Final

Question 1

Erikson’s fourth stage

Answer 1

Building on the initiative they learned in the last stage, children during the ages 6 to 12 now learn to be competent and productive. Children now attempt to master the skills that their culture deems important so that they can become productive members of their culture. In our culture, among other things, this means doing well in school.Industry versus Inferiority stage (ages 6 to 12) - Children attempt to attain competence in meeting the challenges presented by parents, peers, school, and the other complexities of the modern world. If they fail to attain competence, they feel inferior.

Question 2

Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning

Answer 2

Standards are external (what is moral and immoral depends on what some external authority says) and the child is trying to avoid punishment and reap rewards.

Question 3

Level I: Preconventional morality

Answer 3

Standards are external (what is moral and immoral depends on what some external authority says) and the child is trying to avoid punishment and reap rewards. This is similar to pre operational thought in that it is egocentric. The child sees things from her/his perspective.

Question 4

Level II: Conventional morality

Answer 4

External standards are internalized somewhat (a key point, however, is realizing that the standards are still external). Children want to be considered good so they engage in behaviors that are considered good and don’t engage in behaviors that are considered bad. This parallels concrete operational thought in that it relates to current, observable practices (it’s not abstract or hypothetical).

Question 5

Level III: Postconventional Moral Reasoning.

Answer 5

Similar to Formal Operational thought because it uses abstractions, going beyond what is concretely observed in a particular society.

Question 6

Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation

Answer 6

the child wants to avoid punishment so he/she obeys the rules. According to the child, immoral behavior is behavior that leads to punishment. Moral behavior is behavior that doesn’t lead to punishment.

Question 7

Stage 2: reward orientation

Answer 7

obey the rules so you can get rewarded for doing so. Be nice to others so they will be nice to you. As in stage 1, moral behavior is whatever behavior brings a reward. Similarly, immoral behavior is any behavior that doesn’t lead to a reward.

Question 8

Stage 3: “Good Girl” or “Good Boy” orientation

Answer 8

Proper behavior is what pleases others. For example, the child doesn’t steal because the parent will consider the child bad if he/she steals.

Question 9

Stage 4: Law and order orientation

Answer 9

Proper behavior is behaving like a proper citizen. Therefore, the law is followed even when no police are around.

Question 10

Stage 5: Social Contract Orientation.

Answer 10

Obey laws because they benefit society

Question 11

Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles.

Answer 11

he person determines what is right or wrong based on their internal standards of right and wrong. This clearly differs from Level I and Level II thinking, where right and wrong is decided by an external authority. A person in this stage can resist the thinking of an immoral society. For example, if a person lives in Nazi Germany, and is told that killing Jews is moral, they will disagree with their society and decide that killing jews is immoral. This is different from Levels I and II where a person decides what is moral and immoral based on what an external source (their society) says.

Question 12

Criticism of Kohlberg

Answer 12

Gilligan says Kohlberg defined morality in terms of justice not compassion. Gilligan believes men view morality in terms of justice, but women view it in terms of compassion. This causes women to score low on Kohlberg’s test (when tested women are less likely than men to be placed in stage 6). Gilligan believes morality should be viewed in terms of both justice and compassion.

Question 13

The depth hypothesis

Answer 13

The idea that almost all mental activity takes place unconsciously.
The conscious mind is only a small part of our mind, the unconscious is much larger
See figure 13.1 on page 504 (which contains an illustration of the depth hypothesis and the structural hypothesis) and notice that most of the mind in the figure is unconscious.

Question 14

Conscious

Answer 14

The psychological phenomena that the person is attending to at that moment

Question 15

Unconscious

Answer 15

the psychological materials (memories, desires, fears, etc.) that the person isn’t attending to at that moment.

Question 16

Structural hypothesis

Answer 16

The mind is divided into the Id, Ego, and Superego. These three forces are continually interacting with one another, often in conflict.
(again, see figure 13.1 for an illustration of the structural hypothesis)

Question 17

primitive biological drives (hunger, sex, aggression, etc.). The id operates on the pleasure principle. That means that it is only interested in obtaining pleasure and avoiding pain. It isn’t interested in logic, reality or morality.

Answer 17

Id

Question 18

Ego

Answer 18

the part of the mind that is logical and can plan. It operates on the reality principle. It can take reality in to consideration and plan how to get what the id requires.

Question 19

Superego

Answer 19

the internalized moral standards of the society (the parents in particular). The superego isn’t interested in pleasure, logic, or reality. It is only interested in doing the morally correct thing.

