Psychology

    Humans are created in this world to serve a number of objectives and included in the list is their task to produce progenies in order to preserve the continuity of life and genetic traits, and to maintain the general equilibrium between and among living, non-living and inanimate objects that reside in this world today (Hamida, Mineka and Bailey, 1998).  Gender specific preferences in mate selection are the focus of many psychological and sociological studies that seek to answer the recurring question of how intrinsic behavior and traditional gender roles influence the lifelong mate selection decision making process (Feingold, 1992). Not just researchers, but the public too, is interested in explaining why the selection criteria differ between males and females because it is believed that these features are the main driving force that fuel diversity across all cultures covering all conditions.

    Available literatures agree that the females preference is strongly influenced by socio-economic status while males, on the other hand, place more emphasis on physical appearance, as compared to other observable female properties, and make it an important criterion in their selection process (Buss and Barnes, 1986). Evolutionary psychology explains these differences between human males and females with the parental investment model which states that women seek out potential partners by their ability to provide and protect while male tend to look for females who possess excellent reproductive properties (Eagly and Wood, 1999). The concept behind the mentality of females is in accordance to traditional societal gender roles which dictate that the lesser economic opportunities available today instruct females to seek for mates who are willing to and are able to provide financial support to her offspring and herself (Sprecher, Sullivan and Hatfield, 1994). In this sense, it can be inferred that women value financial stability of their future family as the main defining factor by which they will lay the grounds of their marital selection process (Sprecher, Sullivan and Hatfield, 1994). However, it is an accepted fact that that the ability by which a female can produce an offspring is described in a significantly shorter time span than that of a man, and thus, places the investment model as the main determinant of mate selection process in relation to the fact that the females will be subjected to the reproductive notion that will be associated to them by each and every male who can be their potential marital partner (Murstein, 1972). Therefore, women execute ways to increase their mate value by increasing their level of physical attractiveness to males which are evident in their trips to the salon, makeovers, shopping spree and many other ways which they believe are helpful in the improvement of their physical appearance (Murstein, 1972). Improvement of self worth, however, does not suggest that increased economic status of the female will also necessarily increase a females value in a males eyes (Hamida, Mineka and Bailey, 1998). The aforementioned statement is supported by the idea that men tend to assert the monetary domain in the family and often gets their ego hurt by the idea that women are earning more money for the family than what they actually obtain (Hamida, Mineka and Bailey, 1998).

    Males put high emphasis on selecting a mate with excellent domestic qualities (Johannesen-Schmidt and Eagly, 2002). However, the main focus of males is also related to their future offspring. Males look for females who they believe will be able to produce healthy offspring. Fertility is often identified with features such as facial attractiveness, youthfulness, and health. It can be deduced that the first feature is concerned with the potential physical properties of the future progenies while the second and third female properties, youthfulness and health, are manifestations of the perceived reproductive capability of the female based on her physical characteristics (Cunningham and Russell, 2004). Aside from health, age is another obvious determinant of the reproductive capacity of a female which can be reflected in certain physical features like smooth and clear skin, good muscle tone, lively gait, white teeth, and lustrous hair (Buss and Barnes, 1986). Furthermore, male preferences are influenced by body shape and symmetry (Cunningham and Russell, 2004). Buss (1989) states that traits suggesting reproductive capacity are seen as more desirable by males rather than females. Buss (1989) also found that the overwhelming majority of his samples, females, valued good financial prospect more highly than males. Although neither sex rated ambition and industriousness as low, this criterion was valued higher by females. The evidence supports that males value physical attractiveness more importantly even across cultures (Buss, 1989). The influences of negative characteristics displayed in a female have also been investigated. Males are more willing to accept negative character traits than females (Todosijevic, Ljubinkovic and Arancic 2003). Hence, it can be said that men value the physical beauty of their potential partners on a higher degree of assessment as compared to the importance that women tend to give to this property (Buss and Barnes, 1986).

    Social factors, like the desire to obtain the societys approval regarding of the mate choice has effects on determining the desirable qualities in a mate. For example, it is more socially acceptable for a male to be with a female who is physically attractive but without financial status and it is also more socially acceptable for a female to be with an unattractive male if the socioeconomic status is high (Feingold, 1992). These observations suggest the increased attributions that the society gives to accepted norms as basis of mate selection and acceptance of marital combinations (Feingold, 1992). Another practical example of this phenomenon is seen whenever people choose the type of dates that they will have and studies suggest that the aforementioned traits are so desirable that males are less likely to even date females that they do not find sufficiently attractive and, in the same manner, females are also less likely to date men who are of lower socioeconomic status regardless of their physical appearance (Townsend and Roberts, 1993). Consequently, it can be said that the physical feature plays a major role that one looks for in the assessment of a mates physical attractiveness (Buss, 1995). To further test this mental construct, the goal of this paper is to deduce an expository parameter in order to comprehend the differences between the sexes as revealed by the formulation of four hypotheses which are shown below. The hypotheses examined in this study are based largely on traditional gender roles.

Hypothesis 1 Female participants ratings of the ambition and industriousness item will be significantly higher than male participants ratings.
Hypothesis 2 Female participants ratings of the good financial prospect item will be significantly higher than male participants ratings.
Hypothesis 3 Male participants ratings of the good looks item will be significantly higher than female participants ratings.
Hypothesis 4 The mean Mon-Wed participants ratings across all conditions will not be significantly different than the mean Tues-Thur participants ratings across conditions.
Method   

Participants
     In order to properly analyze the gender specific mate selection procedures for both sexes, two groups of participants were recruited for the study. The participants were members of two undergraduate psychology courses at xxxxxxxx, in xxxxxxx, xxx. The study included a total of 75 participants where 30 are males and 45 are females. They ranged in age from 18 to 49, with a median age of 22.53, and a standard deviation of 5.82. It must be mentioned that the unequal distribution of the male-female participants is a function of the availability of the subjects and their granted consent to submit in the demands of the study. Furthermore, the diversity of age parameters is an important factor because they are likely to manifest and characterize the difference in preferences of the chosen population.   

Procedure
    The participants were assigned to two groups based on their last enrollment on Monday-Wednesday or Tuesday-Thursday. Participants were instructed to rate anonymously their personal opinion in choosing a lifelong mate. Male and female participants were administered the same questionnaires. Two unrelated questionnaires were also given at the same time. Participants were asked to rate three Likert items on a 10 point scale (1  not important, 10  very important). The three items included the character traits of ambition and industriousness, good financial prospect, and good looks. In addition to rating these items, participants were asked of their gender, class day and meeting time. The age was asked for statistical purposes, not for identification. There was no manipulation of the independent variable. Variables were measured based on participants ratings. It was attempted to increase randomization by utilizing data from two different classes. Participants were asked to rate without information regarding other participants answers or previously conducted studies. They were informed that the data would be used anonymously and for student research purposes only. Participants were also provided with an informed consent document beforehand.

    After having completed the abovementioned procedures, the validity of each hypothesis has been verified. In general, it has been determined that in relation to ambition and industriousness, female participants regarded such an aspect to be of greater significance or importance in contrast to the response derived from male participants. Despite such though, it is important to emphasize that the difference between mean values derived from male and female participants only differed by 1.3. Hence, it may be stated that ambition and industriousness mattered for both genders, albeit the fact that differences in the relative importance of such an aspect are of course observable. In addition to such findings pertaining to ambition and industriousness, the same trend in responses has also been noted for the good financial prospect criterion. To highlight such a point, it has been determined that female participants considered and responded to good financial prospect as a criterion of greater importance. Of course though, male participants still considered such a criterion to a degree.

    In contrast to the abovementioned criteria, which have been predominantly determined to be regarded and rated as higher among female participants, in terms of the good looks criterion it has been established that ratings derived from male participants were higher. It is vital to emphasize though that similar to previous criteria discussed the ratings provided by both male and female participants did not differ to a great extent. Besides such results, information pertaining to the differences among ratings among Monday  Wednesday participants and Tuesday  Thursday participants have been derived as well. To further expound, it has been established that throughout the responses derived from the aforementioned groups of participants, no significant differences may be observed. Given such, it may be appropriately stated that each hypothesis was confirmed and validated from such results. To further understand such and to emphasize upon numerical or statistical values, refer to table 2 below.

    Two groups of participants were recruited in the study which was named as Mon-Wed group and Tue-Thu group. These subjects are students of Psychology courses and the manner by which they were selected for the study involved a non-random method. Hence, it can be said that the non-random sample utilized in the study might have an impact on the integrity of the results obtained.

    Four hypotheses were tested in the study and the responses of the two groups of subjects are all in accordance to the pre-formulated hypotheses. This is despite the idea that the participants are less likely to answer honestly inside a classroom setting and that they are subjected to the pressures of traditional gender roles which can truly affect the gathered data. Furthermore, the non-rejection of the four hypotheses is a contradiction of the researchers fear that data relying on self-reports are not reliable because people do not always have an accurate view of them or tell the truth.

