Psychosocial

Question 1

Growth

Answer 1

refers to the increase in size,
function, or
complexity to the point of maturity.

Question 2

Aging

Answer 2

refers to the kind of biological
changes that occur beyond the point
of optimal maturity

Question 3

Development

Answer 3

refers to the change over
time in the, Structure Thought or Behaviour of a person as a result of both biological and
environmental factors:

Question 4

Biological Processes of Development

Answer 4

All living organisms develop according to a genetic plan.

In humans the plan is flexible and allows for some physical and much behavioural alterations.

The process of growing from the genetic plan is referred to as maturation

Question 5

Learning

Answer 5

The process by which the environment causes lasting changes in behaviour

Question 6

Socialization

Answer 6

is the general process by which
the individual becomes a member of a social group.

Question 7

Psycho-social perspective

Answer 7

is an organizing framework to
identify and integrate information
from wide range of disciplines.

Question 8

First feature of psycho-social perspective

Answer 8

It addresses growth across
the life span, identifying
and differentiating
central issues from
infancy to very old age

Question 9

Second feature of psycho-social perspective

Answer 9

It assumes that we are not totally at the mercy of biological and environmental influences.
At every stage of life, we have the capacity to contribute to our own psychological development and to integrate, organize and conceptualize our own experiences so as to protect ourselves and to direct the course of our lives.

Question 10

Third feature of psycho-social perspective

Answer 10

It takes into consideration the active contribution of culture to one’s individual growth.
At ach life stage, cultural goals and aspirations, social expectations and requirements, and the opportunities that the culture provides make demands on us that draw forth reactions.
These reactions influence which of a person’s capabilities will be developed further. This vital link between the individual and the world is a key mechanism of development

Question 11

First stage of development

Answer 11

: A stage of development is a period of life that
is characterized by a specific underlying organization.
A wide variety of behaviours can be viewed as expressing the underlying structure of each stage.
At every stage, some characteristics differentiate it from the preceding and succeeding stages.
Each suggests areas of emerging competence or conflict that may explain a range of behaviours.
At each stage we are confronted with a unique problem that requires the integration of our personal needs and skills with the social demands of our culture.

Question 12

Developmental tasks

Answer 12

These consist of a set of skills and
competences that contribute to increased mastery over one’s environment and that define what is healthy, normal development at each age in a particular culture.
The tasks form a sequence: success in learning the tasks of one stage leads to development and a greater chance of success in learning the tasks of later stages.
Failure at the tasks of one stage leads to greater difficulty with later tasks or may even make later tasks impossible to master.

Question 13

Infancy

Answer 13

Developmental tasks

The Development of sensory/perceptual and motor functions
Attachment
Sensorimotor intelligence and early causal Schemes
Understanding the nature of objects and creating categories
Emotional Development

Psycho social crisis
Trust vs mistrust

Question 14

Toddlerhood

Answer 14

Developmental tasks

Elaboration of locomotion
Fantasy Play
Language Development
Self Control;

Psycho social crisis
Autonomy versus shame and doubt

Question 15

Early school age
(4 to 6)

Answer 15

Developmental tasks

Gender Identification
Early Moral development
Self Theory
Group Play

Psycho social crisis
Initiative versus guilt

Question 16

Middle school age

Answer 16

1.Friendship
2.Concrete Operations
3.Skill Learning
4.Self Evaluation
5.Team Play

Psycho social crisis
Industry versus inferiority

Question 17

Early adolescence
(12 to 18)

Answer 17

1.Physical Maturation
2.Formal Operations
3.Emotional development
4.Membership in Peer group
5.Sexual relationships

Psycho social crisis
Group identity versus alienation

Question 18

Later adolescence
(18 to 22)

Answer 18

1.Autonomy from Parents
2.Gender Identity
3.Internalised Morality
4.Career Choice

Psycho social crisis
Individual identity versus identity confusion

Question 19

Early adulthood
(22 to 34)

