Psychology theories

Review scholarly literature on three theories within your specialization.  Analyze how these different theories could be integrated, synthesized, or combined to create a better perspective on your proposed (or School-approved) dissertation topic.  Evaluate the extent to which these theories conflict in ways that cannot be reconciled within this context.

The review of theories within general psychology specialization

Abstract

There has been a continued interest by psychologists to investigate the theories that impact human development. In the research, several parental characteristics such as attachment and mental-state talk would be investigated; and how it is associated to the stages of human development. These have been described to be an integral part of the human development and particularly in children who emulate the behaviors of adults around them. (Jackson and Roland, 2008) described children attempt to configure their surroundings, evaluate the safe and unsafe places, people and things. According to researchers, children determine the rewards and cost of certain kinds of relationships, and they define their identities based on their interactions with others. These compositions and configurations that take place are very important to social cognitive development from infancy to adulthood and through life time. In these research findings, it was noted that the critical point of social cognitive development usually took place in the early childhood. The researchers noted that this is the period we emulate the behaviors of our parents and adults around us as children.

Introduction

This paper highlights polygamous marriages and defines how they could be integrated and synthesized to create a better perspective on school-approved dissertation topic (Adults describe the experience of growing up in a polygamous family). Three scholarly theories of literatures would be reviewed that discuss the relevance to this assignment. There has been a continued interest by psychologists to investigate the theories that impact human development. In many researches, several parental characteristics such as attachment, parental role play and mental-state talks were investigated, and researchers emphasized how they are associated to the stages of human development from infancy. This acknowledgement reinforced the integral part of human development and particularly in children who emulate the behaviors of adults around them. Children attempt to configure their surroundings, evaluate the safe and unsafe places, people and things according to (Jackson and Roland, 2008).

Furthermore, children determine the rewards and cost of certain kinds of relationships, and they define their identities based on their interactions with others. These compositions and configurations that take place are very important to social cognitive development from infancy to adulthood and through life time. In these research findings, it was noted that the critical point of social cognitive development usually took place in the early childhood and through the life’s span.

Definition of Polygamous Marriage.

Polygamous marriages are defined as a marriage construct in which there is more than one spouse at a time. The polygamist (the husband) is married to multiple wives. These types of marriages are frequent in many societies around the world compared to polyandrous marriages which is consisted of multiple husbands with one wife. This structure of polygamous family is usually large and influenced by culture and religion compositions according to (Al-krenawi & Graham, 2006).

Polygamous marriage prevalence

In many cultures and religions in sub-Sahara African, and other countries polygamous practice is seen as a way to ensure family’s socioeconomic security and stability. Poor economy on the part of the women encourages participation in the polygamous marriage construct. Fenske, (2011) reported: “women within a survey cluster who received bad rainfall draws in their prime marriageable years are more likely to marry a polygamist”. Past researches have linked the demand of wives in polygamous construct to the capableness of women in agriculture in sub-Sahara; in contrast and in other parts of the continent where women have participated and been most viable in agriculture, polygamous practices are least common. With these findings in mind focusing on the continent, the issue of polygamous construct appeared to be a location issue rather than ethnic groups as the unit of treatment according to (Fenske 2011, p.2).

Culture has been described as life and in many of these societies where polygamous practices are still rampant such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal to name but a few particularly in western Africa, despite decades of schooling and the development of these societies’ economics, people still see polygamy as a cultural right. Therefore, there are no laws that ban polygamous marriages and those that do seek monogamous marriages do so by choice and for others it becomes economic decision making.

Impact of Polygamous Marriages on Children

According to (Owuamanam, 1984; Al-Krenawi, 2011) “in polygamous family where there are many mothers and siblings, the adults that are raised in this type of complex marriage structure, experience more negative self-concepts because members of the family compete for positions”. This continuing experience can result in frequent disagreements between members of the family, which can affect individual well-being and the meaningful philosophy of life. Relationship in infancy such as with caregivers and significant others (who may be more or less responsive and viable) can have impact in children development.

Polygamous families have their own distinct household problems, usually stemming from jealousy between co-wives over the affections and resources of the husband (Al-Krenawi, 2011). Relationships within the family are further complicated by the presence of children of different mothers: The husband's perceived favoritism for one wife's children or the efforts of each wife to secure more resources for her own children is additional sources of friction. Therefore, this is not a conducive environment that children can develop a healthy psychological well-being. Children raised in this kind of environment are most likely to begin their antisocial behavior because of continued experience of conflicts among parents witness from in the families.

