Applications of Developmental Psychology to Practice

Applications of Developmental Psychology to PracticeTitle inwardly your chosen topic atomic number 18a, health Psychology In Action barbarianren and the development, (chapter 3 by Tony Cassidy) discuss the modes in which developmental psychology advise claim practice.Psychology is a cumulative scientific study of the principal based on empiric entirelyy driven theories that link experience, behaviour and the brain. health psychology, despite being a relatively red-hot branch of utilise psychology, is following that exact path. It is the study of the mental processes of health, illness and healthc are systems (Cassidy 2006). succession the breadth of the discipline is far reaching, its core goal is the intention mental theories and handlings to prevent damaging behaviour.Perhaps the mind begins as a sportsmanlike slate and we start of as perfect idiots. At the another(prenominal) extreme, it could be like a Swiss-army knife, a collection of innately structured ne rvous modules or perhaps it starts off undifferentiated and swop by reversals modular. Is it our cultural learning or meta-representation that shapes our behaviour? (Wexler 2006) in that location is no shortage of one-line theories of human nature. However, when it comes to children there is precise little room for error. There is overwhelming evidence documenting the effect of proto(prenominal) childhood experiences with their long term health and associated behaviours. For example, stress in earliest life lowlife inhibit neurogenesis in later adulthood (Tucker 2002 Karten et al 2005), however to what extent does much(prenominal) developmental possibleness actually inform real life practice? Or in other words, are the current initiatives used by health psychologists shiting in the way theories predict? There isnt room for an exhaustive search here and so this piece will boil down on a few possible examples.More than 400 million adults worldwide are obese harmonize to the World Health Organization (2004) and children from many difference socio-cultural backgrounds are at risk (Cassidy 2006). There are a barrage of studies contemplating how our surroundings are responsible for the growing corpulency problem (Br causeell 2004). These papers all suggest towards two key issues(a) The easy availability of foods that are high in fat.(b) Poor opportunities for exercise.While it is intuitively obvious why people become obese, the relationship between weight and behaviour is still highly multiplex and health psychology has act to identify just about of the reasons behind the obesity epidemic. For example, a large body of evidence suggests that the family environment is the major get-go of influence over childhood eating behaviour (Rivett 2008).Psychologists have attempted to influence childrens food choices through the application of cordial learning theory in programmes such as The Food Dudes Program (Tucker 2002). The researchers developed a vide o of four older children who appeared to gain super powers for eating crop and vegetables. The basic premiss being that a child is more in all likelihood to imitate the behaviour of a person they admire and is consistent with a behaviouralist approach because there are rewards for behaviours which are desirable. equivalent programs have borrowed from Gratton et al (2007) and have used the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as a framework to promote childrens take and vegetable consumption. TPB posits that behavioural intentions are the proximal determinants of actual behaviour, with the perception of control being an important co-determinant of behaviour (Gratton et al 2007). The programme simply took two companys of children and showed one group ways in which they could make time in the day to eat five-a-day and another group on how they could overcome motivational barriers to achieving this goal. Both interventions were found to be successful. Similar programmes encouraging chi ldren to take exercise also exist (Cassidy 2006).Despite some success stories, the effects have been disappointing in the long-term with such programmes (Brownell 2004). Surrounded by a social construct implying that being cloggy is normal and acceptable, psychologists are presented with a constant struggle. However, by improving childrens own understanding of illness, this can promote healthy actions by groups and in in tandem with a crude TPB framework, help make better future lifestyle choices (Williams Binnie 2002).The localise of preventive intervention is also a key area of conjectural implementation in health psychology. This fits with a biopsychosocial copy where biological, psychological and social factors are implicated in both health and illness. Prevention cannot focus on only a single factor. For example, drug misuse in adolescence, both legal and illegal, is an issue across the developed world which can be tied into other more serious health concerns (Cassidy 2 006). troika aspects of family background have been found to predict risk of drug use parental involvement in crime, poor relationships with parents and unsupportive child-parent interactions (Mazanov Byrne 2008). Interventions have desire to use social inoculation theory developed by McGuire in the 1960s the basic ideology being that decisions are made in the context of social pressure. More recent work has attempted to model what makes an adolescent successfully quit smoking and found that past behaviour explained more than four times the variance of other factors (Mazanov Byrne 2008). On the other hand, family environment is evidently a key area of theoretical and ensuant practical intervention. Recent research has proposed that family therapy is currently undergoing radical change, but this change seems to be driven by more contextual factors as debate to new theoretical advances. (Rivett 2008)However, any interventions are often clouded by the prevalence of problematic be haviour patterns including impulsivity and rebelliousness making behaviour voiceless to predictThe 14 year old has a very wide-eyed decision to make. When he sees a light out of the corner of his eye, he is supposed to ignore it. (Powell 2006, p. 865)This is an extremely easy task and even 8 year olds can do it correctly half of the time, but it requires suppressing a natural impulse not the strong point of most teenagers. In this simple test the teenager performs as well as adults do, but inside his head, a lot more cognitive effort is required, as shown by recent functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (Powell 2006). be outdated theories keeping up with new physiological knowledge or should health care be expanded amongst the young moving off from traditional approaches and into the community? (Williams et al 2002)Health psychology is a new and exciting discipline and is constantly surprising both the academics and applied psychological communities. From enhanced wound healing after an ablaze disclosure intervention (Weinman et al 2008) to simply using a distraction intervention to residual the pain of pre-school children undergoing injections (Dahlquist et al 2002), there is a constant stream of new theories and interventions. However, no one theory is going to answer and treat all our health problems and there is always an inherent danger when generalizing to large populations. There is a tendency for fragmentation within modern applied psychology that inevitably results from the growth and development of individual areas.ReferencesBrownell, D. K. (2004) Food Fight, London McGraw-HillCassidy, T. (2006). Health Psychology children and development. In Wood et al. (eds) Developmental Psychology in Action. Blackwell Publishing. p. 101-135Dahlquist, M. L., Pendley, S. J., Landthrip, S. D., Jones, L. C., Steuber, P. C. (2002) distraction intervention for preschoolers undergoing intramuscular injections and subcutaneous port access. Health Psychol ogy, 21 (1), 94-99Gratton, L., Povey, R., Carter, D. (2007). Promoting childrens fruit and vegetable consumption Interventions using the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a framework. British ledger of Health Psychology, 12, 639-650Karten, J. G. Y., Olariu, A., Cameron, A. (2005). Stress in primeval life inhibits neurogenesis in adulthood. Trends in Neuroscience, 28 (4), 171-172Powell, K. (2006). How does the teenage brain work? Nature, 442 (24), 865-867Rivett, M. (2008). Towards a metamorphosis current developments in the theory and practice of family therapy. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 13 (3), 102-106Tucker, M. C. (2002). Expanding pediatric psychology beyond hospital walls to meet the health care needs of ethnic minority children. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 27 (4), 315-323Weinman, J., Ebrecht, M., Suzanne, S., Walburn, J., Dyson, M. (2008). Enhanced wound healing after emotional disclosure intervention. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13, 95-102Williams, M . J., Binnie, M. L. (2002). Childrens concepts of illness An intervention to improve knowledge. British Journal of Health Psychology, 7, 129-147