The Growing Years: Developing a Sense of Self
By the end of childhood, most children have developed a sense of themselves as individuals, unique and apart from others they know and see. Although the general consensus of researchers is that this sense does not emerge before the age of two, Karen...
The Enduring Self: Humanistic Perspective, The
Humanistic psychologists came to the forefront in the mid-twentieth century bridging the gap between the Freudian era and contemporary personality research. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow were the forerunners of today's positive psychologists, empha...
The Becoming Years: Developmental Tasks of the Elder Years
People who have something that captures their attention and their sense of purpose make richer contributions than people who are self focused. Psychologist Erik Erikson theorized that the developmental task of the elder years is to reflect on life a...
The Becoming Years: Development: from Womb to Tomb
Adolescence and older adulthood, two stages of development at near opposite end of life, share a common thread of exploration, discovery, and growth. From womb to tomb-childhood, adolescence, early and middle adulthood , the years of old age-- we ar...
Thinking and Language: Child's Remarkable Ability to Acquire Language, A
Young children gain access to language in well-documented stages, from cooing and babbling to an explosion of words at about 18 months. B. F. Skinner thought that language acquisition relied on operant conditioning and reinforcement, whereas Noam Ch...
Thinking and Language: Case of Wrongful Termination?, A
A shadow jury listens carefully to opposing attorneys characterize the events that led a quality control manager, Elena Gonzales, to file a lawsuit against her former employer. Is this a case of wrongful termination? What arguments will these mock j...
The Search for Intelligence: Standardized Tests-What Do They Really Measure?
Standardized tests, when used properly, can provide valuable objective information, highlighting academic strengths and weaknesses that might go unnoticed. Originally, that was their intent, to predict success in school and identify children who nee...
Endless Questions: Measuring Correlations to Find Relationships
In order to determine interrelationships researchers measure the same two variables for each individual involved in a study. If naturally-occurring associations can be found between two different sets of data, one factor can be used to predict the...
The Enduring Self: Self Esteem
There are two facets to self esteem, one is your sense of self worth, and two is the feedback you receive from other people. The way performance feedback is processed depends on whether someone has high or low self esteem and how stable this assessm...
The Enduring Self: Personality Traits-The Big Five
Today's personality researchers are mainly interested in investigating the basic dimensions of personality and its connection to behavior. They start with a few characteristics that are stable over time and can be captured by a few dimensions. The m...