Answer 19

1.Exploring Intimate relationships
2.Childbearing
3.Work
4.Lifestyle

Psycho social crisis
Intimacy versus isolation

Question 20

Middle adulthood
(34 to 60)

Answer 20

1.Managing a career.
2.Nurturing an intimate relationship
3.Expanding caring relationship
4.Managing the household

Psycho social crisis
Generativity versus stagnation

Question 21

Later adulthood
(60 to 75)

Answer 21

1.Promoting Intellectual vigor
2.Redirecting energies to new roles and activities
3.Accepting one’s life
4.Developing a point of view of death

Psycho social crisis
Integrity versus despair

Question 22

Very old age
(75 until death)

Answer 22

1.Coping with the physical changes of aging.
2. Developing a psycho-historical perspective
3. Travelling uncharted territory

Psycho social crisis
Immortality versus extinction

Question 23

Psycho social crisis

Answer 23

This arises when one must make psychological effort to adjust to the demands of one’s social environment at each stage of development.
Societal demands vary from stage to stage. The individual experiences these demands as mild but persistent guidelines for and expectations of behaviour.
Before the end of each stage of development, the individual tries to achieve resolution, to adjust to society’s demands, and at the same time to translate them into personal terms.
This process produces a state of tension that the individual must reduce in order to proceed to the next stage. It is this tension state that produces the psychosocial crisis. (A normal set of stresses and strains)

Question 24

The Central Process

Answer 24

Resolving the Psychosocial Crisis: This links the individual’s needs with the requirements of the culture at each life stage.
It is a mechanism that assists the individual to successfully resolve the psychosocial crisis.
This defines the circle of significant people in the life of an individual at
each stage of development.
Initially, a person focuses on a small number of relationships, but this increases in depth and intensity as the person grows and interacts in a variety of expanded social environments.
However, in middle and later adulthood, the individual returns to a small number of extremely important relationships.

Question 25

Prime Adaptive Ego qualities

Answer 25

These develop from the positive resolution of the psychosocial crisis of a given stage and provide resources for coping with the next.
Erikson described these qualities as mental states that form a basic orientation toward the interpretation of life experiences

Question 26

Early life stages and prime adaptive ego qualities

Answer 26

Infancy (0-2) - Hope - An enduring belief that one can attain one’s deep and essential wishes.
Toddlerhood (2-4) - Will - A determination to exercise free choice and self -control
Early School Age(4-6)- Purpose- The courage to imagine and pursue valued goals
Middle School Age (6-12)- Competence- The free exercise of skill and intelligence in the completion of tasks
Early Adolescence (12-18)- Fedility- The ability freely to pledge and sustain loyalty to others.

Question 27

Late life stages and prime adaptive ego qualities

Answer 27

Later adolescence (18-22)- Fidelity- The ability to freely pledge and sustain loyalty to values and ideologies
Early Adulthood (22-34)- Love- A capacity for mutuality that transcends childhood dependency
Middle Adulthood (34-60)- Care- A commitment to concern about what has been generated
Later Adulthood (60-75)- Wisdom- A detached yet active concern about with life itself in the face of death
Very Old Age (75+) - Confidence- A conscious trust in oneself and the assurance about the meaningfulness in life

Question 28

Core Pathologies

Answer 28

These are potential destructive forces that may develop as a result of ineffective, negatively balanced crisis resolution at each developmental stage. These serve as guiding orientations for behaviour. These pathologies move people away from others.Much energy is directed to resisting or avoiding change. Core pathologies are energised worldviews leading to strategies that protect people from further, unwanted association with the social system and its resistant, tension-producing demands.