    In connection to hypothesis 1 and 2, female participants of this research study are seen to provide answers that are in accordance to the observed sociological frameworks that were investigated through time and were cited by scientific studies. The acceptability of the two hypotheses signifies the undeniable importance that the female subjects attribute to ambition industriousness, and good financial prospect of their potential male partners. In this case, common university experiences will portray a situation where in a female who is being pursued by two men will go for the guy who can satisfy more of the nonphysical characteristics that are likely to manifest the mans capability to provide greater financial stability to her and to their potential family (Feingold, 1992). These nonphysical characteristics which are related to the assessment of the kind monetary stability that can be provided by men to his future family include socioeconomic status, ambitiousness, character, and intelligence (Feingold, 1992). Sense of humor and personality were also discovered to be given with significant importance by both sexes regardless of the fact that these properties are not directly related to either reproductive investment or progeny survival (Feingold, 1992).

    The acceptance of hypothesis 3, on the other hand, suggests that the male participants really focus more on the physical features of the females which is also in congruence with the published scientific studies. Male participants of this study also prefer women with desirable physical properties. Moreover, the presumed self-rated attractiveness of a man is seen to relate to the type of date or marital partner that he is likely to have (Stroebe, Insko, Thompson and Layton, 1971). Those men who rated themselves as attractive are the ones who are likely to date women who are also attractive while men who rated themselves as unattractive are more likely to consider going out with ladies of physical characteristics which are not absolutely in accordance to the norms of the society (Stroebe, Insko, Thompson and Layton, 1971). This observation is also supported by the study of Murstein (1972) wherein he emphasized the importance of the stimulus-value-role theory which states that individuals are likely to choose dates or marital partners of comparable physical attractiveness.

    Lastly, the non-rejection of hypothesis number 4 confirms the notion that the mentioned gender specific mate selection strategies are practiced by the majority of the population across all cultures throughout the globe. The precision of the observed mean of the MonWed and TueThurs group is a reflection of the preservation of the sociological concepts that were mentioned in scientific literature with the expressed attributes by the college participants.            

    Buss  Barnes (1986) gave brief and concise explanations of the concepts that can be obtained from this study which include the notion that standards of female beauty are the subject of the scrutiny of mens eyes because they are believed to be the possible parameters of female reproductive capability. The correlation between male age and masculine reproductive capacity is not justifiable in most cases and thus, poses an alarm to the female population regarding the idea that they need to catch up with the reproductive investment that can be offered by their male counterpart, that men will prefer women who are within the age of reproductive capability, and that the women who are able to possess a mate with a high economic status are likely to have productive and successful progenies in the future.

The paper presents a theoretical and practical analysis of an interview with a care worker at language school. Language impairments in children after traumatic brain injury (TBI) are the central point of analysis. The principles and findings presented by the interviewee are positioned from an interactionist perspective, which shows language as the product of both biological and social development. The interviewee makes emphasis on the collaboration and communication between children and between them and older language professionals, turning communication and articulation in a form of challenge, which children have to meet in order to develop and maintain friendly ties with their peers.

    The loss of effective communication skills and the development of language impairments in children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are not rare. Since the middle of the 20th century, the importance of language impairments in children following brain injury has been relatively low. On the one hand, researchers in neurology and language studies lacked a clear definition and a single integrated idea of how TBI in children and subsequent brain injury are linked. On the other hand, professionals in neurology also lacked a systemic methodology necessary to help children with brain injury restore their language function. In the current state of research, speech and language impairments and TBI in children are closely interlinked. Given the impact which language impairments in children with brain injury produce on the quality of their lives, numerous professional organizations were created to address the loss of communicative abilities in these groups of small patients. Despite the lack of a single theory or methodological approach, these organizations have proved to be en effective element on childrens way to full recovery and as a result, better quality of life.

    I CAN is an international organization based in UK and created to deal with children with various types of language impairments, including those that follow severe TBI ( Can, 2009). The organization was able to create a number of special schools for children with language impairments and has already achieved considerable success in treating even the most complicated language disorders in those, who had to experience the tragic consequences of brain injury. Mrs. Sheila Shanks, a care worker at Meath School kindly agreed to shed the light on the way language impairments are being treated in practice, as well as the ways language pathologists and teachers choose in their daily interactions with children following TBI.

    Mrs. Shankss official job title is that of a care worker, but her responsibilities and obligations usually stretch beyond what is required by her position. One reason for this is that she is bound to work with children, whose needs and behaviors change on a daily basis. Another reason is in that to be a care worker means to be responsive to everything that occurs in the working environment, to which Mrs. Shanks belongs as such her position requires increasing flexibility and openness. To be a child care worker at Meath School implies the need for Mrs. Shanks to help children as they arrive to the center, to help them find their tutor, and to organize their daily activities and schedules, but often Mrs. Shanks is directly involved in different learning and playing activities and thus becomes the direct participant of the major treatment process in children with language impairments. Having spent 5 years as a care worker at Meath School, Mrs. Shanks also occupied other positions with I CAN, beginning from a volunteer, through nursing, teaching and up to care work. With her Masters in Special Education she is likely to become one of the most experienced language therapists in the organization, but she is very satisfied with her present job.

    Mrs. Shanks cannot conceal her excitement when describing her present job. She is pleased to have a chance to work with children between 4 and 11 years and old and to help them restore their cognitive and language abilities. Her obligations require that she cares for children who come to Meath School during the day  from meeting them and helping them to find their class up to developing activities and schedules for children with language impairments and helping them with their home tasks. Her typical day begins at 8 a.m. A day of a typical care worker at Meath School starts with attending a regular meeting of the school staff, discussing previous achievements, daily plans, and problems. The number of language groups during the day may vary from 2 to 6, depending on the particular day of the week (during weekends, the number of children brought to school is usually higher compared to week days). Between groups, Mrs. Shanks participates in various team projects or works to develop various communication activities for children. She may deal with individual patients, who require her attention and help when working on their individual tasks. Mrs. Shankss day usually ends between 6 and 7 p.m., and a meeting with parents often becomes a logical end to her long work day.

    The children with whom Mrs. Shanks works have various types of language impairments, but the prevailing majority is caused by TBI, which is particularly painful and problematic in smaller patients. Expressive language disorder, articulation disorder, fluency disorders, and even dysphagia often become the objects of the increasing professional concern. According to Karunanayaka et al (2007), language problems in children following TBI may underlie observed problems in academic performance, social competence, and peer integration. Previous investigations have documented deficits in expressive and receptive language skills, naming ability, and written language (p. 356). Very often, children with TBI experience difficulties when trying to utter complex sentences or to transform or synthesize information (Karunanayaka et al, 2007), but Mrs. Shanks asserts that children with expressive language disorder are the most frequent attendants of Meath school. As a result, language professionals at I CAN have experience and knowledge necessary to deal with this type of language impairment in children but they do not lose the grip of control over other, possibly more complex and more dangerous language disorders.

It should be noted, that with the knowledge and experience about language disorders she currently possesses, Mrs. Shanks cannot but recognize the overtly diffuse nature of brain injuries in children and their impact on their cognitive functioning. Recently, Mrs. Shanks has become interested in the development of dysarthria as a form of speech disturbance in children following TBI. Although dysarthria is usually referred to a group of orthopedic disturbances in children, there is a direct link between it and TBI. Mrs. Shanks is confident that cognitive failures alone cannot explain the difficulties, which children after TBI experience while speaking. In this context, Mrs. Shanks supports the findings of Loh, Goozee and Murdoch (2005) who tie tongue and lip movement to the problems with brain functioning in children. Moreover, she views language development in children as the product of both biological and social processes, which positions her as the supporter of the interactionist perspective in language and learning. She is confident that only through continuous interaction with peers and professionals can children overcome their language difficulties. Mrs. Shanks has her own complicated vision of language impairments in children after TBI, and the activities and team initiatives which she develops are expected to cover both social elements of language impairments and the physiological (physical) difficulties, which children may experience because of their brain trauma.

    Needless to say, language impairments in children with whom Mrs. Shanks works or meets while fulfilling her job obligations impact the quality of their learning. On the one hand, they are not always able to express their thoughts and to form logical sentences on the other hand, because of their language disorder children often lose attention and fail to concentrate on the process of acquiring and processing new knowledge. Mrs. Shanks knows that the current state of research does recognize the link between the loss of attention and language impairments that follow TBI in children, but throughout her work she was also able to observe this link in practice. That attention is the critical element of successful learning is not a secret, but for Mrs. Shanks, the link between learning, attention, and language impairments forms a kind of a vicious circle while language impairments negatively impact attention in children and result in the loss of concentration, this loss of concentration and attention deficits slows down the progress in dealing with language impairments among children after TBI. This is exactly what Finneran, Francis and Leonard (2009) state in their research and this is also what has already become a reality for Mrs. Shanks. That is why cooperation with other language professionals, as well as the emphasis on the continuous communication and collaboration between children are the key to success in different groups of children coming to Meath School.

