Question

Nancy, aged 24, broke up with her boyfriend three months ago. When they were together, Nancy sometimes felt that her boyfriend was reluctant to pick up her call. She hypothesized that other girls would use many different methods to tempt her boyfriend, so she secretly checked his phone messages. She often thinks about the meaning of love. In her belief, real love means that one has to completely merge with others. Her strong demand made her boyfriend feel breathless and scared. Nancy thought that she was a good and caring girlfriend, but her boyfriend could not tolerate her behavior that he broke up with her. Nancy loses her trust in love and plan to live alone for the rest of her life.

1. Which cognitive development stage Nancy is in? Support your answer with reference to the features of the cognitive stage. (12 marks)
2. Identify and explain the stage of psychosocial development of Nancy according to Erik Erikson. (12 marks) How would you describe her resolution in this stage? (6 marks)
3. Identify and explain any two defense mechanisms that Nancy might use after the breakup with her boyfriend. (12 marks)
4. Suggest two ways that might help Nancy forget this hurtful love experience with reference to theories of forgetting. (12 marks)
5. Nancy’s younger sister, Helen, thinks that Nancy’s boyfriend broke up with Nancy because Nancy checked his phone messages. Helen told herself that she should never check her boyfriend’s cell phone. Use observational learning to illustrate Helen’s learning process. (16 marks)

Answer 1

As per Piaget's theory of development, Nancy is in the stage of the formal operational stage, this stage starts from 11 sometimes it is taken as 15 years onwards. This is the transitional period from adolescent to adulthood.

At this stage the thinking becomes advances and the person is able to think and abstract logically, they come up with the creative solution of their problems as they develop abstract thinking so instead of relying on their previous experiences they would use deductive logic to know the possible outcome of their actions and its consequences.

Nancy is an adult she is 24 years old from her boyfriend's behavior she had come to know that he is less interested in her, there can be other reasons, so she tried to check through his messages in the mobile. Her thinking about love was completely merging with the other, but her too much of caring was not like by her boyfriend, and he started distancing himself. She understood that the relationship would not last and decided to break with her boyfriend; she used her logical thinking that dragging a relationship that is not giving satisfaction it is better to part ways.

2. According to Erick Erickson stage of development, Nancy is an adult she is 24 years old, she is in her early adulthood, this is the period of intimacy and isolation if the earlier stages are not developed successfully it is a possibility that one will have difficulty in having a smooth relationship at this stage. Nancy has understood that her relationship with her boyfriend will not sustain, thus she broke up with him. According to her, she was a caring girlfriend but her boyfriend could not tolerate her behavior of possessiveness. As the friendship broke her believe in love had broken and she does not want to have any other relationship that is a period of isolation.

3. Defense mechanisms are used to protect oneself from anxiety and depression after some stressful situation this psychological strategy that is used by the clinician. As per Sigmund Freud, anxiety and guilt are due to our Id and superego that becomes demanding.

One of the defense mechanisms Nancy can use is Displacement, under this mechanism one has to substitute his impulse or aggression with some other pleasant event or thought; Nancy could take out the aggression or frustration on some other object. For example, Nancy is frustrated after the breakup to avoid developing anxiety or depression she should take out her aggression on her dog by shouting at him so the anxiety would have the way out, and she would feel relaxed.

The second is sublimation: Substitute the aggression or an impulse in a socially acceptable way like Nancy can enroll herself for doing short term courses or if she likes to play sports she can play her favorite game and increase her social circle and friendship.

4. We remember things and events because o our brain collects data, information encodes and sore it and whenever necessary this stored information is used. Forgetting takes place when various thoughts and information interfere with each other (Baddeley, 1999) which means the fresh memories get mixed with old memories. It is possible for a person to forget an event consciously or unconsciously and that be best done by 1. Transience is human nature and ability to remember the recent events, but as time passes the memory starts fading. It is possible to enter into long-term memory if it is not used for a long- time memory it would help in general deterioration of the hurtful memory of separation if Nancy let her hurtful experience fade away on its own thus retrieving would become less frequent.

2. The second method can weaken the memory by reinforcing and replacing that memory by pleasant and acceptable events.

5. Observation learning is learning through watching somebody's action and retaining the information Nancy's sister Helens advise that instead f Nancy checking her boyfriend's cell phone she should have noted and observed his behavior while receiving the messages on his mobile, and how were his reactions after receiving the messages. Secondly, she should have observed his behavior when she wanted to be very close to him Nancy should have noticed that he did not like her interference with his personal life. To keep the friendship she should have observed him closely and kept the friendship.