Question 29

Core Pathologies- Early life stages

Answer 29

Infancy- (0-2)- Withdrawal - Social and emotional detachment
Toddlerhood (2-3)- Compulsion- Repetitive behaviours motivated by impulse or by restrictions against the expression of impulse
Early School Age (4-6) - Inhibition- A psychological restraint that prevents freedom of thought, expression and activity.
Middle School Age (6-12)- Inertia - A paralysis of action and thought that prevents productive work
Early Adolescence (12 to 18)- Dissociation- An inability to connect with others

Question 30

Core pathologies Later life stages

Answer 30

Later adolescence (18-22) - Repudiation - Rejection of roles and values that are viewed as alien to oneself
Early adulthood (22-34)- Exclusivity- An elitist shutting out of others
Middle adulthood (34- 60) - Rejectivity - Unwillingness to include certain or groups of others in one’s generative concern
Later adulthood (60 to 75)- Disdain - A feeling of scorn for the weakness and frailty of oneself and others
Old Age 75 until Death - Diffidence- An inability to act because of overwhelming self-doubt

Answer 31

THEORIES OF LEARNING
Learning theories have proposed mechanisms to account for the relatively permanent changes in behavior that occur as a result of experience. Four theories of learning:
Classical Conditioning: This was developed by the Russian Psychologist, Ivan Pavlov (1927/1960) There are six basic elements in classical conditioning – The Neutral Stimulus (NS), The Neutral Response (NR), The Unconditioned Stimulus (US), the Unconditioned Response (UR), The Conditioned Stimulus (CS) and The Conditioned Response (CR).
Before conditioning, the bell is the neutral stimulus (NS). It elicits a response of interest or attention, nothing more – a neutral response (NR). The sight and smell of food are the unconditioned stimuli (US) that elicit salivation, the unconditioned response (UR).

Question 32

During Conditioning

Answer 32

During conditioning trials, the bell is rung shortly before food appears. The dog is said to have been conditioned when it salivates at the sound of the bell, even before the food is presented.
The bell, therefore, comes to control the salivation response. Salivation that occurs in response to the bell alone is called the conditioned response (CR).
Think of your own reaction when you look at your watch and realize that it is close to lunch time. Conditioning does not take place randomly between any two events linked in time.
A conditioned response is established to the degree that there is a meaningful relationship the CS and the US. Usually, they must occur together many times before conditioning is established.

Question 33

What does conditioning do

Answer 33

Pavlovian conditioning accounts for a great deal of the associational learning that occur throughout life.
It provides a model for understanding how multiple associations, sometimes stored at the unconscious level, can be established and triggered in the process of concept formation, memory and problem solving.
When a specific symbol is paired with an image, an emotional reaction, or an object, that symbol takes on new meaning.
The associations made through classical conditioning may involve labels and concepts, but they do not necessarily require language skills.

Question 34

Everyday conditioning

Answer 34

During infancy and toddlerhood, a variety of positive and negative emotional reactions are conditioned to people, objects, and environments as the child develops attachments.
Our reactions to the taste of a certain type of food or the feel of a particular material may be the result of conditioned learning that has persisted into adulthood.
Similarly, fears may be the result of classical conditioning.
Many people recall at least one frightening experience, such as nearly drowning, being beaten, or falling from the top of a slide.
The association of fear or pain with a specific stimulus may lead to a systematic avoidance of that object for the rest of one’s life.

Question 35

What is operant conditioning

Answer 35

Operant Conditioning: E.L. Thorndike (1898) studied a different type of learning called operant conditioning, by observing cats as they figured out how to escape from a cage.
He described a process of trial-and-error learning in which the cats made fewer and fewer random movements and increasingly directed their behavior to the correct solution (pulling a string to release a latch). Operant conditioning emphasizes the role of repetition and the consequences of behavior in learning.
One of the best known American psychologists – B. F. Skinner, a behaviourist, reviewed the work of Pavlov and work of Thorndike, and summarized the essential differences between classical and operant conditioning:

Question 36

Difference between classical and operant

Answer 36

In classical conditioning, the conditioned response can begin at zero level, that is, it may not be present at all. In trial-and-error learning, a response must be made if it is to be reinforced or strengthened.
In classical conditioning, the response is controlled by what precedes it. In trial-and-error learning, the response is controlled by what follows it.
Classical conditioning is most suitable for internal responses (emotional and glandular reactions). Trial-and-error learning is most suitable for external responses (muscle movements and verbal responses).