    As a care worker, Mrs. Shanks often possesses information about children, which may not be available, accessible, or known to other language professionals at school while occupational and language therapists deal with children during their lessons, a care giver is involved in broader interactions with children and their parents and can thus discover and identify language problems that may go unnoticed in the process of training. For this reason, Mrs. Shanks is often involved in creating reports about children and their progress in dealing with language impairments, especially expressive language disorder and aphasia. When asked about the contribution, which language professionals and care workers can do for children who experience language difficulties after TBI, Mrs. Shanks says that their school and their organization in general are critical for improving the quality of life in such children. Traditional schools fail to address specific needs of children with language disorders, while Meath School and its professionals provide a balance of support and challenge that encourages pupils to make progress in all areas of the curriculum (I CAN, 2009). For example, TBI in children is often associated with the loss of consciousness, and the duration of unconsciousness results in different degrees of axonal injury and cerebral concussion  health conditions that make treatment of language disorders in such children even more problematic (Murdoch, 1990). More importantly, Meath School provides conditions necessary to develop close friendly ties between children with similar language problems  as a result, they become open to each other and develop better language skills. The need for children to express themselves to their peers often becomes a form of a challenge, which they cannot meet unless they are able to articulate their thoughts and memories. As a result, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, care workers and teachers altogether create an environment, which makes it possible to address these complications and to enhance the pace of learning in children after TBI  the processes which are difficult and even impossible at public schools.

    Mrs. Shanks is confident that continuous education and attention to research findings is the basic component of her professional success, and she recommends that other language professionals pay special attention to what researchers and scholars in neurological studies publish in professional journals. For example, with her emphasis and attention toward dysarthria, Mrs. Shanks became increasingly interested in how electropalatography may reduce the symptoms and signs of articulation impairments in children with post-traumatic brain injury (Morgan, Liegeois  Occomore, 2007). These scientific findings are further evaluated and adjusted to the practical environments, in which Mrs. Shanks cooperates with other professionals. Regular meetings with other professionals and continuous collaboration with related organizations all over the world often become the sources of interesting discoveries and findings, which specialists share and then use in their practical work. Certainly, Mrs. Shanks does not forget about the impact of culture on language impairments. She believes that language impairments in children after brain injury impact their ability to create macro and micro structures in language, but these structures also heavily depend on the culture-specific language patterns, which children and their parents and or caregivers use in daily environments. As a result, separating culture from language therapy is undesirable and even impossible, given the importance of language for childrens subsequent development and learning. However, the most important aspect of Mrs. Shankss professional success is the emphasis she makes on continuous communication between children in groups. In all her findings and discoveries, she intentionally or unintentionally reveals her respect of and commitment to the principles of collaborative learning, where children have an opportunity to communicate with each other and with older care workers and caregivers, thus acquiring more effective language skills and learning how to overcome their language difficulties in different situations.

    Interactionist perspectives in language development and acquisition show language as the product of both biological and social processes. As a result, interacting with peers and older care workers is critical in treating language impairments in children after TBI. Mrs. Shanks, a care worker from Meath School, is the direct support of the interactionist view of language in such children. She makes special emphasis on the need for children to interact with each other and with other adults. As a result, practical communication creates a form of challenge, which children are bound to meet in order to articulate their ideas and memories to other children. Although collaborative learning also poses some problems, and although not all parents can readily understand and accept the principles of shared knowledge and shared authority that are essential for collaborative language development, Meath School seems to have been able to overcome these difficulties through continuous communication with parents. I personally believe that the interactionist theory provides excellent opportunities for maintaining a reasonable balance of social, psychological, and biological factors of language development in children with language impairments following TBI.

According to O Neill (2005), governments define social conditions as social problems by spending money on them. (14). this has specifically been true when it comes to juvenile gang violence. However what has become clear over the course of several years is that gang violence is not a problem that you can simply throw money at and have it go away. There are specific ethical issues that must be addressed when attempting to help adolescents who are gang members to separate themselves from this negative lifestyle.

    The first ethical issue is that of integrity. As a specialist in juvenile gang violence you will need integrity, not only to avoid becoming involved with gang issues yourself, but, as a sign you can be trusted by the juveniles that you work with. Integrity will also be critical in terms of working hand in hand with the police and other social agencies that are helping to prevent juvenile gang violence because, it is often necessary for the psychological professional to act as an intermediary between law  enforcement and the client.

    A second ethical issue that will play a critical role is that of justice. While my main goal will be to help my clients escape the gang life, a secondary goal will be in preventing gang violence in order to provide justice to all of the families who have had their lives harmed by gangs, either because a family member is involved in gang violence, or because someone in the family has been harmed by gang violence.

    The third and perhaps, most important ethical principle that must guide by career is that of fidelity and responsibility. Fidelity is important because if I am not loyal to my clients and seek to serve their best interests, they will not learn to trust me, more than they trust their gang. Responsibility is also critical. As a counselor I have a responsibility to my clients, to protect them, to help them solve their problems and the help they develop the coping skills, and life skills that they will need in order to leave the gang, and to stop participating in gang violence. Each of these ethical principles will guide my choices throughout my career and help me to serve the interests of my clients to the best of my abilities.

Cognition and learning
     Cognition is the mental process of knowing something either through awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.  This is how somebody can claim to know something. Learning is closely linked with cognition. Learning can be said to be the process of acquiring new knowledge, skills, behaviors, values and understanding. (Brown et al, 1989).

    In psychology stroop effect is understood to be a demonstration of the reaction time of a particular task. This theory is named after its author John Ridley Stroop who first published it in English language 1935.

    According to the theory, it is easier to teach primary colors to schools children by naming the color  being learnt by  for example when teaching children color blue, it is important to write the word blue using the same color using a word printed in the same color. When a color is named using a different color for example when a word such as red is printed in color green learning the color take longer and is prone to mistakes than when it is named with the same color.( Brown et al, 1989)

    In the medical field the stroop effect have been found to be effective in testing selective attention so as to know whether a patient is suffering from brain damage or even detect brain diseases. This is done by asking the patient to name the color of an object painted a different color. For example a red cup but its name is printe3d in white. The patient is asked to name the color of the cup and also say the color of the letters used to print the name cup. The stroop effect has proved to be very effective in clinical functions.

    Similarly the stroop effect can also be used by policemen to test the attention of driver on the highways. This is can be done painting a card in a certain color and then writing the meaning of that color in traffic.  For example a red card written in green get ready to move. When a driver is asked to say the meaning of color red in traffic, it will take a longer time to process and those who have not mastered the meaning of traffic lights will be caught easily.

Descriptive and inferential statistics are the two most general types of statistics that are being used in researches and similar studies. Descriptive statistics are the type of statistics that provides the summaries of numeric data in an organized and straightforward manner (Levinson, 2002). Inferential statistics on the other hand, is the type of statistics that is uses a small set of data to come up with educated guess or inference about the larger set of data represented by the smaller data set (Levinson, 2002)

    Both statistics are often used in researches like criminal justice researchers, clinical researchers, and psychological and social researches. An example of application of descriptive statistics is on the computation of grades of students attending a particular class. Descriptive statistics may take the form of the average grade or the ranking of grades from the highest to the lowest, the total number of students with grades belonging to a particular range, or how often or frequent does a particular grade was incurred in the said class. So in its sense, descriptive statistics are used if you want to describe the characteristic of the population you are interested with.

    However, if you are to determine the future performance of the students in the said class, you are then deploying inferential statistics. Say if four out of five students will fair well in the midterm exam, then you can say that around eighty percent (80) of the students attending the said class will pass the final exam. Another example of inferential statistics is if you want to determine which of the boys and girls will perform well in the final exam.  Collecting a sample of boys and a sample of girls and determining the percentage of those passing in each gender will more or less give you an idea who will perform well and not during the final exam.

Human beings brain is indeed very powerful. A mindset of a person will always have a physical manifestation through its actions and behavior. So to speak, it is not what happens to a person but rather it is what heshe does with what happens to her. Therefore, a person invents hisher own life.

    Let us take the case of Mr. G, a married man working for a major corporation, who is presently seeking treatment due to his frustration and disappointment because he lost his promotion due to public speaking. He even thinks that the thought of public speaking makes him sick that he just wants to run away whenever he anticipates it. He even claims that he will be stuck in his current position forever. It is but apparent that Mr. G. is not happy with the recent happenings in his life. He is having a negative disposition in life.

This can be more explicitly understood with the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) founded by Albert Ellis. This was formerly named as Rational Therapy which was later changed to Rational Emotive Therapy before it has been coined to its current appellation. According to this theory, a person does not merely get affected by unfavorable and unfortunate adversities, but by how they create their views and perspective of life with their language, beliefs, philosophies about them and others.

REBT makes us of the A-B-C (adversity-belief-consequences) model of psychological disturbance as well as change. This means that it is not just about adversity that results to dysfunctional behavioral Consequences, but also what a person believes about the adversity.

Taking the REBT in the scenario that we have with Mr. G, it is evident that with his negative views with what he is going through, this results to a destructive emotional and behavioral consequence.
Also, REBT makes use of framework concepts that humans have both innate rational (constructive) and irrational (destructive) propensity and leanings. People manifest emotional difficulties, whether consciously or unconsciously, such as self-blame, self-pity, clinical anger, hurt, guilt, shame, depression, and anxiety. And this is what Mr. G is going through and experiencing in the scenario presented above.

    According to this theory, there will be no other way to get better and stay better but by persistent work and continuous practice of searching for ones own irrational beliefs and actively deter these beliefs.

With REBT, an intervention can be created to help people like Mr. G. as this is after all adapted as an educational process in which the therapist teaches the patient on how to identify destructive beliefs and forcefully clash those beliefs.  The therapist can focus much on the emphasis that a person always has a choice on how to minimize such feelings of negativity towards unfortunate events of ones life.

