Theory of personality development, motivation, eating disorders

Paper must be at least 3500 words.

In the third stage or the concrete operational stage which occurs between 7 to 11 years, important processes like decentering, reversibility, conservation, serialisation, classification and elimination of egocentrism occur. the last stage is the formal operational stage which commences at 11 years of age, during which time the child acquires the ability to think abstractly and also to draw conclusions from whatever information is available.

According to Marcia, there are four stages of adolescent identity status of psychological identity development. The first stage is that of identity diffusion in which the adolescents have not made any commitments and have not experienced any crisis. They have little interest in ideological and occupational choices. In the identity foreclosure status, the adolescent makes a commitment, but do not experience a crisis. In the identity moratorium category, the adolescents are in the midst of a crisis, but their commitments are either vaguely defined or absent. In the identity achievement status, the adolescents have made a commitment and have undergone crisis too.

Factors associated with eating disorders are environmental factors like family, friends and media, biological factors like abnormally low serotonin levels in the brain, abnormal hormonal levels and low cholecystokinin levels, developmental problems like adolescents difficulty in separating from over-controlling parents and traumatic factors. Factors associated with substance abuse are age, family history of substance abuse, friends and relatives, mental illness, chronic pain or disease, psycho-behavioural risk, childhood experiences and trauma. Factors associated with eating disorders are environmental factors like family, friends and media, biological factors like abnormally low serotonin levels in the brain, abnormal hormonal levels and low cholecystokinin levels, developmental problems like adolescent’s difficulty in separating from over-controlling parents and traumatic factors.