Health and Psychology Essay Example

Health and Psychology Essay Example Health and Psychology Paper Health and Psychology Paper Linda Luecken performed a study that considers existing evidence that have a bearing on a model that theorizes that early family adversity has an impact on the cognitive performance of adults (Luecken, 2006). Luecken sought to discover whether there is sufficient evidence to create a link between child abuse or neglect in the home and various psychosocial and behavioral aspects of adult life (Luecken, 2006). She conducted her study because she realized that there is sufficient material to support a conclusion linking family adversity and physical health in adults, but there is no evaluation of whether there is adequate literature to support the proposal made by the examined model (Luecken, 2006). Thus, Luecken looked into evidence that discuss cognitive performance of adults, particularly performance through psychosocial, behavioral, and health-related pathways. She likewise considered the limitations of existing studies and gave suggestions for future research (Luecken, 2006). Method   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Lueckens paper proposes a lifespan developmental approach, which concludes that early family experiences characterized by adversity or stress contributes to the rate of cognitive decline in older adulthood. She proposed a global model that consists of several pathways (Luecken, 2006). These pathways provide the means by which experiences of a person creates an impact on his cognitive function. Since the paper consists of studying and evaluating current literature on the subject, the author described the different types and the prevalence of adverse family experiences to which a person could be exposed in early family life. Second, she reviewed literature on the different physiological stress responses of people and the impact of such responses on cognitive function. Later on she tries to make a connection between family adversity and physiological stress responses (Luecken, 2006). Lastly, she outlined the potential pathways that link family adversity and cognitive function in older adults (Luecken, 2006). Discussion and Limitations The author discussed the available evidence supporting the enumerated pathways to cognitive aging in older adulthood, citing many studies conducted in the past (Luecken, 2006). She thus concludes that there is a wealth of evidence that may support a theory that links adverse early family experience with cognitive aging (Luecken, 2006). She likewise discussed suggestions regarding the development of dysregulated physiological stress responses caused by neglect or abuse in early childhood, as supported by various animal and human studies (Luecken, 2006). She concludes that while the evidence may be mounting in this field of study, the same remains inadequate in many respects (Luecken, 2006). For example, researchers have not focused on positive effects and preventive measures that could be derived from the knowledge of the impact of adverse early experiences and psychological stress responses (Luecken, 2006). Instead, studies focused only on the negative impact of such adverse experiences. The author is concerned that several limitations are unavoidable in her attempt to empirically evaluate the theory supporting the link between family adversity and cognitive aging in older adults. She says there might be enough evidence to support the link of each pathway to cognitive aging independently, a complete empirical evaluation would still require further evaluation that tests the links as a whole (Luecken, 2006). A further concern for the author is the lack of adequate procedure for empirical evaluation of the theory (Luecken, 2006). This is because of the nature of the materials, such that evidence of early childhood experiences is difficult to gather (Luecken, 2006). She discussed that a common method used by researchers is retrospective recall or reports, but such method is tainted with doubts as to the objectivity of the information (Luecken, 2006). Thus, she suggests possible ways of improving the current method, such as gathering supporting data from credible sources, such as siblings and other witnesses (Luecken, 2006). She also suggested the gathering of documented data involving adverse early experiences (Luecken, 2006). However, she recognizes the possibility that these proposed methods would also raise various validity problems. Evaluation of Article/Suggestions for further research The article conducted an empirical evaluation of existing evidence to support a theory. While the article may be commended for being innovative in combining various pathways to cognitive aging into one model, one could not say that there is much new knowledge to be gleaned from the study. The author did not conduct a specific or novel method to test her theory, but merely relied on evidence supplied by past research. She merely summarized the methods used and the findings of previous writers on the different aspects of her theory and sought a way to combine them. However, she merely proposed a way of possibly testing the theory as a whole, but never tried it herself, even on a limited sample. The article may have shed light in terms of assessing the adequacy of literature on the matter of cognitive aging and its causes, but such light is not very bright. The author could have pushed herself more and conducted a few actual tests on her own, in order to support the evidence she already gathered. Thus, while she gave tips for improving current methods, such tips could not be taken conclusively because they are not backed by test or application. Trottier, K., Polivy, J., Herman, P. (2007). Effects of Exposure to Thin and   Overweight Peers: Evidence of Social Comparison in Restrained and Unrestrained Eaters. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 26(2), p. 155-172. Background and purpose of the study Trottier, Polivy, Herman conducted a study on the impact of exposure to thin and overweight peers to a person (2007). They were prompted by their perception that there is inadequacy in treatment as to the effect of information about the body weight of a persons peers on that persons perception about himself/herself (Trottier, Polivy, Herman, 2007). They pointed out that current and past studies only dealt with the effect on a persons perception by idealized media messages (Trottier, Polivy, Herman, 2007). They thus proposed and tested the hypothesis that exposure to information about a peers weight also has an effect on a persons perception about himself (Trottier, Polivy, Herman, 2007). However, the authors divided their inquiry into two groups. They investigated and tested the effect of such information on restrained and unrestrained eaters, and decided on a possible difference in effect between the two groups (Trottier, Polivy, Herman, 2007). Method They chose to evaluate the effect of perception of the weight of peers rather than any other category, because they thought peers have increased tendency to influence the perception of a person because peers share surrounding dimensions with such person   (Trottier, Polivy, Herman, 2007). Thus, one would create his self-perception based on what he sees on his peers   (Trottier, Polivy, Herman, 2007). They divided their study to restrained and unrestrained eaters because they expected to see a difference in their propensity to be influenced by their peers. They noted that past research indicated that restrained eaters are more likely to focus on information relating to weight than unrestrained eaters (Trottier, Polivy, Herman, 2007).