The first step should be noted that Mr. G has to acknowledge the problems, accepts the emotional responsibility and most importantly, has the willingness and determination to help his self. To be more specific, the intervention which can be arranged to help Mr. G, is one in which we have to seek professional help from psychotherapists to help demonstrate Mr. G with the unconditional other-acceptance. The therapist shall understand Mr. Gs concerns and point of view and heshe shall work not just as a mere therapist but rather as a facilitator, teacher, and most importantly encourager.  The therapist and Mr. G shall together work in a structured and active-directive manner, working on a set of target problems and a set of therapeutic goals shall be established as well.

Consequently, Mr. G. is expected to learn to take a broad view on the insights of the relevant situations which happened in his life. The therapist shall then examine possible underlying beliefs and more deep perspective and schemes which may account for a possible variety of problematic emotions and behavior.

    Also, it is important that Mr. G should have the best social support that he could get from his wife, family, and friends to help him get out of this situation. Activities which focus on quality time with his loved ones could evidently help him to realize that there is indeed more to life. This could help him minimize the instances of focusing on thinking about the negative things that he has in mind.

All the attempts made by a person(s) to control the behavior of another through improper utilization of power using bonds of relationship, trust, and dependency aimed at making the victim helpless are termed as abuse. Men are widely known to be abusive towards women and children. There are several reasons that may lead to a man becoming a perpetrator of violence. Biological and historical factors may make a person to be violent (Stong, 2007). Past experiences from violent surroundings, demographic characteristics such as poor education, age, and financial strains, psychological and personality disorders and substance abuse are all factors that may make a person to be abusive. Violent relationships either from a family or from friends also tends to create abusive characters. The community where a person is living may also make himher to be violent if the circumstances are not conducive. These may either be circumstances like lack of employment, existence of illegal arms or high population density.  Societal norms may also develop violent people. Some societies believe that a woman can never be the head of a family and that children are not supposed to have any say in their families (Better health, 2009).

Violent men
There are different types of abuse that men can exhibit either towards women or children. These are physical abuse which includes hitting, beating, punching, slapping, pulling hair, mutilation, burning, biting, use of weapons and murder. The other one is sexual abuse which ranges from unwanted touches to rape. Verbal abuse is another type of abuse where a person uses derogatory words, threats, insults, and shouts at the other person. Psychological abuse is the case where intimacy, sympathy and emotional care are withdrawn from a relationship. Financial abuse occurs when someones money is stolen, withheld, or some one is restricted from acquiring information about household financial matters (Better health, 2009). The other form of abuse is spiritual abuse, where either a persons religious beliefs are belittled or the person is completely restricted from attending a religious gathering. A man can show one of these forms of abuse all exhibit al of them. Abusive men are very difficult to detect and they tend to make a woman think that she is not up to the standard. They also tend to put all the blame for everything that goes wrong in their lives on women. Abused women often portray depression and low self esteem (Better health, 2009).

According to Alexander (2009), in the beginning all relationships are very intimate and turn out to be abusive as time goes by. There are various signs that can be detected from an abusive man. One of them is that, they have a character of telling women that they will change and often pretend how much they love and care order to make a woman stick with them. They are also known to make a lot of empty promises. These men tend to become jealous over all other relationships a woman may be having be it at the workplace, family friends, and other family members. They tend to continuously accuse their women on cheating with other men.  They always inquire of a womans where about in an accusatory way.  Better health, 2009), notes that an abusive man tends to take control of all household business. This man also tends to believe that he is always on the right track and if anything is done contrary to his will, he becomes verbally or physically abusive. An abusive man also tends to blame anything that he does and goes wrong on a woman. An abusive man manipulates the thinking of a woman making her believe that, its her fault that he is abusive. They also make a woman think that they cant help being abusive, leaving the woman with nothing but feeling sorry for him. Abusive men have uncontrollable mood swings that range from offensive to remorseful and caring after they have abused a woman. The actions of an offensive man never match with his words. He is ford of making and breaking promises. Abusive men have no respect for a woman. They regard all women as a punching object to cool their tempers on. Considering the history of an abusive man he has very many cases of abuse either directed to a woman or an animal (Alexander, 2009).

Reasons why men become abusive

Biological factors
The major hormone that determines the character of man is testosterone. This hormone is believed to be a major contributing factor to the violence portrayed by men. Abusive nature of men occurs as a result of power inequity between them, women and children. The body structure of men is very different from that of women and children. They are more masculine and therefore tend to exercise that power against women (Stong, 2007),

Personality
There are some men who are hostile due to their personality type. Harway, ONeil, and Biden, (1999), states that these men are aggressive in nature and very little can be done to change their character. Abuse of drugs tends to further aggravate the abusive nature of these types of men. The situation is made worse when a person who is naturally aggressive is subjected to violent relationships either as a child or as an adult. Men who abuse often have low self esteem and feel powerless and useless and they tend to abuse others in order to prove their worth.

Social factors
These are the environmental factors that may lead to a man becoming abusive. Family structure, stress and social learning are some of the social factors that make men to be abusive. Constant violence directed towards children by their parents children especially the boy child tend to create a very aggressive person. Men who are reared in societies where illegal weapons such as gun are readily available tend to become very abusive when they grow (Welch, 2009).

The society also puts a lot of pressure to people who are not employed by requiring them to do things just the same way a financially stable person would do. As a result, a person subjected to that kind of pressure becomes very violent. Traditionally, many laws encouraged the battering of wives. It was seen as a form of instilling respect and discipline to a woman. The society may also view an aggressive person as a champion and treat him as such (Harway, ONeil, and Biden, 1999).

Family stress
According to Better health, (2009), families that are prone to pressures of all forms subject their members to psychological stresses. Some of these pressures include lack of finances to cater for basic family needs, too many family members and yet few facilities, accumulation of debts, and cases where one or both of the parents is very abusive.  As a way of responding to stress members become very abusive.  Families that thrive in poverty are at a higher risk of experiencing violence than families that are financially stable. Lack of Finances hinders a man from living up to his dreams of a successful life. As a result of fears that he may loose his credibility he turns out to be violent in search of honor and respect. All the abusive forms employed by this man are aimed at expressing his masculinity (Harway, ONeil, and Biden, 1999).

Social learning
Transforming Communities, (2009), states that people acquire most knowledge from observing what others are doing and copying them. Imitating a person whose moral character is upright generates a very nice person, whereas imitating a hostile person generates a hostile creature. Transmission of violence occurs from one generation to another through observation. Boys who are reared in communities full of abuse will most likely copy the behavior and direct it towards women later in life. Men also learn to be violent from their families, especially their abusive fathers and other violent male models. Welch (2009), states that violent social networks ranging from violent programs on television, violent movies to articles portraying violence against women tend to create a violent being out of a man. Few interventions have been taken to minimize the chances of a man becoming violent. The society tends s to blame the violent acts of abusive men on substances like alcohol and abuse of other drugs. This tends to give abusive men courage as they also blame their abusive nature on substances. Women are also not willing to report violent cases to the authority they do not want to suffer from public humiliation. Women also think that they will not get proper attention from a male dominated authority. When an abusive man realizes this it encourages him to continue with the evil acts (Transforming Communities, 2009).

However much the society tries to point an accusing finger towards abusive men, the vice is still rampant. Women should take precautionally measures in order to protect themselves and their children from violent relationships. By observing the actions of a man a woman can detect whether he is abusive or not, as abusive men are ford of telling empty promises. On detecting that a man is abusive, a woman should take the necessary steps by either seeking guidance and counseling or leaving that man as it is very hard for an abusive man to change his character. Women should also report any case of abuse towards them as violence can never stop if the victims are reluctant to report. After an abusers partner has left the abuser may tend to be remorseful crying for forgiveness. Women should be warned that if anyone goes back to such a character she should be prepared for more abuse.

    Depression pertains to a mental health disorder that is mainly characterized by a general feeling of sadness that lasts for a prolonged duration of time (Henje Blom et al., 2010).  An individual with depression also shows a lack of interest in specific activities that he used to find pleasure in performing.  Depression is also physically manifested as a sudden gain or loss in total body weight.  In the United States alone, it has been estimated that there are at least 20 million individuals who are currently experiencing depression.  This mental health condition affects several aspects of an individuals life, including the performance at work or school, as well as the quality of interactions with his loved ones.  Depression has been strongly associated with death and suicide and thus there is a great need to address this mental health disorder.  Depression generally affects individuals from age 15 years old to late adulthood.  This wide age range thus requires thorough differential diagnosis of specific features that may be present in each age group.  This case study will focus on adolescent depression, including applications for facilitating improvement and management of the condition.

The condition and causes of adolescent depression
    Adolescent depression pertains to a mental health disorder that is developed during the teenage years of an individual.  The major features of adolescent depression include a general feeling of sadness, as well as a prolonged sense of discouragement.  An adolescent experiencing depression also feels that he is worthless and this is usually reflected in his loss of interest in specific activities that he used to cherish.

    The condition of depression may be regarded as a temporary reaction to difficult situations or stressful incidents.  It should be understood that these types of conditions vary and these mainly depend on the age range of the individual.  Stressful situations for adolescents are therefore different from that of adults and the elderly.  Among adolescents, a number of difficult situations may trigger the development of depression.  The normal physiological changes that occur during adolescence, such as the changes in the physical features of the body, may induce depression in an adolescent.  The development of breasts among female adolescents or the lowering of the pitch of male adolescents may be stressful to these young individuals.

