Psychology 650 Week 1: Human Cycle Discussion
Question 1
The textbook discusses the different stages of the life cycle. Discuss how difficult it is to determine when each stage begins and ends, using biological, cognitive, and psychosocial criteria. Contrast this discontinuity perspective with the continuity perspective. Which perspective do you favor?
Answer
The different stages of the lifespan in humans are meant as a guide to help elucidate the expected changes from an individual as they pass through these milestones (Lefton & Brannon, 2008). Despite this, different scholars differ based on their opinions of what these stages should be and where they begin and end (Belsky, 2016). This highlights how challenging it is to define someone purely by their stage in the life cycle using biological, cognitive, and psychosocial criteria alone. This discontinuity perspective can be contrasted with the continuity perspective, which takes a less segmented approach and suggests that we are all on a pathway through the lifespan. This perspective is, to me, preferable because it allows for human differences in development.
Response 1
I agree with the idea that the discontinuity perspective does not make it easy to understand what someone is going through when they are in a specific stage.
Response 2
I prefer the continuity perspective as well, because it means that you can look at biological, cognitive, and psychosocial criteria differently and no-one is considered “behind” on their development.
Response 3
This post is interesting because it shows that people are expected to meet certain milestones but of course everyone is different so they might feel bad if they do not meet them as expected.
Question 2
Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of Sigmund Freud’s theory. Which aspects of his theory seem relevant to you? Which aspects seem more irrelevant?
Answer
The main strength of Freud´s theory for me is the idea that the events of our childhood can influence us until later in life (Wortman, 2000). This has been shown to be case even outside of psychosomatic theories. A weakness is that he focuses a lot on dreams and what they mean for people, which is not something that has been proven to be true (Mladen Dolar, 2009). His separation of the person into the id, ego, and superego is also simplistic because I think we all have multiple aspects of our personalities.
Response 1
I quite like the dream interpretation part of Freud´s work because it shows that we have a lot of stuff going on in our subconscious.
Response 2
I disagree that the id, ego, and superego idea is simplistic because I think we all do have hidden and unavailable parts of our psyche.
Response 3
I agree that the idea that our childhood influences who we are as an adult and this was one of the best parts of Freud´s work.