Comparison of Cross-sectional Research Design and The Longitudinal Design

Describe how the cross-sectional research design differs from the longitudinal design. What do these two strategies have in common?

A cross-sectional research design is a research method in which groups of participants of different chronological ages are observed and compared at a given time; longitudinal design is a research design that the same participants are observed repeatedly, sometimes over many years. The difference that a cross-sectional research design unlike longitudinal design is that cross-sectional design uses participants at certain age, and the participant will change into another group of age-interval; but the longitudinal design select participants and keep follow-up actions while the child is growing. The common part of the two strategies is that the two ways have to do research for participants for a long period of time, for instance, maybe 10 years.

Define attachment. Identify two infant behaviors that reflect whether a child is securely attached

Attachment is the emotional relationship between a child and the regular caregiver. That is, a child will tend to love his/her babysitter rather than his/her own parents, assume that the parents hire babysitter to take good care of the baby for a long period of time per day. A securely attached children show some distress when the parents leave the room because the child will know his/her parents will return soon; and they will seek for proximity, comfort, and contact upon reunion, since it gives desire and harmony to the child.

What are the two important dimensions of parenting styles? How are these dimensions related to an authoritative parenting style?

The two important dimensions of parenting styles are demandingness and responsiveness. Demandingness refers to the parent's willingness to act as a socializing agent, and responsiveness refers to the parent's recognition of the child's individuality. The demandingness of authoritative parents demand children conform to appropriate rules of behaviors, and the responsiveness keeps channels of communication open to foster their children's ability to regulate themselves.

Identify and describe two of Erikson's stages of development. Use one stage from childhood/adolescence and one from adulthood. Provide examples of each, using events from your life or the lives of people you know.

Two of Erikson's stages of development are toddler at 2 years old, and adolescence from teen into 20's. In the period as a toddler, a child learns to exercise will and do things for themselves, or they doubt their abilities (autonomy and shame and doubt). For example, when I was a child, I had to learn to be dependent for a while when the parents are not there for such as 15 minutes, and I had to learn to use the bathroom rather than using diapers.

About the adolescence, a boy or a girl has to learn to work at refining a sense of self by testing roles and then integrating them to form a single identity, or they become confused about who they are. For example, I have been learning how to cooperate with others, that I should share my own opinion with others instead of doing all the things by myself.

Identify three criticisms of Kohlberg's stage of moral reasoning. Provide your own example of each

The three criticisms are based on three biases in Kohlberg's moral reasoning: age, sex, and culture. The age criticism is that Kohlberg had used only boys as his research subjects. In this way, Kohlberg's principles are not suitable for adults because the adult moral judgments are recognized to be changed. For example, a child may think that killing a fatally-defeated baby is morally wrong; but in the eyes of adults, killing that baby may be moral because they have relieved the great pain of the baby. That is, children think differently from adults, and thus their moral reasoning should be different, which is not included in Kohlberg's moral reasoning.

As for the sex, Kohlberg had used boys; no girls were included. Since it is believed that female mold their moral decisions to maintain harmony in their social relationships while male refer more to fairness, male and female should have different way of thinking, and hence they have different moral reasoning. For example, males may think that abortion is not moral because it refers to killing, but females may think that as the fetus is growing inside her body, the mother should have absolute moral rights to abortion. Thus, Kohlberg's moral reasoning is not good enough for both males and females.

In terms of culture, different cultures have different moral standards. For example, traditional Chinese and Japanese give no respect to female and they think this is morally correct; but in USA, females are much well respected because their culture emphasizes the equal between different sexes. Kohlberg's research was done within only one country; therefore his research is not suitable for all cultures in the world.

What is ageism? How can it affect the elderly?

Ageism is a kind of illness that prejudice against older people, similar to racism and sexism in its negative stereotypes. Ageism makes the public discriminate elderly, in whom the elderly opportunities of doing things are limited, and they are being isolated and being fixed with a negative self-image.

Essay Questions

A child learns how to roll a ball. Next, the child is given an orange to eat. Discuss how Piaget would describe the way in which this child learns to deal with these round objects. Be sure to include the concepts of scheme, assimilation, and accommodation.

Concept of schemes is a Piaget's term for cognitive structures that develop as infants and young children learn to interpret the world and adapt to their environment. Assimilation is the process, suggested by Piaget, whereby new cognitive elements are fitted in with old elements or modified to fit more easily. Accommodation is the process of restructuring or modified cognitive structure so that new information can fit into them more easily. When a child learns how to roll a ball, the scheme of round objects that the child learned is that any round object can roll. When the child is next learned to eat an orange, according to Piaget's assimilation, the child has another scheme that a round object is eatable. Then, assimilation occurs that the child get confused by the concept of a ball and an orange, that he/she thinks that both a ball and an orange can roll and eatable at the same time (the ball is the old element, and the orange is the new cognitive element). And then, by further exploration, the child learns to distinguish a ball and an orange that, for example, orange is sweet and sour while a ball is tasteless because a ball is made of plastic. In that way, accommodation occur so that the child restructures and modifies the cognitive structure so that the new information (the orange) can fit into the initial cognitive structure (an orange is a kind of round object so that orange can roll; a ball belongs to the category of round objects also, but this is different from an orange that a ball is not eatable).

A student has an opportunity to cheat on an exam. Describe the kinds of reasoning, related to this situation, that might occur at each of Kohlberg's three levels of moral development.

According to Kohlberg's theory of moral development, a person can have three levels of moral reasoning - preconventional morality, conventional morality, and principled morality.

In the level of preconventional morality, a child orientates the pleasure and pain so that he/she can avoid pain or not to get caught; and, he/she orientates cost and benefits and the reciprocity - the person learns to get rewards. In this level, when a student has an opportunity to cheat on an exam, the student will go cheating because the cost- benefit orientation makes him/her feels that the risk of being caught is small and it worth a try. He/she will try their best to cheat (for instance, a kindergarten student writes words on his hand for dictation, and the hand holds as a fist to avoid being caught) and, especially for his/her neighbor classmates, the student may share the way to cheat because of the reciprocity. Although this kind of childish cheatings can be easily caught, small children and students will take the risk to cheat in order to gain praises for high marks.

In the level of conventional morality, a child learns to become a good child so that he/she can gain acceptance and avoid disapproval in adults such as his/her parents; and the child learns to obey law and order, following riles and avoiding censure by authorities. In this level, the student will stop cheating because he/she wants to be praised by adults such as the teacher. He/she wants to be praised by behaving well and following rules. That is, the motivation that motivates the student not to cheat when there is a chance is to gain desire after being praised by authorities. In addition, children in this level may accuse other cheating classmates not because of the unfairness, but because of that the accusation against a "sinner" can emphasize the student's own "sinlessness".

In the level of principled morality, a child will learn to have social contact to promote the society's welfare; and the child will take ethical principles to achieve justice and avoid self-condemnation; meanwhile, the child will try to be true to universal principles and feel oneself part of a cosmic direction that transcends social norms. Students in this level can think of any reason that why cheating is wrong - cheating is unfair, not responsible, etc. - and through this reasoning process, the student will not cheat although there is a chance available. The student will think of the social benefits in cheating - cheating is selfish and not responsible to the society - and thus he/she will think that cheating is not a good thing. Besides, because of the justice, the student will see that cheating is morally wrong, and that cheating will bring self- condemnation. Hence, the student will avoid cheating in this level.