view that personality is formed by our interaction with the environment. For example, I am an out-going and talkative person because my parents are outgoing and I learned from them.

The 2 most common and widely accepted notions of personality are trait and type approach.

Trait theory holds the views that traits are relatively consistent over the period of time and remains the same for a particular person. It describes how a person is most likely to react in general circumstances in life. Traits are individual in nature and it doesn’t categorize people into groups, unlike type approach. Traits like honesty, genuineness, jealousy, trust-worthiness, aggression are examples of these.

Type theory categorizes people into larger groups and views that all those people who fall into the specific category possess a similar personality. The most common of the type theory is “The big-5 personality factor”
given by Robert Macrae and Paul Costa in 1985. The Acronym is OCEAN

O- Openness to experience. If I have a high score on this domain then I like new experiences and enjoy taking new adventures. For example, if I have a high score on this, it means I would want to travel a lot, I will be novel and creative in my work and would like to take up challenges

C- Conscientiousness. This means an individual is very responsible and considerate of others. Example a high score on this means I take others options into consideration, I believe in the well-being of everyone, plan everything and then act

E-Extraversion. This means I am outgoing and talkative. For example, a high score on this means that I seek happiness by being around people, I have many friends and enjoy myself in social settings. (Opposite of extraversion is introversion)

A-Agreeableness. This means how much I agree with others around me. That I am not dominating and is considerate of others' feelings and opinions.

N- Neuroticism. This means I get excessively happy or I get very sad. I am emotionally very reactive.

1. Health psychology, stress, and coping strategies

Health psychology is an integrative field that studies biological, social, behavioral and psychological factors in combination to understand how it impacts their health. It only studies the illnesses and health risks an individual can face in a lifetime which can either be physical or psychological. Health psychology emphasizes that behavior can influence health on an individual and hence it tries to change the behavior of an individual to prevent any health consequence.

Stress is the non-specific response of an individual to stressors in life and the environment. Stress was the first study by Hans Selye. Stress has both physical and psychological symptoms. Physical symptoms involve sweating, palpitation, increased heartbeat, increase or decrease in blood pressure, difficulty in breathing and other symptoms. Psychological symptoms include anxiety, poor concentration, irritability, indecisiveness, aggression, increase or decrease in appetite., insomnia or hypo-insomnia and other symptoms.

There are many everyday examples of stress like stress due to exams, office pressure or interpersonal conflict.

‘for example, you are lately under a lot of stress because your boss/teacher ahs given you an unrealistic deadline and you have to finish the talk.

Coping strategies are ways and techniques individuals use to over come and deal effectively with stressful situation. There are many coping strategies that an individual can use. 2 of the most widely used coping strategies under which under coping strategies are classified are approach and avoidant coping strategies.

Approach coping strategies are when you directly confront the problem at hand and your strategies, plan, identify ways, seeking emotional and social support to overcome stress.

For example, you are under a lot of stress because you have the assignment to submit and you don’t know how to finish it in such short notice. In such a case you will seek support from friends, try to visit the library and try to find the solution instead of ignoring it.

Avoidant coping strategies is when you deliberately try to avoid a stressful situation because you know facing it would cause you excessive pain and stress.

For example, instead of finding a solution about how to complete your assignment you indulge yourself in drinking, smoking and not thinking about the problem.