Thursday, August 28, 2014

Chapter one

After reading the first chapter what really caught my interest was the Life-span perspective. It had struck my interest due to doing some past work and research on Erick Erickson and his stages of human development. I grew to appreciate what he had laid as a sound look at the interactions of different forces that affected a person not just the Penal stage and Oedipus complex of Freud. Though a student of his Erick was able to look at more of the interactions it would help make along with others the Life-Span Perspective. This perspective looks at all aspects of life and studies them in detail not just the adult and child stages. I like the diagram that was used to describe all aspects of this perspective, it paints a wonderful idea of how all it comes at a person and shows where it comes from (p.11 Kathline Stassen Berger). It than looks at the five steps that help define steps in human development and explain how they change. The five of them are as follows: Multidirectional, Multicontextual, Multicultural, Multidisciplinary, and lastly Plastic (p.1011 Kathline Stassen Berger). The text goes into detail on each of the disciplines and explains why they are important. This was well written and shows a different perspective which the next section goes into the science method which does something completely different. I see this as a great way to see how aspects like cultural, race, gender, and other forces define and shape people.  They can look at the entire life of a person and how they changed through time and different exposure to life’s challenges.

What I will learn from this class is that there is a lot more involved. The subject matter I do enjoy reading and find it to be making ask questions about it. I do like that it does look at the empirical view and scientific view of psychology as well giving broader view and solution to a problem from different angles. I am curious as we go on how the ideas of Life-span perspective will evolve and how it can help see how people change in their lives at whatever stage they are at.

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