Question 20

Anxiety

Answer 20

a signal to the ego that there is danger. It can be reality anxiety (for example, a person rushes at you with a knife) or due to an id impulse that will cause the person to be punished by the superego (in the form of guilt) or by reality.

Question 21

Defense Mechanisms

Answer 21

The ego can deal with anxiety through defense mechanism. These are means of denying or distorting sources of anxiety.

Question 22

Denial

Answer 22

deny an external threat. (For example, being told you will die of cancer. But you don’t acknowledge that fact)

Question 23

repression

Answer 23

unacceptable id impulses are repressed. They are unacceptable because expressing them would bring punishment from the superego (in the form of guilt) or from reality. Whereas in denial you deny an external threat, in repression you deny an internal threat.

Question 24

projection

Answer 24

unacceptable id impulses are attributed to others (one example is a paranoid person attributing his unacceptable impulses of aggression to others)

Question 25

Rationalization

Answer 25

Giving a socially acceptable reason for an unacceptable behavior.

Question 26

Reaction Formation

Answer 26

vehemently profess the opposite of the unacceptable feelings the person has.

Question 27

Sumblimation

Answer 27

transforming unacceptable impulses into acceptable ones. A person who has an unacceptable aggressive impulse may become a surgeon so he can be aggressive in acceptable ways (cutting into a body to treat an illness is acceptable).

Question 28

1)Twin studies

Answer 28

Studies find that identical twins, who share all of their genes, have higher concordance rates for homosexuality than fraternal twins, who, on average, only share half of their genes (in other words, people who have all of their genes in common are more likely to both be homosexual than people who only have half of their genes in common) consistent with the idea that genes contribute to homosexuality.

Question 29

2)Prenatal sex hormone exposure:1)Testosterone

Answer 29

perhaps a decreased exposure prenatally causes homosexuality in men and an increased exposure causes homosexuality in women.
Animal studies and perhaps even human studies supporting this

Question 30

3) Structural differences

Answer 30

There are size differences between the sexes in different brain regions. The size of these brain structures in homosexual men tend to approximate the sizes of these structures in women.

Question 31

The Psychodynamic Perspective of homosexuality:

Answer 31

According to Freud, a boy is afraid of being castrated, so he renounces his mother and identifies with his father. According to psychodynamic theory, the boy is unable to overcome his attachment to his mother and identify with his father. He therefore continues to feel castration anxiety and therefore is unable to be attracted to females due to fear of castration. He then substitutes a desire for men instead.
Studies typically find no effect of parenting, however, on the development of homosexuality.

Question 32

Why do students drop out of school?

Some factors that correlate with dropping out of school:

Answer 32

1) Premature birth and/or low birth weight – These problems are associated with learning problems (for example people with low birth weight tend to have short term memory problems which lead to difficulties in learning). Having learning problems could lead to dropping out.
2) Pregnancy - girls drop out to raise a child, and boys drop out to go to work to support a child
3) Low IQ and learning disabilities – Maybe these lead to dropping out because the students fail in school as a result and therefore they are compelled to quit.
4) Socioeconomic Factors – Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to drop out
5) Family Influences – Authoritative parenting is associated with doing well in school.

Question 33

Marital happiness is about the same between first and later marriages
Marital stability is lower in remarriages. About 50% of first marriages end in divorce, but about 60% of remarriages end in divorce.
Possible causes include:

Answer 33

1) people who remarry have already divorced and are possibly more accepting of it as a solution to problems
2) Possibly less social support from their original families and are less integrated with their in-laws (so there is no relationships that can act as a barrier to divorce).
3) More conflicts regarding stepchildren (on how to discipline stepchildren or distribute resources to them. Also, stepchildren may be hostile at the replacement of their parent.).
Negative Stereotypes regarding stepfamilies
People perceive step families as negatively affecting children’s mental health.
Children’s well-being in stepfamilies

Question 34

Children in stepfamilies (and children in single parent families) are less well adjusted than children in first-marriage families. They have higher rates of juvenile delinquency, do less well in school, etc.
It’s unclear if the negative effects are due to the remarriage or the previous divorce.
Evidence that the problems are social rather than biological

Answer 34

1) Younger children adjust better to remarriages than older children
2) Children who were very young when their parents divorced adjust better when there is a remarriage (they adjust better than when their biological parent doesn’t remarry)
Studies indicate that certain factors are more important to children’s well being than if they are in a first marriage family, or a step family, or in a single parent family. They are:
1) Quality of the communication and relationships among family members.
2) Parental involvement – how close the parents or stepparents are to the children is important to the children’s well being.