Prenatal Development, Infant Care, Attachment, Child Development and Adolescence (Essay Sample)

Prenatal development, Infant care, Attachment, Child development, Adolescence
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1 Introduction
Development can be termed as change patterns beginning at conception that goes on throughout a person’s life. Development takes varied forms such as biological development which encompasses physical change, social development to refer to changes that occur in peoples’ relationships, emotional development to mean changes in emotional experiences and understanding and lastly cognitive development which entails changes in the way human beings think.
Paul Bates (1987) developed a set of principles to explain development in a human being. To him, development encapsulated life-long process to mean development in life is a process. Development to him at birth does not remain constant to adulthood. Again, there is set point where development attains its optimum. Development is multidimensional as well as multidirectional. The former refers to the fact that development cannot be singly described while the later, can holds that development doesn’t take a specified or rather an established route. Paul Bates also formulated the principle that development involves gains and losses. Plasticity of development is another sensitive principle worth noting. Plasticity of development takes into account a person ability to develop differently in behaviors. Lastly, development is both historically and contextually sensitive.
A Greek legend, Sphinx, by name, became the first person to attempt a demonstration to show development in man. In his quest to address the issue of development, he posed a riddle to his fellow travelers "what moves on four limbs at sunrise, two limbs in the afternoon and eventually three limps at dusk?" After lengthy unfruitful consultations amongst the travelers, Oedipus, Greek by origin, intelligently cracked the riddle. To him, a man walks on fours at childhood, walks on two legs during adulthood and ultimately on threes whereby this is illustrated by the fact that man hobbles around with a walking stick at advanced ages. From this excerpt, it can conclusively be deduced that development in a man is not a one-time instance, rather it is a process.
1 A Review of APA’s Principles of Ethics
Research I dominated with a plethora of experiments. Principles of ethics have been put in place o ensure guidance about performance of experiments. Over years legislations have been enacted, codes have come in place to ensure a proper way of conducting researches. In a number of instances, human beings have been made to act as study subjects. Such act has attracted a lot of question from all spheres of interest. To start with, the law is succinctly clear as regards treatment of persons, harassment of a person, confidentiality and issues of consent towards scientific inquiry. I pursuing all these, a mandatory prescription termed as Ethical Standards must be adhered to.
* Beneficence and no malfeasance
First, the principle of beneficence with malfeasance has been articulated in the 2010 Code of Ethics. In essence, psychologists endeavor to benefit the people involved in their work. In their profession psychologist try to protect the welfare as well as rights of those people they interact with it. Also, they seek to safeguard the rights of the affected people in their areas of animal research. More often when disputes or rather conflicts erupt, psychologist solve such disputes in a manner that I not likely to cause harm. In most if not all cases, scientific experimentation in psychology has a greater likelihood of affecting lives of others. In a quest to ameliorate the effect, psychologists, usually are alert in guarding against social, political, financial or organizational factors that might bear negative impacts on others.
* Fidelity and Responsibility
Second, fidelity as well as responsibility is pertinent as regards the day to day activities of psychologists. Establishment of relationships of trust with those people they work with is critical. As a requirement, psychologists are expected to uphold professionalism, clarity as regards their roles and obligations and be ready to take apportionment of responsibility for their activities that have a likelihood of causing harm. Corporation among psychologists cannot be overlooked. Serving to the best of the interests of those psychologists work with has been addressed too. Readiness to contribute a fraction of their time for very little or null compensation has also been addressed.
* Integrity
Integrity forms the basis of every scientific research. As a requirement, psychologists are expected o uphold a high degree of professional integrity. Working with honesty, truthfulness and accuracy are forms o professional integrity. Fraudulent activities and theft among psychologists defeat the whole purpose of integrity. Striving to keep promises and avoidance of malicious misrepresentation of facts forms the backbone of professional integrity. However, there are situations in which deception can be justified under the code, i.e. circumstances to maximize benefits while minimizing harm. In such circumstances, it’s their responsibility to ensure any resulting damage is corrected and any adverse effects to that.
* Justice and fairness
In dispensing their services, psychologists take into account the fact that justice and fairness to all persons are paramount. People should benefit from the professional services equally. Provision of free peer- reviewed materials for open access to all is an act geared towards the achievement of justice.
* Respect for Human Rights and Dignity
Observance of human rights and dignity at large is a principle outlined in the code. Essentially this principle entails obtaining of a person’s consent and the protection of an individual’s confidentiality a well as privacy. Worth considering is issues closely connected to culture, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, language and national origin, all these form the backbone of natural rights and freedoms. It calls for understanding and appreciation of these factors in the psychology profession. In scientific research, it is of great importance to keep a substantial number of the factors highlighted above in mind and by extension understand their effects on the research target. A psychologist acquainted with these five principles stands a better chance of succeeding in their endeavors.
2 Lifespan Development
Life-span development in the field of psychology involves examination of constancy as well as a change in the behavior of human beings across the entirety of human life. Lifespan encapsulates the study of life from birth or rather conception to death. Development psychologist deal with diverse issues stretching from motor skills growth in a child to gains and losses observed in the mental functioning of the l elderly societal members CITATION Pat13 \l 1033 (Paterson & Redpath, 2013). Study of life-span development can never be possible without regard to the area as comparative psychology, learning, cognitive psychology and social psychology.
An Analysis of Principles of Lifespan Development
* Development is life-long
Paul Bates (1987) explained many of principles guiding the study of development of human beings within the bounds of lifespan structure. These laws altogether gives an account on the nature of development. The first principle states that: development is life-long. This belief circumvents duo aspects. First, development goes all through life-span in entirety. It would be wrong to assume that there is a set point where life must reach or decline about adulthood or childhood. Second, development involves processes that are absent at birth but come in throughout a person’s lifespan.
* Development is Multidimensional and Multi-direction
Development is multidimensional as well as multidirectional. Multi-dimensionality takes the view that development cannot be singly described e.g. increase or decrease or increase in behavior. On the other hand, multi-directionality states that there is no particular path that development ought to take. So to say, specific development goals can be achieved in a multiplicity of ways.
* Development Involves Gains and Loses
Development requires gains and losses. In a nutshell, development has aspects of growth as well as decline. Illustratively, in formal schooling program, a child is made to understand new concepts thereby increasing their knowledge. On the flipside of the coin, the child’s creativity is restricted since they are made to master concepts defined by other people elsewhere. Balance between these two aspects does change with time.
* Plasticity of Development
Development is plastic. Plasticity of development encompasses the individuals’ ability to different forms of development and behaviors. Plasticity of development takes into account three aspects: baseline performance, baseline reserve capacity, and developmental reserve capacity. For illustration, infant kids who have had a hemisphere of their brains removed due to complexion will soon resume normal brain functioning as soon as the brain realigns itself ant the remnant region takes over functionality. Experimentally, in a situation where rats’ nuclei structure has been altered to take a form desired, naturally a rapid change in structure takes effect to replace the altered nuclei.
* Development is Contextually and Historically Sensitive
Development is situated in history and particular contexts. As the fifth principle, there is a variance across the contexts in which we live. For example, different environments are usually associated with various factors that have a potential on affecting the development of a child. Historically...