Since this form of family structure is usually large, and as a result experiences frequent occurrences of higher levels of family conflicts, burdens and violence within the parents, and rivalry between siblings. Behavior patterns among polygamous adult members could vary greatly. One can lead by example or be completely opposite. However, there are possibilities that one’s action could directly affect another’s behavior. Adult polygamous members also can have completely distinct behavior that do not mimic another or affect another. Hughes (2011) described “the unavailability of parents to their children to have uncertain impact on social development”. In most cases, the adult children of polygamous family never really had the opportunity to be taught about understanding of social development because they were raised in an environment that is embedded in continuing conflicts by the caregivers since infant.

Review of Scholarly Literature Theories

This paper will discuss the impact of polygamous marriages on children’s social development from perspective of 1) Bandura social cognitive theory, 2) Bolby’s attachment theory, 3) Erikson’s psychological development stages theory.

Bandura

Bandura, (2002) social cognitive theory is founded on causation that described: “Personal factors in the form of cognitive, affective and biological events, behavioral patterns, and environmental events, all operate as interacting determinants that influence one another bi-directionally”(p.167). He believed that the human effect is embedded in self-theory that enclose in self–organizing, proactive, self-reflective and self-regulative mechanism. His findings further noted that the human agency which is exercised through direct personal and proxy agencies rely on the efforts of intermediaries, and by collective agency operating through shared beliefs of efficacy, pooled understanding, group aspiration and incentive systems, and collective action. He found that personal agency operates with a broad network of sociostructral influences.

This theory is relevant to the school approved dissertation topic (Adults describe the experience of growing up in a polygamous family) because it provided hopes for polygamous adult children that despite having been raised in a conflicted environment that may have resulted to negative self-concept from other members of the families as they compete for survival, a behavior that continue to cause disagreements. He emphasized “conscious thought over unconscious determinants of behavior in their further development that self-regulation of actions relies on self-monitoring, judgment, and self-reaction, all which are ordinarily conscious during the naturally learning situation (p.507)”. This emphasis reassured that all are not totally lost for young adult polygamous children, that despite they were raised in problematic families, there is the likely hood that they have learned in the process about self-regulation, self-monitoring and other positive concepts of approach and avoidance, which would assist them to be successful and to build their young adult lives. Furthermore, that people are responsible for the operation of their lives course; they are not just on looking hosts of brain mechanisms orchestrated by environmental events. The sensory, motto and cerebral system are tools which people use to accomplish the tasks and goals that give direction and meaning to the individual lives (Harre & Gillet, 1994). Social cognitive theory allows for a system of emergent interactive agency (Bandura, 1986, 1997).

(Elliot, 2006) added to social psychology that: “It is the self that seeks to approach success and avoid failure, and it is the self that is evaluated with respect to progress in meeting these objectives (Carner & Scheier, 1998, p.311)”.

Bowlby Attachment Theory

Bowlby (1990) developed the concept of attachment theory that relationship in infancy such as with caregivers and significant others (who may be more or less responsive and viable). He described how children develop a secure or insecure attachment style. These inherent qualities of mind and characteristics of attachment influence children’s view and expectations, which can be more or less positive about others. The secure or insecure attachment style of an individual still influence his/her expectations “positive or negative” about future relationships and consequently, the outcomes of the relationship.

Bolwby’s attachment theory is relevant to the school-approved dissertation topic (Adults describe the experience of growing up in a polygamous family). It described in-depth findings from infancy of life developmental stages compared to Bandura cognitive theory which is consistent to young adulthood and beyond. As noted before, polygamous families are plagued with continuous conflicts from jealousy, burdens and violence within co-wives, and rivalry between siblings.

In polygamous families, there are many mothers, including the polygamist and the children in the construct; therefore, the act of bonding relationship may be confusing to the infant or infants since there may be more infants in the families at one time, even though the birth mother is the primary responsive and accessible caregiver. This caregiver may have many family issues to deal with, how to maintain and secure her marriage position among co-wives, as well as secure a base for her child. This circumstance in the families can result to insecure base for the infant. As a result, positive bonding relationship expected by the infant from the caregiver would not be achieved and can also affect working model to build future friendships and love relationship to the infant as a young adult.