    The adolescent stage is also physiologically linked to an increase in the production of the sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen.  Aside from the primary effect of production of sex-specific physical features among adolescents, these hormones can also affect the mental health condition of these individuals, thus resulting in the condition of depression.  The adolescent stage is also characterized by an urge to feel independent and thus conflicts usually ensue with the parents.  Such stressful condition may also trigger the development of depression among adolescents. 

There are also certain social situations that may impart difficulty to an adolescent, including the death of a loved one or a close friend.  Depression may also result from a breakup with ones girlfriend or boyfriend.  It is also possible that poor performance at school may also initiate the depressive disorder, as the young individual feels embarrassed over his failure in class.  It is also possible that depression occurs when an adolescent is bullied, harassed or abused (Nguyen et al., 2010).  A congenital condition or developmental delay in an adolescent can also influence the occurrence of depression.

Symptoms of adolescent depression
    The major effect of depression on an adolescent is a change in the way he sees himself, as well as how he lives his life at that particular stage.  One unique feature of depression during the adolescent stage is that the young individual sees everything else surrounding him with a negative association and that each item will bring in more difficulty to his current situation.  In addition, an adolescent with depression often finds himself agitated and easily irritated.  The depressed adolescent is also restless and thus finds it difficult to focus on a specific task at hand.

    An adolescent with depression also suffers from a major change in appetite.  It has been determined that adolescents with depression are more likely to loss appetite than to gain it, as compared to adult depression which can go either way (Henje Blom et al., 2010).  The eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, is therefore strongly associated with adolescent depression, as the extreme loss of weight may be due to a depression caused by any of the aforementioned social causes.

    A number of mental skills are also affected by adolescent depression.  It is common to find an adolescent with depression to find difficulty during decision-making activities, as he often is incapable of concentrating on specific topics.  There may also be episodes of memory loss in an adolescent with depression.  As this young individual is plagued with problems that seem to be irresolvable at any point in time, then the adolescent therefore feels mentally drained and physically fatigued.

    In certain cases of depression among adolescents, behavioral problems develop such as shoplifting and uncommon defiance to parents and teachers at school.  It is common to observe irresponsible actions in an adolescent who is depressed because he feels that he is trapped and is therefore struggling to save himself from more misery.  Other depressed adolescents would turn to drinking of alcoholic beverages as these drinks could numb their senses, unknowing that this effect is only temporary.  Once the effect of numbness due to the alcohol is lost, the depressed adolescent would initiate another bout of drinking, to revive that pain-free sensation.  The same principles are also employed with the use of illegal drugs.

    An adolescent suffering from depression usually avoids interacting with his family members and other close friends because he often feels less stressed out if he keeps to himself.  Unfortunately, family members usually treat such isolation as part of a tantrum that is a common characteristic of adolescents.  It is therefore important that family members are observant enough to identify the causative factor of a tantrum and a depressed state.  It is possible that certain adolescents find themselves in an advanced stage of depressed due to the misinterpretation by the parents of the adolescents tantrums.

    In extreme cases of depression in an adolescent, it is possible that this young individual would even consider committing suicide as a possible escape from all the suffering that he is experiencing.  It is unfortunate to find literature that describe that the incidence of suicide is highest among adolescents, as they find themselves alone in a cruel world.  It is thus important to determine possible treatments and approaches that would alleviate this mental health disorder and ultimately save lives. 

Diagnosis of depression among adolescents
    Diagnosing depression in an adolescent is usually harder than that in adults and the elderly, as it is a common occurrence for an adolescent to have mood swings during this developmental stage.  In addition, the mood swings usually last for hours or even days and thus it is important to differentiate a mood swing from the actual pathological depressed condition.  One confusing approach to diagnosing an adolescent with depression is to ask him directly if he is happy.  The common response of an adolescent, regardless of depression or mood swing, is that he is not happy and that everything around him seems to make his life difficult.  It is therefore more helpful if the physician would ask the adolescent about the symptoms that are associated with depression.

    In addition to the questions regarding the symptoms of depression, the physician also conducts tests that would facilitate in the diagnosis of this mental health condition.  It is important for the physician to rule out other medical disorders and thus a blood test may be requested to determine cell counts and other protein levels in the blood.  The blood test may also assist in determining the presence of alcohol or any other illegal drugs, which are substances that also generate a depressed condition in an individual.

    A psychiatric assessment should also be conducted to determine the frequency and extent of the symptoms of depression in the adolescent.  The co-occurrence of other mental health conditions, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia may also be detected during psychiatric examination of the adolescent (Miklowitz et al., 2010).  The physician will also ask the adolescent if he has ever entertained thoughts of suicide or actions that would physically hurt his self.  These questions are important because these will determine if the adolescent would be a threat to himself. 

    The assessment may also require the input of the parents and other family members of the adolescent, as well as his teachers at school.  These interviews will provide the physician of the regular activities and the underlying conditions that the adolescent is experiencing in the last few months or years.  The information collected from the interview will assist in the construction of the emotions that the adolescent may be expressing outside the clinical consult.  Once a diagnosis has been formally made, the physician is then required to design a treatment plan that would personally fit the adolescent patient.

Treatment of depression among adolescents
    There are currently a number of treatment regimens for adolescents who have been diagnosed with depression.  The choice of the actual therapeutic approach mainly depends on the condition of the adolescent, as well as his capacity to adhere to the suggested treatment plan of the physician.  In addition to the participation of the adolescent in the treatment regimen, the parents of the adolescent, as well as other sibling and family relatives, are also asked to engage in treatment.  It is important for the individuals in the immediate environment of the adolescent to be aware and to understand the condition of depression, in order to provide support and care to their loved one.

Pharmacologic treatment of depression among adolescents.  One of the most common treatment plans for individuals positively diagnosed with depression is to administer anti-depressant drugs.  There is currently a wide range of drugs that could be employed in the treatment of depression, yet the usual initial treatment of an adolescent involves a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).  It should be understood that serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is released in the nerve endings of neurons.  This neurotransmitter is responsible in sending messages from one nerve cell to another and thus a change in the amount of this molecule may result in changes in the mental health condition of a patient.

    In the case of depression, it has been determined that the neurotransmitter serotonin is relatively high and is actually being maintained between the space between nerve endings.  The transmission of messages between nerve cells is thus inhibited and this often results in an imbalance in the mental health condition of an individual, which in turn generates a depressed condition.  The administration of a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor thus prevents the return of serotonin to nerve endings, resulting in the progression of neurotransmission to the next nerve cell.  This inhibition of reuptake of serotonin therefore reinstates the normal physiological functioning of nerve cells and ultimately diminishes the symptoms of depression.

    Two major drugs that are classified as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are fluoxetine and escitalopram.  Fluoxetine, more commonly known by the drug brand ProzacTM, and escitalopram, of drug brand name LexaproTM, are the only drugs that have been approved by the Federal Drug Administration for the treatment of adolescents, between the age of 12 and 17 years old, who have been positively diagnosed with depression.  For children of age 8 years old and below, only fluoxetine has been approved for administration.

    One side effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and its analogues is that this drug could increase the likelihood to commit suicide.  The packaging of these drugs therefore carries a warning sign that states that such risk is associated with its intake.  Despite anecdotal reports on the increase in incidence of suicide among children and teenagers under this medication, there is still a need to establish a direct connection between the occurrence of suicide and the actual drug. 

    In order to prevent possible incidences of suicidal attempts among children and adolescents under selective serotonin reuptake inhibition medication, a number of guidelines have been established with its administration.  Firstly, the physician should make regular check-ups on the young patient to identify any side effects that may develop soon after the initiation of therapeutic intervention.  Another guideline is for parents to be observant of their child as soon as he starts taking the anti-depressant drug.  Specific side effects, including any changes in the behavior, as well as signs of nervousness should be immediately reported to the physician.  They should also be vigilant for signs of agitation or indications of irritability in their child.  In addition, if these changes worsen through the days, then the medication should be stopped immediately, despite the knowledge that his depression would eventually return.

Talk therapy as treatment for depression among adolescents.  The talk therapy approach for the treatment of adolescents who have been positively diagnosed with depression appears to be effective in this specific age range.  The most plausible explanation for the effectiveness of talk therapy among adolescents is that these young individuals are not often engaged in expressing their emotions and concerns to other people.  Such inhibition is strongly associated with this developmental age and therefore the mental health disorder of depression often results in the deterioration of the total well being of an adolescent.  Once a young individual has initiated talk therapeutics, he feels that there are other individuals who care for him and that he is not alone anymore.  In addition, the adolescent also learns during talk therapy that there are various methods on how to deal with his depression.  There are currently three major types of talk therapy.

    Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a type of talk treatment that educates individuals diagnosed with depression on how to fight negative ideas and emotions on a daily basis.  In the case of an adolescent with depression, cognitive-behavioral therapy allows the young individual to learn which external factors commonly trigger his development of symptoms of depression.  In addition, this type of therapy assists the adolescent in detecting factors that make his mental health condition worse.  Cognitive-behavioral therapy therefore equips the adolescent with skills that will allow him to solve his own problems.  It is expected that once the adolescent is cognizant of these external factors, he is now capable of handling difficult situations that have earlier influenced him to reach a depressed state.

