Psychology Final Project
by: Melissa Baloy
Objective 1: Nature
I got my sense of creativity from my mom. My mom has her own business making and decorating cakes. She is also a former musician and artist. I know I inherited this from my mom because my dad doesn’t have one ounce of creativity- he’s all math and science- and no one in his family is artistic either. I’m no cake decorator (me and baking don’t mix), but I am really into photography, and I also sing and draw as well.
Nurture
Objective 2: Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor:
Over the summer i babysat my little cousins a couple days a week. They were all boys under the age of five, and there was a set of two year old twins- Brock and Colin. During this time, the boys were operating in the Sensorimotor stage. I know this because when their mom left to go to work, they stood at the door for twenty minutes crying and screaming "Mmmmmooomma". I tried to explain to them that she was going to be back a little later in the day, but they thought she was gone for good. This is an example of them lacking object permanence which is learned later on in this stage.Preoperational:
When I was little, I used to have this book that sang the Old MacDonald song when you pressed a button. On each page there would be an animal and you'd read with the song and do the noises of the animals too. By representing the animals through pictures, words and sounds, I was able to associate the animals with their correct noises.
Concrete Operational:
In Mrs. McCue's first grade class, I learned about how four quarters equaled the same amount as a dollar or a hundred pennies. This taught me conservation, which is a key component of the concrete operational stage.
Formal Operational:
When I am watching television, I am able to follow along with and comprehend the story line as well as make predictions about what may happen next. This is an example of using abstract logic, one of the developmental phenomena of the Formal Operational stage.
Objective 3: Moral Development
Pre-conventional level:
Whenever my sisters and I got good grades in elementary school, my mom or dad would get us ice cream cones, or we’d go rent a movie from Family Video. We didn’t do it for the sake of getting good grades, we did it for the reward we were promised.
Conventional level:
One time when I was at my friend’s house, we were having a huge sleepover, and they wanted to go to Walmart to pick up some snacks but we didn’t have a ride and we didn’t want to walk. They wanted me to drive them in my mom’s van. I had already had my license for over a year, but my mom still limited me to only having three friends in the car. There were ten girls including me. Needless to say, I did end up driving everyone to the Walmart and we were all fine in at the end, but I felt guilty about it because I knew I wasn’t supposed to do it. I gave into what they wanted me to do because I was basing my reasoning on their expectations.
Post conventional level:
When I was on my way to school one day, my friend called me and said she needed to be picked up because of a family emergency. She didn’t have a ride and she was clearly upset, so I decided to skip first period and go get her. I didn’t feel that it was right to just leave her there when all I had to go to was gym and medical terminology, but I was worried about what my mom would do. I brought her back to my house, and although my mom was surprised to see us, she understood when I told her what happened. In this situation I understood that not everything in the world was black and white. Skipping class was bad but leaving my friend would have been much worse.
Objective 4: Factors that Influence Human Development
My mom has an authoritative parenting style. In a way she’s very strict, but at the same time she can be lenient. For example, she wants us to get good grades and expects us to get good grades, but always says “If you get a bad grade and I see that you’re trying, then it is okay and we’ll work something out, but if you’re failing and I don’t see that you’re putting in effort, there’s going to be a problem.”
I think this is probably the best way to go about parenting because I don’t feel a constant pressure to be perfect like I know some of my friends who have authoritarian parents do. Because of my mom’s parenting style, I do not strive to be completely perfect like many of my friends because I realize that being perfect at everything is not as important as learning to be the best I can be in a healthy way.
Objective 5: Stages of Adolescence
Current Stage:
I am currently in the Identity Moratorium stage which is trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. Right now I have absolutely no idea where I want to go for college, and I’m trying to decide between two majors- photography and nursing. I want to be able to be creative in my job and travel, but I also want to help people so it’s a difficult choice. Especially since one doesn’t even remotely relate to the other.
Past Stage:
From the age of four to about second grade, I was stuck in the Identity Foreclosure stage which is when you are committed to wanting to be something without any knowledge of it whatsoever. All I wanted to be was a “hot babe”. Why did I choose this? I wish I knew the answer, but that’s all I wanted to be until I realized in second grade that it doesn’t actually pay anything to be a hot babe.. at which point I switched to wanting to be a drummer with purple hair because apparently that seemed better.
Objective 6: Evaluating Positive & Negative Characteristics of Masculinity, Femininity, and Androgyny
a. Masculinity:
o Competitive: Men tend to be more competitive than women, and I can be very competitive.
o Athlete: I play soccer
Femininity:
o Quiet
o In tune to others feelings: Women are usually more aware of how others are feeling or how their actions affect someone else.
o Makeup: Guys generally don’t care about makeup or aren’t interested in it, so I label it as a feminine trait.
Androgyny:
I'm pretty good about expressing my feelings but at the same time the "mushy gushy" stuff makes me uncomfortable.
b. I think I’m more gender dominant (feminine) than anything. When we took the test for it in class, it said I leaned more towards the feminine side of things and I agree with that.
Objective 7: Effects of Anxiety & Stress
When I’m stressed and anxious, I tend to get a lot of headaches. Sometimes they can get really bad and can prevent me from doing the things I need to get done- like homework. I always get anxious in really big crowds, and it makes me feel a little out of control of the situation, but for the most part I feel like I have a pretty good handle on things.
I have a lot of ways that I like to unwind or relieve myself of stress. Here are a few of them:
-Take a bubble bath
- Drink tea
- Take a nap
- Burn my favorite candle and read a book
- Journal about it
- Workout/stretch
- And if absolutely ALL of those fail, ice cream is the way to go.
Objective 8: Characteristics of a Healthy Personality
Sublimation:
When I’m mad or anxious I clean a lot because it makes me feel better. I’m transferring my feelings and using them to be productive in some other way.
Denial:
When everything is going wrong and its just a bad day, I refuse to acknowledge that the day is really bad. I just repeat to my self "everything is fine". My friends make fun of me for it but sometimes it's all I can do to deal with things when they are too much.
Objective 9: Classifying Mental Disorders
a. Out of all the disorders we have covered, I relate most to social anxiety disorder because I'm always worried about if what I'm saying is going to offend someone or make me sound stupid. I don''t think I actually have this disorder because it's not really extreme, and it only occurs sometimes.
Objective 10: Methods of Psychotherapy & It's Effeciveness
b. Psychoanalysis would be the most effective form of therapy for a person with both Schizophrenia and PTSD. The therapist wold ask questions to uncover the truth behind what's nagging at the person that they are not conciously aware of.