Question

Part 1: In your words answering with in Short answers: the answers may require a few sentences to a paragraph. Please answer the following questions...

1. Discuss modern criticisms of the study “Terman’s Termites.”
2. Discuss the pros and cons of using IQ scores for academic placement.
3. Discuss modern criticisms of Piaget’s developmental stages.
4. Explain Vygotsky’s concept of the “Zone of Proximal Development.”
5. What does Maslow mean by “Self Actualization?”
6. Discuss the relationship between stress and motivation. Consider both distress and eustress.

Answer 1

1. psychologist Lewis Terman is known for his study of the relationship between intelligence level in childhood and achievements in adulthood. Terman believed that knowing a person's IQ was a necessary and a sufficient predictor of his or her life success, and that such potential could be measured early in life. So he asked School teachers to nominate children they thought were intelligent and he then gave the selective sample an IQ test to determine his elite group of high-IQ individuals.

His final group of "Termites" averaged a whopping IQ of 151. Following-up his group 35-years later, his gifted group at mid-life conformed to his hypothesis . They were found to be taller, healthier, physically better developed, and socially adept thereby dispelling the myth at the time of high-IQ awkward nerds.

However, critics point towards many problems in Terman’s approach to intelligence. For one, his sample was not selected based on randomised procedures but was already a sample of high achiever’s which were selected based on tecahers’ own biases. Secondly, many research biographers who followed the conditions of the study found that some of the children who were eliminated from the sample of high achievers became highly successful professionals and Somen of them even won social award shows for their service. Thus, these cases raise doubts about the predictive power of IQ levels as determinants of later success.

Finally, many contemporary critical psychologists have shown that Terman’s sample represented data from only a segment of the society which was primarily White, upper middle class males with socioeconomic opportunities and resources for success. The study is therefore biased or limited in its scope and prediction about the IQ level and success across the different socioeconomic and racial and gender groups.