    Another type of talk therapy is family therapy, which technically involves the participation of the members of the adolescents family.  In this setting, the adolescent and his loved ones, and possibly some teachers from his school, engage is a discussion of how they feel about the adolescent.  It should be understood that a psychiatrist or therapy counselor is always present during these sessions because he is responsible in regulating and directing the discussion.  This type of therapy is often suggested in cases where conflict within the family has been influential on the development of depression in the adolescent.  The principle behind family therapy is that a discussion will allow each member of the family to express his concerns, thoughts and ideas regarding the adolescent, all in a positive way that will help the adolescent in recovering from his depression.  These sessions are also aimed to make the adolescent feel that he is not alone and that there are people who care for him and are willing to support him through his journey to recovery.

    Psychotherapy is another form of talk therapy that assists a depressed adolescent in understanding specific issues that are observed to be causing him to remain in that mental health condition.  This approach mainly involves the adolescent and a psychiatrist, where this one-on-one correspondence allows the young individual to reflect on his emotions and his concerns in life.  The psychiatrist generally asks the adolescent a battery of questions that are designed to make the young person realize that there are solutions to each of his problems.  The aim of psychotherapy is to empower the adolescent with realizable principles that would guide him through his daily life.  The psychiatrist plays an instrumental role in guiding the adolescent in his personal assessment of his thoughts, as well as behavior.

    A support group is another form of talk therapy that involves a number of individuals who have been also diagnosed with depression.  In the case of the adolescent, it is possible that he participates in a group that is composed of individuals of his same age range.  This setting will allow the adolescent to feel that there are other adolescents who are struggling with the same mental health condition and therefore he should not feel alone.  If this setting is ineffective, the adolescent may also participant in a support group that has members of different ages.  It should be noted that the support group allows an individual to see the condition of depression through the eyes of different personalities.  The aim of engaging in a support group is for an individual to express his feelings and thoughts, as well as hear other individuals who have the same mental health disorder, in the hope of learning from such engagement.

Additional approaches for the treatment of depression among adolescents
    The symptoms of depression may vary from one individual to another, and thus it is important for the physician to recognize certain features that would need to be addressed during treatment.  One important feature that has to be recognized during the diagnosis of depression is the severity of the mental health condition.  Individuals with mild depression are generally easy to treat because this typically requires a low dose of anti-depressants.  On the other hand, individuals with severe depression need more extensive treatments because the risk of committing suicide is generally higher in these cases. 

In the case of an adolescent, the participation of the parents and teachers at school would be helpful in monitoring the condition of the young individual.  However, it is often recommended that adolescents with depression be hospitalized in a mental health institution, which specializes in monitoring such clinical cases.  In these healthcare institutions, highly trained healthcare professionals constantly monitor patients with regards to their activities.  The monitoring of an adolescent with depression may be more difficult in a home setting because the parents or siblings may not be present at all times.  If the depressed adolescent shows suicidal thoughts or may simply indicate plans of harming himself, then hospitalization may be the best option for the young individual.

Mental health institutions are equipped with personnel that engage is talk therapies.  These regular sessions, similar to the talk therapies previously described in this report, allows the adolescent to learn how to identify factors that influence him to develop his condition of depression.  Behavioral patterns are also taught, so that the adolescent may be empowered with actions that would prevent him from being affected by external stress stimuli.  Pharmacologic treatments are also administered to adolescents in mental health institutions, mainly to stabilize their condition.

An adolescent with depression should also be empowered with the knowledge, as well as skills, on how to deal with stressful events that he may encounter on a daily basis.  In addition, it will also be helpful for the adolescent to learn important things in his treatment.  Firstly, the adolescent should be educated on what medications he has been prescribed.  It will be helpful if the adolescent understands the effect of the actual drug he is taking and what are the possible side effects that might occur once he has started his medication.  The physician should also educate the adolescent on the effects of stopping his medication without physicians advice.  It would also be beneficial if the adolescent were taught of the importance of patient adherence, especially in terms of the prescribed treatment regimen for his diagnosed depression.  The adolescent should also understand that if he feels that his condition has worsened, he should inform his physician, as well as his parents, of this change so that the appropriate action could be immediately performed.

An adolescent with depression should also engage in exercise because this activity improves the circulation of blood in the body.  This improvement in circulation provides sufficient oxygen to the brain, which is the main organ that is affected by depression.  Exercise also serves as an activity that keeps the adolescent busy and far from concentrating on personal issues associated with depression.  The adolescent should also refrain from taking alcoholic beverages because these may interact with the anti-depressant drug that he is taking.  Illegal drugs and other narcotics should also be avoided, in order to prevent any adverse effects from the medication.

    Depression is a mental health disorder that is characterized by a general feeling of sadness and helplessness.  This disorder affects individuals of various ages and therefore it is important to consider the age of an individual during diagnosis.  Adolescent depression is generally more difficult to diagnose and to treat due to the inherent characteristics of this developmental stage.  A number of factors influence the development of depression in an adolescent, including social, physiological and hormonal factors.  It is important for a physician to carefully examine an adolescent during the diagnosis of depression, which is usually performed by asking questions regarding the symptoms of the condition.  An adolescent diagnosed with depression may be treated with pharmacologic drugs, as well as talk therapy.  The progress of the treated adolescent should be regularly monitored in order to determine the improvement of his condition.  Additional treatment measures may also be conducted in order to assist the adolescent in his recovery from depression.

Categorization is a process of group conceptualization, where things tend to be classified according to what the person behind the classification thinks fit best. Normally entities are classified according to similar characteristics so that those which have common characteristics are grouped together. The field sometimes depends on training that someone is given when the person is being oriented to the world and it is not easy to change what one believes in. A common phenomenon worth of concern for psychological theories is the vagueness of many conceptual categories. Even though all categories can be said to have clear members and clear non-members, there are exceptions that are borderline to a category. There is always an element of vagueness in the use of common language terms that are sometimes fuzzy rendering some instances un-decidable. In relation to vagueness, it is the typicality of a category which is used as a core tenet of the prototype theory (Rosch,  Mervis, 1975 578).
The following study is aimed at looking at the ways in which people have classified in the past what influences them and are they successful or the contrary applies. This introduction part is aimed at justifying the classification methods used as either significant or insignificant and if so what do they require to incorporate to be successful. Members belonging to one category tend to have like features and the big question here is typicality, what role does it play in the mental representation of a category

In the recent times psychologists have renewed their interest in mental categories and their learning. The reason behind this is the rekindling of interest that has got to do with some apparently positive findings that seem to make the topic investigatable. In regard to this case what seems positive is the recent discussion on some concepts which were first addressed by Wittgenstein in (1953) followed by some concrete evidence later who seemed to second the findings of Wittgenstein Rosch (1981)  who found out some powerful empirical demonstrations of prototypicality effects. This paper is a continuation of a discussion and interpretation of protypicality theory of mental categories in light of some experiments which have been done. In summary, the findings lead to a cluster of descriptions which are less satisfactory for a theory of human conceptual structure which might have been hoped.

    A core idea in the study of categories is that members of one category are thought of having resemblance to their colleagues in the group and the members vary in their degree of typicality. The hypothesis in this introductory study is that the more typical an item is of the given category, the faster subjects will be to judge whether it is a member of that category. Subjects to a particular group have been found to take more time to confirm category membership when the thing is typical, and to take less time when it is a typical example. In this case the independent variable is the archetypal of the stimulus item and the dependent variable is reaction time (Wittgenstein, 1953 67).    The nature of cognitive representation of semantic categories at times bears a direct relevance to two important areas of psychological inquiry. The first one deals with the structure of categories and concepts and has implications for the way in which concepts and concept attainment should be studied in psychological research (Rosch, 1975 577). The second area is the nature of mental representations in General, a high-flying concern in the post behaviorist study of mental events (Putnam, 1975 1177). In respect to the issue of the nature of categories, Rosch has argued that many traditions of thought in psychology, linguistics and anthropology imply that categories are Aristotelian in nature implying that the categories are coherent, clearly bounded entities whose membership is distinct of an items possession of a simple set criterial features, in which all instances possessing the criterial attributes have full and equal degree of membership.

    It is worth of notice further that a domain which has lent itself to the manifestation of a type of categorical structure of contradictory to the Aristotelian is that of colour. There is evidence that colour categories are processed by the human mind, in terms of their internal structure colour categories have been found to be represented in cognition not as a set criterial features with clear-cut boundaries but rather in terms of a prototype of the category, surrounded by other colours of decreasing similarity to the prototype and of decreasing degree of membership. Categorization is aimed at using identities which will be having very clear cutting lines and not just approximations as in the case of colour because every person perceives colour in his own way so the categorization might be in different ways. There is also a case of people who are colour blind, how are they going to go through this exercise yet they dont have clear cuts on which colour they are seeing and which they are not. For Rosch, colour is a perceptual domain and its categorization is probably physiologically based because not all categories have an obvious perceptual basis and many categories may be culturally relative.

