Question

Many theorists highlight the importance of perception (or how one thinks about the self and others) when considering the adjustment of adolescents. Using the ideas of Bowlby, Garbarino, and Selman, describe how immature or skewed perceptions can explain difficulties that many adolescents experience. Your answer should highlight each theorist’s ideas about why immature or skewed perceptions can lead to problematic behavior and/or relationships.

Answer 1

John Bowlby was a psychoanalyst he developed the theory of attachment. According to his theory, the child is born biologically pre-programmed and innate quality to attach himself to the main attachment figure. This is the primary bond although the child has other attachment figures as well. There is a reciprocal pattern of interaction to the child’s responses and the attachment figure usually the mother. Failure or absence of the attachment figure leads to serious and negative consequences. He called it maternal deprivation, the long term maternal deprivation can lead the child to delinquency, aggression, depression, reduced intelligence, and affectionless psychopathy. Affectionless psychopathy is the behavior where the growing child shows no remorse for anti-social behavior he has no concern or affection for others, they act in impulse regardless of the consequences.

Dr. James Garbarino's theory is based on the social ecology of child and adolescent development. He has worked with the children in war-torn Iraq, Kuwait, and other countries. He has witnessed trauma, abuse, and violence the children, and how they cope with these stress. His theory is based on the experiences that he earned as a witness in criminal and civil, cases of children. The developmental process in children is affected by their ecological environment and the lack of spiritual knowledge. According to him, children are more exposed to violence due to the availability of knowledge through easy means. The child develops stress after stress and like a block, it gets accumulated in him as there is no one to guide or take interest in the child these accumulated stress become violent behavior in growing children. The easy availability of weapons like guns in the US culture brings more violent action by the growing children. To prevent violence in children it has to address at a young age by recognizing underlying causes and addressing it in time.

Robert Selman's theory is based on cognitive development. It is a psychological theory that deals with growing children's ability to understand others' perspectives, feelings, and behavior. According to his theory, one’s decision and how to behave depends upon the social situation and the understanding the action changes with age taking a different role at different levels of age. If one can take different roles at different levels of the growing period that shows he understands the social situation.

Cognitive development in children depends upon interpersonal understanding, interpersonal negotiation strategies, and the awareness of personal relationships. As with age, one learns to understand what others think which means he has developed the skill of perception. This shows that understanding and solving a conflict strategy has developed. The children who show violent behavior and antisocial activities have developed an advanced social understanding and good social skills, but they do not act on it positively rather take an easy way of conflict leaving behind interpersonal negotiation strategies. That shows that there is a longitudinal co-relation exists between the age and the role-taking and looking at the social environment the children take to antisocial activities.

The adolescent is the age of impulse action they adolescent goes through emotional physical and psychological changes as per Bowlby's theory the growing child needs attachment figure, in the absence of an attachment figure the child is unable to develop social bonding and it leads to serious and negative consequences. The child is egocentric and he grows his needs for attachment figure increase he develops friends in the school that influences his behavior and due to lack of attachment the child becomes aggressive and has no concern for others. This child as per Dr. Garbarino develops stress and if they are abused in their growing period they become antisocial, they develop a negative perception of the society these children lack religious understanding thus their perception to others' feelings develop looking at the ecological factors. If the child is grown in a violent and abusive environment he would perceive and develop negative understanding towards others. As per Selman, the age is also a fact of the adolescent are at the age where they require support as their role has changed from childhood to adolescence. They are facing different social environments their reaction to the same behavior changes from childhood to adolescence. As a child, if somebody hit them they would cry go to the attachment figure and forget everything, but as an adolescent, their behavior would change it would depend on how to perceive the situation and acts accordingly he can be either aggressive or use interpersonal negotiation strategies. The impulsive adolescent who is aggressive can develop conflict for the same situation because he would perceive it differently and ignored negotiation.