Question 37

About reinforcement

Answer 37

Skinner’s work followed the lines of Thorndike’s.
His focus was on the modification of voluntary behavior through the consequences of those behaviours.
In the traditional operant conditioning experiment, the researcher selects a response in advance and then waits for the subject to make the desired response (or at least a partial response).
Then, the experimenter presents a reinforcement.
Then, the experimenter presents a reinforcement.
A reinforcement is operationally defined as any stimulus that makes a repetition of the response more likely.
There are two kinds of reinforcers. Some, such as food and smiles, increase the rate of response when they are present.
These are called positive reinforcers. Others, such as electric shock, increase the rate of the response when they are removed. These are called negative reinforcers.

Question 38

Stimulus and Shaping

Answer 38

A stimulus can be considered a positive reinforcement only if it makes some behavior.
Operant conditioning develops behavior patterns that are under the learner’s control.
The person can choose to make a response or not, depending on the consequences associated with the behavior.
Shaping: One means of developing a new complex response is shaping. Here, the response is broken down into its major components.
At first, a response that is only an approximation of one element of the behavior is reinforced.
Gradually, new elements of the behavior are added and a reinforcement is given only when two or three components of the response are linked together.
Once the person makes the complete response, the approximations are no longer reinforced.

Question 39

Schedules of Reinforcement

Answer 39

This refers to the frequency and regularity with which reinforcements are given.
There is no doubt that operant conditioning occurs often throughout life. Reinforcement schedules set by one’s work, one’s spouse, and oneself operate on much of one’s behavior as an adult.
Reinforcement conditions determine the behavior that will be performed, and how long a behavior will persist once the reinforcement for it is removed

Question 40

Social Learning doing

Answer 40

focuses largely on learning in a social context. Rather than stripping away the social meaning that surrounds much of human learning, it acknowledges the social environment as a stimulus for learning.
Also, it introduces imitation and direct instruction as additional means of acquiring new behaviours.
In its more recent expression, social learning theory also gives a much greater role to cognitive processes, including the knowledge the learner already has, the influence of one’s expectations about how one’s behavior is evaluated, and anticipation of the probable outcomes of success or failure.

Question 41

What is social learning

Answer 41

The concept of social learning evolved from an awareness that much learning is based on observing and imitating other people’s behavior.
A child can observe someone perform a task or hear someone say a new expression and imitate that behavior accurately on the first try.
In toddlerhood, for example, imitation provides a mechanism for the rapid acquisition of new behaviours.
Adults provide the models for many activities. They express feelings, voice attitudes, perform tasks, and enact their moral values.
By observing and imitating many of these behavoiurs, children become socialized into their family’s and their community’s way of life.

Question 42

Bandura

Answer 42

Bandura was interested in identifying the conditions in which a child will imitate a model. Children have been found to imitate aggressive, altruistic, helping and stingy models.
They are most likely to imitate models who are prestigious, who control resources, or who themselves are rewarded.
Bandura and Walters (1963) suggested that children not only observe the behaviour of a model but watch what happens to the model.
When the model’s behavior is rewarded, the behavior is more likely to be imitated; when the model’s behavior is punished, the behavior is more likely to be avoided.

Question 43

Observational learning/ vicarious punishment

Answer 43

When naughty behavior goes unpunished, it too is likely to be imitated. This process is called vicarious reinforcement.
Through observational learning, a child can learn a behavior and also acquire the motivation to perform the behavior or resist performing that behavior depending on what is learned about the consequences of the behavior.
Thus observational learning encourages self-regulation and the internalization of standards for resisting certain behaviours as well as for enacting other behaviours.

Question 44

The Influence of Cognition on Social Learning Theory

Answer 44

Recent directions in social learning theory have taken an increasingly cognitive orientation (Bandura 1989).
That is, through observational learning, the child becomes acquainted with the general concepts of the situation as well as the specific behavior.
Direct reinforcement or non-reinforcement provides one type of information about how to behave in a certain situation.
In addition, we watch others, learn about the consequences of their actions, and remember what others have told or shown us and what we have read or learned about the situation.