    Categorization has to address questions on how elements can be considered to belong in one category and how other categories are eliminated from certain groups. For example people can divide the world of objects into the dogs and non-dogs. The clearest demonstration that people do acquire and use such a category is that all of them, in a linguistic community, standardly use the same word dog to refer to more or less the same creatures.  In relation to this we can distinguish the extension of a dog from its category and from its linguistic title. All the real and projected creatures in the world that properly fall into the category dog form the extension of the category dog the English word is used to refer to the domesticated animal at home for security purposes and the category dog may be used to represent some mental representation that fixes the conditions under which the word dog is used. It is at many instances we have heard people abusing others as dogs and it really has to take the context to denote the meaning of using such an explanation where the animal is absent.

    Cognitive psychologists have been under criticism of the mental bases for some categorizations and what is the internal structure of such categories A possible answer to the puzzle would be that the word dog refers to a category that is unanalysable and such holistic theories have never been considered till recently. The reason for their unpopularity would be attributed to the desire to limit the set of atomic categories or elementary discriminations with which human must be assumed to be endowed. Some traditional theories have had an assumption that most common words are cover labels for mental categories that are themselves bundles of simpler mental categories. Knowledge of complex categories is then built by recognizing that some sensible elements recur together in the encounters of the sensorium with the external world and so by association get bundled together. Maybe for example what we call bird in English is an animal that flies, has wings, feathers, lays eggs and back limbs covered with scales. As by many proponents of feature theories, it is the structure of the real world as observed by the learner that gives rise to such categorizations and in the back of the mind of that person what has feathers tends to fly and lay eggs belongs to the complex category bird.

    A host of thinkers have shown that there is an enormous difficulty in explicating even so simple and a concrete a concept as a bird. They have also revealed that the difficulty becomes greater by orders of magnitude when confronted with an abstract functional concept like game. Perhaps psychologists are more than a little over exuberant in supposing it will be easier to explicate the concept concept (Putnam, 1975 1177). Arguments of whether a Childs language develops by becoming more or less abstract have received considerable attention (Putnam, 1975 1178). The present method makes possible a detailed investigation of the nature of the mental representations generated by category terms at any level of abstraction. The addition of such knowledge may make possible greater understanding of the nature of psychological representation, the nature of taxonomies and the process of abstraction.

It is a scientific study that tries to understand and explain thoughts, emotion and behaviors.

        Attachment theory happens to be a part of psychology that explains interpersonal relationships between people. Children tend to seek an attachment figure in situations their minds are unable to solve. Probably most of the time an attachment to an adult is inevitable since children are sensitive and responsive in social interactions. In this case adults mould the children behavior, guiding their feelings and expectations in a later relationship.

Mary Ainsworth in her work, Strange Situation Protocol deduced four types of children attachment.

Secure Attachment, also known as Rapprochement
This kind of attachment places children at a confident position of security. Children are able to inter-relate with the surrounding and when security is provided during the time of need, a child is educated on how to cope with challenges in future. Secure attachment therefore is the most adaptive attachment relationship when the child needs are appropriately attended to.

InsecureAnxious-Avoidant Attachment
A child shows little or no emotions to the surrounding. A child displays an avoidance behavior towards the parent or completely ignores the parents. This type of attachment develops when the parenting style is questionable, i.e. the child loses confidence in the parent, if constantly the parent perceives the child needs are less important.

InsecureAmbivalent-Resistant Attachment
        This type of attachment develops if the parent on one hand puts his or her own priorities at forefront but later attends to the needs of the child. This kind of attachment is imbalanced since the parent does not initiate the attention unless it is related to the parent interest at the moment. The child is anxious of the surrounding and to strangers. The absence of the parent leaves the child insecure and the child becomes ambivalent on return of the parent. When the parent tries to initiate attention, the child is resentful.

Insecure-Disorganized
This type of attachment develops when the child perceives the parent to be frightening, or not comfortable to be around with. The child cannot cope with the parent and lacks a role model. This mode is ineffective since it cannot render a child to be self confident and cannot offer a figure to be attached to.

         With the above kind of attachment relationships, taking your child to school in the first day is hectic and unpredictable on how the child can cope with the change of personality, surrounding, and a figure to relate to. For example in the first day of the day care with an understanding of your child putting into considerations your child has the following can be put in the back pack.

For a Security Attached Child
         Put favorite toys, and a note to the care giver. These children are playful and social. However, they feel secure when a visible figure who they perceive can attend to them in times of need. A note to the care giver with details of how to tackle various issues if the child needs them is essential. Toys are basic, for interactivity with other children. These kids are social and as a parent, toys are the best tools to keep the child busy.


For InsecureAnxious-Avoidant Attachment
         For such a kid toys will keep the child with its own preservations since it does not mind about the absence of parents. A note should be placed in the back pack for the caregiver with instructions that too much attention irritates the kid.

InsecureAmbivalent-Resistant Attachment
        Put a parent photo in the back pack or anything that the child is used to seeing with the parent. This will assist as a constant reminder of the parent to the child. In this case the child will remain ambivalent in some ways and with no one trying to seek attention the child can be occupied with toys.

For Disorganized Attachment
        Put items like toys which will engage the mind of the child into organizing objects. After various attempts the caregiver will have to help the child out. In such a situation the child is able to attach to the care giver without fear

2. In Vygotsky zone of proximal development Vygotsky defines inter psychology as the means by which learning is presented to a child a social-interactive way by a parent, teacher and maybe from colleagues. Educators at this instance are encouraged to provide a very interactive social setting for education. On the other hand intra psychology is the means to which the learning internalizes inside the child (Vygotsky 1978).

This theory is helpful in assessing a child potential development. The adverse effect in this Vygotsky theory is that a child no longer becomes self reliance in learning and may over rely on the more experienced colleagues, remember this theory offers a set up where the child and the teacher relate in a group setting, either in group work or teams.

           Scaffolding becomes the alternative in facilitation of Vygotsky theory as proposed by Wood, Brunner, and Ross (1976). This concept is to achieve three objectives, i.e. reducing the extent of freedom with which a child has to cope, utilize tactics to focus attention and provide models of expectation. When a child becomes more used to a role the over-reliance on the teacher or any other guiding person reduces. It happens that with success of a role the confidence of the child builds-up and aspires for greater roles. When a child fails a role, a teacher control over the role should be displayed again in a manner that encourages retrial of the role or any other means to redo the role.

           With an example of fishing, there is a rod, a hook and a bait, teach the child how to hold the rod and put the bait at the end of the hook. The more the child acquires the holding of the rod the more the parent eases the grip on the rod allowing the child more control. The child may get nervous at the first catch and may lose the grasp of the rod when a fish is caught at the hook but with patience and more trials the child is able to concentrate. With catching of small fish to big fish attention and interest of fishing becomes more. In order to assert more courage as a parent also have your own fishing rod and try to compete with your child, you will get amazed by the development, the child gets exited and even tries to perfect the art of fishing by itself. Make sure that you only guide the child to fish at the beginning and do not control the child when you note progress. Continued control of the act will reduce self-motivation on the kid and may lead to disliking of the fishing process.

Differences in temperament can be noticed even from when a child is still an infant. Some children are born and are fussy from day one, sensitive to any background noise, easily startled and have irregular sleeping and eating patterns and then others are mellow calm and quickly adjust to the eating and sleeping routines.

Thomas and chess depict three patterns or collection of temperament individuality that control the parent-child relationship and family life. It is also important to bear in mind that parents like children, they also differ in temperament. Some parents are quick in reacting and intense, while others are quiet and slow to respond. This blend between the parents and children has a very burly effect on family life, occasionally it can lead to positive relations, sometimes to aggravation, and sometimes it can even lead to disagreements. From a number of qualitative judgments of parental temperament, however, it is clear that there is no simple linear relationship between parent-child temperament match and the developmental outcome in the child (Chess  Thomas, p. 192). The three patterns of temperament are Flexible, Fearful and Feisty.

    It is very important for a parent to understand hisher childs temperament so as to know how to react to them when it comes to certain situations. It can also assist the parent when making decisions that will affect the family. An example is a parent going on vacation by Airplane will need to learn there childs individuality so as to know how they will act in response to a plane ride.

Flexible temperament
    Children with this type of temperament tend to nap and feed at regular times, they are easy to potty train they are generally not selective and are always cheerful. A child with this temperament you find that they will easily adapt to new situations. Needless to say when it comes to a parent planning a trip by airplane they need not worry about there child if they have this temperament. To this child it will be an adventure, in most cases they will be thrilled to experience something new in there lives and will focus more on the fun of flying as opposed to the fears that might come with it.
A child with this type of individuality is the easiest child to get along with and will enjoy any activity planed for the family. But it is important for the parent or caregiver of this child to set aside time to talk to them and find out if they have any concerns about the plane ride, since a child who is flexible will not willingly let you know what is bothering them.

Fearful temperament
    Fearful children tend to be withdrawn and take time to adapt to new situations. They more time and attention to warm up to new people and adapt to situations. A parent or caregiver with a child who is fearful will need to avail themselves more to the child.

When planning for the airplane ride the parent will need to prepare the child well in advance. Explain to them everything that they will have to do to prepare for the ride. For instance tell them about taking off the shoes while going through security, the sounds the airplane makes while take off or landing. Let the child tell you what they think can make the airplane ride fun and let them do it if it is within the airplane policy. Let the child carry something they can relate to that is familiar to them such as a toy, this will serve as a good distraction and will make them forget the fear they have.

