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1. Define Erikson\'s notions of hope, will and purpose. How do these relate to t

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Question

1. Define Erikson's notions of hope, will and purpose. How do these relate to the first three stages of social development 2. Paigets theory was thought to fully explain the behavior of children. Please describe any three limitiationsof his approach that have contributed to the decline in the influence of this theoretical perspective. 3. compare the Apgar and NBAS assessments of Newborns. In what situations would each be most beneficial? 4. The text indicates that " the behavioral consequences of genetic instructions depend on the environment in which those instructions are implemented,""genes can influence the kind of environment to which a person is exposed, " and environment influences typically makes children within a family different," Please describe a real life example illustrating each of these principles. 5. Use the recurring issues in developmental psychology to explain whether you think Vygotsky's theory is more closely related to piaget's theory or to informational-processing theory?

Explanation / Answer

1. Erickson talked about hope, will and purpose as virtues of different stages of life. He has given an eight stage model of human development starting from infancy till death. He said that each stage of life is characterized by a conflict and if this conflict is successfully resolved then the individual will develop as a virtuous individual. His first stage of life is known as ‘trust vs. mistrust’. The virtue of this stage of life is hope. If the infant feels and thinks that there is a significant other who will take care of him/her in times of distress, the infant will develop hope for future. The second stage of life is autonomy vs. shame and doubt, and the virtue of this stage is will. Toilet training takes place during this stage and an infant who is successful in toilet training without harsh treatments form parents during this stage develop a will to take care of themselves in later life. The third stage of life is characterized by initiative vs. guilt. If the infant is given opportunities to explore the world around him/her then the infant will develop into a person will have a purpose in life. After the successful completion of each stage of life, the growing individual develops schemas regarding the abilities which he has. If the stages of life are very well taken care of by the significant others then the virtues of that stage are developed in him.

2. Piaget’s theory is considered an intensive theory that deals with the cognitive development of the child. However, there are certain limitations to his theory-

A) Piaget’s did not operationally define the concepts in his theory. For example, accommodation and assimilation talk about changes in the cognitive schemas but he failed to explain what type of changes he refers to?

B) His theory is stage theory. The stages are fluid in nature.

C) The preoperational child may be less egocentric then the way Piaget has defined him to be.

3. APGAR is done one minute after the birth and is repeated after five minutes post birth for overall assessment of a newborn baby’s health. It measure baby’s color, heart rate, reflexes, muscle tone and respiratory efforts. APGAR scores range from zero to two for each condition with a maximum final total score of ten. At the one minute APGAR, scores between seven and ten indicate that the baby will need only routine post delivery care. Scores between four and six indicate that some assistance for breathing might be required. Scores under four can call for prompt, lifesaving measures. At the five minute APGAR, a score of seven to ten is normal. If the score falls below seven, the baby will continue to be monitored and retested every five minutes for up to twenty minutes. Lower than normal scores do not mean that there will be permanent health problems with the child.

NBAS is a more comprehensive test than APGAR.NBAS looks at a wide range of behaviors and is suitable for examining newborns and infants up to two months old. By the end of the assessment, the examiner has a behavioral "portrait" of the infant, describing the baby's strengths, adaptive responses and possible vulnerabilities.

4. The nature-nurture controversy is going on from ages and will go on for ages. There are many instances where if someone is not genetically endowed, then the role of nurture was useless and in some instance if the environment was good enough and suitable but a person was not genetically endowed then the role of environment was zero. Each individual needs to have a sound genetic predisposition to develop ability and the environment must be enabling to let it happen. Similarly, how one looks ate experiences in life is determined by the way he/she appraises a situation. There are widespread individual differences which contribute to the processing of information by individuals. Therefore, two people exposed to similar situation will have different meanings of the same.

5. I think that Vygotsky’s theory is more related to information processing approach. Vygotsky said that the human development is to a large extent influenced by the way information is processed by the individual using language. Thought and language are the two main concepts of Vygotsky’s approach. It is through the way we use language to comprehend the world around us determines the way information is processed.