Question 45

More on influence of cognition on social learning

Answer 45

Over time, a person begins to form a mental representation for the situation, the required behavior and the expected outcome.
The rules for behavior in each setting are abstracted from what has been observed, in watching others, what has happened following one’s own behavior in the past, and what one understands about the demands of the immediate situation.

Question 46

More on Bandura ( self-efficacy and Confidence of success)

Answer 46

People’s judgments about how well they expect to perform, or whether they expect to improve their skill level through training, have a clear impact on their performance.
Bandura (1982,1989) identified self-efficacy as a key element in the cognitive basis of behavior. Self-efficacy is defined as the sense of confidence that one can perform the behavior demanded by a situation.
According to Bandura (1989), the decision to engage in a situation, as well as the intensity of effort expended in the situation, depends on a person’s confidence of success.Those who have a high sense of efficacy visualize success scenarios that provide positive guides for performance and they cognitively rehearse good solutions to potential problems.
Those who judge themselves as inefficacious are more inclined to visualize failure scenarios and dwell on how things will go wrong.
Such inefficacious thinking weakens motivation and undermines performance

Question 47

More on Efficacy

Answer 47

Bandura points out that adjustment depends on one’s judgment about the outcome of a situation.
People who judge their efficacy to be low give up and become apathetic in unresponsive environments.
In responsive environments, they may become more depressed and self critical when they see others who appear to be similar, succeeding.
The concept of self efficacy clarifies how people adapt when they enter new roles or situations.
The successes and failures we observe in others and the encouragement we receive from others influence our expectations. Coping behavior can also be influenced by a history of prior efficacy.

Question 48

Cognitive Behaviourism

Answer 48

One objection raised frequently against classical and operant conditioning as theories of learning is that they have no language or concepts that describe events that occur in the learner’s mind.
Learning is described as a relationship between environmental events and individual responses. In discussing the intervening set of responses that influence learning,
Edward Tolman (1932/1967, 1948) said that the learner develops a cognitive map, which is an internal mental representation of the learning environment.
Individuals who perform a specific task in a certain environment attend primarily to that task, but they also form a representation of the rest of the setting – that is, a cognitive map.
The map includes expectations about the setting’s reward system, its spatial relationships, and the kind of behavior accorded the highest priority.
An individual’s performance in a situation represents only part of what he or she has learned.
The fact that people respond to changes in the environment indicates the existence of a complex mental map.

Question 49

Cognitive activities and factors

Answer 49

Cognitive behaviorists study the many internal mental activities that influence behavior.
According to Walter Mischel (1973, 1979), at least six cognitive factors must be taken into account if a person’s behavior is to be understood:
cognitive competencies, self – encoding, expectancies, values, goals and plans and self-control strategies.
Cognitive competencies consist of knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Self- encoding is one’s self-evaluation and self-conceptualization.
An interesting finding in this area is that depressed people tend to evaluate themselves more realistically than those who are not depressed.

Question 50

Random fact

Answer 50

Mischel (1979) argued that “to feel good about ourselves we may have to judge ourselves more kindly than we are judged”.
In other words, most people who are not chronically depressed may bias their evaluations of themselves toward self-enhancement.

Question 51

Cognitive factors

Answer 51

Here, expectancies refer to our expectations about our ability to perform, the consequences of our behaviour, and the meaning of the events in our environment.

Values consist of the relative importance we place on the outcomes of situations. One person may value its possible outcome.

Goals and plans are our personal standards of performance and the strategies we develop for achieving them. Obviously, we all differ in our goals and plans; these differences will lead to considerable variations in behaviour.

Question 52

More cognitive factors

Answer 52

Self-control strategies are our techniques for regulating our own behaviour.
With self-control, we can learn how to leave the realm of stimulus control in order to gain control over our behaviour.
The more aware we are of these effects of stimuli on our behaviour, the more effectively we may overcome, channel, or eliminate their influence.
Of these six areas, the one that has received the most attention among those interested in learning and performance is expectancies.