Feisty temperament
    A child with this temperament can be a handful. They will make sure that everyone around them knows when they are discontented about a situation and are very intense. The good side is they will also let you know when they are satisfied. These children are usually on the extremes in every emotion they experience. They are very sensitive, irregular, moody, active and very distractible. For a parent with a child who is feisty they will need to prepare the child in advance and let them know about the planned airplane ride.  Although, the parent should be prepared to have an alternative means of transport incase they refuse to go on an airplane ride.

The study is about gender difference in self-esteem and engagement, There have been a lot of research indicating that a gender gap between males and females exist because of disengagement. The hypothesis is set to append the notion that women are weaker in terms of self-esteem and mathematical ability. The methods used to measure the variables is a 20 item questionnaire on the four basic operational method attached with is a 7-point Likert scale about self-esteem and disengagement. The result showed no difference between gender in terms of self esteem and mathematical ability.

Gender difference on self-esteem and math engagement
    The categorization of men coming from Mars and women coming from Venus can more than substantiate that each gender is definitive. Case in point, men are known to be physically stronger, temperamental, and hard headed compared to women who are known to be emotionally stable, svelte, and composed. Even in terms of moral development both gender have different scale to measure what is morally correct. So it is not hard to assume that on other aspects of life this difference will continue.

    For example on the field of education, women who are less aggressive take up mainly those that rely on discourse such as philosophy, anthropology, creative writing, and theater while men who are known to be aggressive will mainly take courses on engineering ad math-related courses (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2007). In the same vein, the paper would like to address the issue on gender difference centered on self-esteem and math engagement. The paper would like to hypothesize on the two variables. For self-esteem we hypothesize only an inequality frame by gender interaction on self-esteem. Specifically, we hypothesize that when gender inequality in math is framed as females being disadvantaged, women will have higher self-esteem then men. In contrast, when the gender inequality is framed as males being advantaged, men will have higher self-esteem then women. For Math engagement, We hypothesize only an inequality frame by gender interaction on math engagement. Specifically, we hypothesize that when gender inequality in math is framed as females being disadvantaged, men will be more engaged in math then women. In contrast, when the gender inequality is framed as males being advantaged, women will be more engaged in math then men.

Review of related literature
    The theory on disengagement started from the belief that because of cultural gender stereotyping the gender who is perceived to be of lesser importance will automatically withdraw and subsequently not participate in a field of discourse (Schmader, Major,  Gramzow, 2001). Since self-esteem is an integral factor in growing is was best advised by Cast and Burke (2002) that it is important to cultivate view of oneself. For this will not only help you through negative predicaments but can also help you verify your identity which leads to motivation (Cast  Burke, 2002). If a person has enough motivation they become more capable of out performing their definition on the cultural context.

    On Schwalbe and Staples (1999) research about gender difference and self-esteem they found that a genders role in society affects a persons view on worth. The study concluded that women are greatly affected by feedback. If a woman, for example, tried playing golf and came in last she automatically feels bad and prevents from playing the game. For men, they view self-esteem if there is basis for comparison. For example, a young man tries to run a 400-meter course and the time he clocked was better than other men he will have greater self-esteem compared to those who clocked at longer time. If this is true then it can imply that men will strive to compete more to assure themselves the knowledge that they are greater than the rest increasing their self-worth in the end.

    The implication of gender difference can greatly be seen on the academic setting. It has been concluded by a dozen of research that women are superior in terms of achievement in the academe but some research suggested otherwise. On Gorard, Rees, and Salisbury s (2001) study they were able to test the hypothesis by measuring level of achievements of both gender onn the most common subject matters Math, Science, and English. The conclusion they arrived to was that the gap that people thought of between genders is not at all significant. Both gender are evenly matched. Though some of the results presented slightly elevated numbers for the women sample it was not statistically significant to make a case. This only implies that both gender can easily adapt to its environment. The conclusion derived from the study was also the same conclusion on Ding, Song, and Richardsons (2002) study. They were able to conclude that there is not enough evidence to suggest that women or men is greater when it comes to academic achievement. The results of the examination showed that both gender have the same growth in Mathematics performance. The only contrasting description that came out of the study was the higher grade-point average of women. But on Felson and Trudeaus (1991) study the findings were different the study showed that men have higher test results o mathematics while women have higher test results on subjects other than Mathematics. What these implies is that there is not enough data to assume which gender is better.

Method
Participants
    The proposed number of participants was set at 80 but due to unavoidable circumstances the total number of participants became 79. 40.5 of the participants were females while 59.5 were males. The age range of the participants is 47, the minimum age of the participant was 12 and 59 as the maximum. The mean age is 25.04, and standard deviation at 9.26.

    Out of all who participated 71 were able to give their school year. There were participants from all the year levels. Seven participants came from first year, 8 from second year, 19 from the third year, 21 from the fourth year, and 16 from the fifth year students. While 8 students were not able to give out their age. With standard deviations at 1.239 years. The mean years in school was 3.44. 40.5 of the sample came from the female population while 59.5 from the male population.

Materials and design
    A ready made questionnaire was used to measure mathematical ability of the participants. It was a 7-minute standardized math exam used by students on Psychology 311 that is designed to measure gender inequalities in Mathematics. The tests is a 20-item arithmetic test that is focused on the four basic operations.

    The questionnaire also asks about the participants attitude to oneself and their math ability before and after taking the 7-minute arithmetic operations test. They are presented with a 7-point Likert-type scale to assess, questions like how do they feel when they do well on math and at times I think I am no good at all.

    The demographics part asked for age, year in school, gender, and racial background. It also asked for the participants GPA, math SATACT score, verbal SATACT score, and the percentile rank o the math exam. And the last part asked about the cause of gender inequality.

Procedure
    Participants are randomly selected to avoid affecting the reliability of the results of the examination. After being briefed about the study they were asked to take the examination for 10-15 minutes. There were two specific conditions before and after taking the math examination. The first condition was that not all participants are going to read the same article on gender disadvantage. Half of the participants read women are at a disadvantage while the other half read that men are at a disadvantage. After taking the math exam a feedback was given, another condition was given here again. All participants received false feedback on their results. All participants were told that they performed badly on the examination before they proceeded to rate their self-esteem to measure how negative feedback affects ones self-esteem. The test was administered for a whole day.

Results
    All the participants were able to gauge their self-esteem and were able to take the examination. For self-esteem the minimum rate they were bale to rate themselves was at 1.80 indicating low self-esteem with a maximum value on 6. Compared to self-esteem questions participants viewed themselves at extreme.

    For participants who read the article on female disadvantage the mean value of their self-esteem is M4.75058. With female participants mean at M4.7375 and male participants at M4.6828. For participants who read male disadvantage the mean value of their self-esteem is slightly higher at M4.8640. With the female population increasing their self-esteem with mean score at M5.1375 and men having lower self-esteem with mean score at M4.6889.

    Under math engagement, those who read about female disadvantage had mean score of M4.75 while those who read about male disadvantage had mean score of 4.8049. The general SD for math engage is SD4.7785. Male participants who read about female disadvantage had greater means score compared to the female counterpart, the means score for male was M5.2727 compared to female participants who had 4.0313 with SD at SD4.750. While the same effect happened female participants read about male disadvantage. The female participants had M5.0625 while the male population had M4.6400 and the SD was at SD4,8049.

    The result showed that majority of the male participants who were given articles on gender advantage were eager to solve the math problems even though they were given negative feedback their self-esteem was never affected. On the other, when the male participants were given article on female disadvantage, they would not feel eager, and when given the negative feedback their self-esteem decreases. The same notion applies to females.

    The results did not revealed a significant main effect of inequality framing, F(1,75)  1.56, p .05, or of gender, F(1,75)  2.39, p .05 for self-esteem. In contrast to our hypothesis, there was not a significant interaction between inequality frame and gender, F(1,75)  1.47, p .05.

    The results did not revealed a significant main effect of inequality framing, F(1,75)  .55, p .05, or of gender, F(1,75)  2.31, p .05 for math engagement. There was a significant inequality frame by gender interaction, F(1,75)  9.55, p .05.  In partial support of our hypothesis, when the inequality was framed as female disadvantage, men were more engaged in math then women. In contrast to our hypothesis, when the inequality was framed as male advantage, men and women did not differ in their level of math engagement.

Discussion
    The purpose of the study is to gauge how gender has effect on self-esteem and mathematical ability. Based on the findings there were no significant results to indicate that self-esteem is affected by gender nor can did it affect mathematical enagement. The findings were not able to support claims that women show poor self-esteem because they are not good in mathematics as well as for me.

    The study easily appended the findings done by other researchers wherein they hypothesized that there was no truth in regard to gender gap on self-esteem and math engagement. The issue on gender gap might have just been an issue on double standards. The findings of the study were the same as those that indicated that women are less competitive just because they see obstacles in front of them.

    The result of the study could have been affected by the variables. Since it only measured the difference on arithmetic ability, the result is one-sided. To further prove that there is no existing gender difference in regard to education, other variables such as Science and English should be taken into consideration. The apparatus used on the study should have more items to increase the reliability to measure knowledge.