What are the main features of Patrick’s cognitive, social, biological, emotional, and psychosocial development during two developmental periods?
General Psychology
Participant: Patrick
Age range: you decide — example adolescence (12–17 yrs.) to early adulthood (20–40 yrs.).
You are studying the development of people who lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Your participants lost everything, including at least one close family member. Your particular interest is in studying issues faced by them (including possible developmental problems) related to moving away from New Orleans, loss of house, loss of a family member, and change in economic status. To study these effects, you are conducting a longitudinal study using the same population, interviewed annually over many years to collect data. The main interest is in gathering data related to the specific effects of experiencing a disaster on social, biological, psychological, psychosocial, and cognitive development of different-aged people.
Patrick is one of your subjects who was forced to live in Texas temporarily and then moved to New Jersey before returning to New Orleans 3 years later.
Questions to guide your response:
- What are the main features of Patrick’s cognitive, social, biological, emotional, and psychosocial development during two developmental periods?
- What predictions would you make concerning the results of your findings for people in the two developmental periods? What interventions or strategies would you suggest for reducing the effects of exposure to disasters?
- What further studies do you propose that could be created to explore your predicted findings?