Bowlby’s reasoned that the infant want to feel the caregiver is accessible and dependable; that is responsive and can create a secure and survival base to grow, this is essential assurance in child development but may not be delivered effectively in polygamous families due to the structure. In contrast, Bandura emphasized conscious thought over unconscious determinants of the individual behavior that would help in self-regulation and self-monitoring and to resolve potential negative reflections. These findings are geared toward young adult individuals in later year of life developmental stages. In Bowlby’s assessment, a positively attached caregiving to the child would result in healthy stages of life development. Bandura social cognitive theory is more related to adulthood; he placed emphasis on learning and implementing self-regulation, therefore, we are able to respond to human effect which is enclosed in self-organization, proactive, and self-reflective mechanism (p.507).

From this author theoretical finding, attachment style requires accessible and dependable caregiver and the infant to be successful. In the polygamous families, there are many mothers who play the role of caregivers. Therefore, what would happen to the infant observation when there are conflicts that are a common occurrence in this construct? This behavior would alert the child that the base is insecure and the absence of these caregivers would create a negative feeling in the mind of the infant.

Erikson’s psychological development stages theory.

Erickson (1999) theory of stages of psychosocial development taught that individuals have to go through several stages of life. A process in which individuals will experience continuing changes of psychosocial confrontations. When each stage is completed and moves on to the next stage, Erickson refers to this as a crisis which prepares individuals to move on to the next stage. In his theory, when crisis is not solved in each stage, the individual will continue to create more crisis in the duration of life which will result in more crisis until the expected psychosocial work correct the crisis. All the stages of psychosocial development theory are important, however, for this paper, psychosocial crisis of trust verse mistrust at the infancy and identity verse role confusion at young adulthood appeared to be more important to this paper.

Erickson (1999) psychosocial development and Bowlby’s attachment style theories are parallel in the infancy developmental stage. Bowlby’s reasoned that the infant want to feel the caregiver is accessible and dependable; that is responsive and can create a secure and survival base to grow. Erickson in his finding described the first stage of his theory during infancy is encompassed in the basic needs such as food are provided by the mother in particular. The child awareness of the world and the environment resulted from the parents interactions with the infant. When the parents or caregivers are accessible and dependable, the infant feel the world of trust, and when there are irregularities of the needs for the infant, the result is a sense of mistrust.

Conclusion

Bandura, social cognitive, Bowlby, attachment style, and Erickson, psychosocial development have similarities in their theoretical research. However, the researchers are dynamic in their individual findings. Bandura social cognitive theory provided hopes for polygamous adult children that despite having been raised in a conflicted environment that may have resulted in negative self-concept from other members of polygamous families as they compete for survival, a behavior that continue to cause disagreements. He placed emphases on “conscious thought over unconscious determinants, self-regulation of actions which relies on self-monitoring, judgment, and self-reaction, all which are ordinarily conscious during the naturally learning situation. Erickson (1999) added: That as adults, In psychosocial development there is the need to anticipate psycho social stress that may affect decision making; that it does not matter under what condition individuals were raised, as adult, our decision are now ours to make. Sometimes, this maybe issues that result in disagreement with others over our orientations of interest.

Bowlby and Erickson theories on attachment style and psychosocial development are parallel in understanding. Bowlby’s reasoned that the infant want to feel that the caregiver is accessible and dependable; that she is responsive and can create a secure and survival base to grow. Erickson in his finding described the first stage of his theory during infancy is encompassed in the basic needs such as food are provided by the mother in particular. When the parents or caregivers are accessible and dependable, the infant feel the world of trust, and when there are irregularities of the needs for the infant, the result is a sense of mistrust. These theories of human development are so intriguing but will they have effective implementation in a dysfunctional environment as that of the polygamous families?

References

Al-Krenawi • John R. Graham • Fakir Al Gharaibeh (2011). A Comparison Study of Psychological. Family Function Marital and life Satisfactions of Polygamous and Monogamous Women in Jordan. Community Mental Health 47:594–602 DOI: 10.1007/s10597-011-9405-x

Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1998). On the self-regulation of behavior. New York, NY: Cambridge

University Press.