Running Header: PEPSI SCREENING 1

P E P S I Screening

Ana K. Gonzalez

College Of Southern Nevada

Biography

I decided to screen a young lady called Theresa Gonzalez, she was born in Montebello Ca.

Her parents are from Mexico, and they brought Theresa to Las Vegas NV, when she was one

year old, so basically Theresa feels herself a nevadan. Parents are divorced for more than six

years. She just turned 17 last month, she is the youngest of three sisters that are very independent

and smart, that have been able to acquire scholarships for their careers, and because of that,

Theresa feels too pressured to do well in school. Theresa is going to Las Vegas Academy of the

Arts, majoring in Dance, She was also part of the Nevada Ballet Theater until last school year.

She is aware that her career is very difficult to succeed and she is planning to have another major

as a second option, to back up her dream career in case she does not succeed. She loves music,

especially the band Muse, and she cares about animals a lot, especially dogs.
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Physical Development

In an article from a journal of research on adolescence says that growth mixture modeling was

used to identify different trajectories of body mass index among adolescent, ages 10-15 and

within the results in which they based their investigation on, they found out that there is a

correlation between adolescence, puberty and physical activity, (Journal of Research on

Adolescence, Physical activity).

Based on the studies of Fran Ebling, “ puberty might can start as early as 10 years of age in a

girl and the duration varies, (‘Puberty: Mind and Body)” so Theresa is 17 years old and she is a

dancer, at least that is what she is studying for, and of course she is in the puberty stage, merely

because of all the exercises that a dancer, like her, needs to do every day, she has those curves in

her body that Mr. Ebling is talking about, nevertheless, she is always thinking about the ways of

how to perfect it. Puberty hormones kicking might have something to do in regards that she

thinks her body is not perfected or not attractive enough,and that is why she needs to exercise

even more, therefore she is always talking about the food she needs to eat, the exercises she can

do to better shape her muscles, or if she has too much fat on her tummy, or on her legs, curves

are too big, she is way too concerned about her appearance (Physical Characteristics for a High

School girl, Growth Mixture Modeling of Adolescent Body mass Index Development, Girl)

another physical characteristic in adolescents, according to the Mental Help Association is the

perspiration, acne, and oily skin. Theresa does not show signs of acne on her face, but she

complains about having a lot of it on her back, that also makes her feel embarrassed and very
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conscious about it and likes to use lotion all the time to do not be “disgusting” she says of course

those symptoms as part of her puberty stage.

Emotional

For many parents, the adolescent period can seem like a whirlwind of rapidly changing 

emotions. In fact, some earlier theories about adolescent development proposed that 

"storm and stress" was to be expected, and suggested adolescents characteristically 

tended to over-react to everyday situations. However, more recent research refutes 

that outdated notion. Developmental experts have since learned that what may appear 

as "storm and stress" is actually the natural outcome of youth learning to cope with a 

much larger array of new and unfamiliar situations. (Larson & Ham, 1993). 

​ Theresa is a very smart young woman that complies with the description of “storm and

stress” very well, she mentions that there has been occasions where she does not know how

come she answers her mother rudely when there is no reason for that. She does not understand

why sometimes she gets upset for simple things that are not even important, and I don’t know if

it is important to mention, but her favorite word is “stupid” everything that do not falls into her

reasoning seems to be stupid for her.

During this research paper I have learned that humans have an amygdala and a ventral

striatum actively working in the brain that affects the effects of affective evaluation of stimuli

during the entire time life of a person

A working conceptual model of effects of ELS on amygdalostriatal interactions. Based

on a synthesis of human and non-human animal research we suggest that ELS acts on

neural systems​ associated with affective valuation by modulating (i.e., decreasing) the

ability of the ​amygdala​ to send value-based information to the ​ventral striatum​ via

unidirectional excitatory glutamatergic projections (denoted by dashed lines). During

sensitive periods of development, ELS causes increases in the release and circulation of

stress hormones​ (i.e., ​corticosterone​, cortisol), which act not just to accelerate amygdala

development but to interact with midbrain ​dopaminergic​ systems, resu caregiving​ early

in life is critical for the normative development and regulation of emotional

behavior, the ability to effectively evaluate affective stimuli in the

environment, and the ability to sustain social relationships. Severe

psychosocial stressors early in life (early life stress; ELS) in the form of the

absence of species expected caregiving (i.e., caregiving​ in the increased release of

dopamine into the amygdala and the ventral striatum. The increased levels of dopamine

may be inappr(appropriately regulated as a function of ELS, leading to subsequent

neural and behavioral phenotypes associated with the emergence of behaviors during

adolescence associated with internalizing illness such as anxiety and depression that

may persist into adulthood. (Dominic S. Farreri,Effects of early life stress on amygdala

and striatal development,)

​ Even Though Theresa is not showing any type of depression, she is definitely very

dramatic when expressing her attitudes towards a subject, or when she speaks about
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her position into a particular theme, and tends to victimize herself when expectancies are not

met. Now the question is, how Theresa’s early life stressors were to actively changed the levels

of Dopamine to be able to act this way now. Even though it seems to be very typical among

adolescents to be very affective to all stimuli in their environment.

Philosophical

​As I stated before, Theresa is very​ ​ Intelligent, taking into account the definition of Snowman

in chapter 4 section 1e being “the global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, think

rationally, and effectively with the environment” it seems that she has shown rational qualities

when she comes to make good decision not only at home but at school as well, her grades are a

testimony of that good decision making and belonging to the National Honor Society shows

good quality of those choices as well. “Intelligence has many facets 1)Practical ability: Involves

applying knowledge to everyday situation, 2) Creative ability:involves inventing, discovering,

imagining and supposing. 3) Analytical ideas: involves breaking ideas and products into their

component parts making judgements, evaluating, comparing and contrasting, critiquing”. And all

that has been proven by her on daily basis, e.g.She sometimes rides the bike to the school bus

stop that is a little bit over 2 miles away from her house, during that time, there has been a

thousand of different situations where she could have been ran over or fallen down and get into a

really bad injury, but her prompting and acerted decisions had kept her been untouched.
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In school she falls into the kind of learning that must of the students fall into, both

“field-dependent and independent learning style”, (Snowman, chapter 4-3d) where she prefers to

work in “ situations in which procedures are clear and well defined but sometimes she likes to do

it her own way depending on the nature of the task” (Snowman, chapter 4-3).

Theresa also has not a preferable type of environment to learn, she can focus and do her own

learning regardless of her surroundings, that is another way to show how intelligent she can be. I

guess that is why she does not show any conflict in her social world.

Social

Psychosocial development is understood as attitudes towards fitting well in society.

“Erik Erikson (1902–1994) was a stage theorist who took Freud’s controversial theory of

psychosexual development and modified it as a psychosocial theory. Erikson

emphasized that the ego makes positive contributions to development by mastering

attitudes​, ideas, and skills at each stage of development. This ​mastery​ helps children

grow into successful, contributing members of society. During each of Erikson’s eight

stages, there is a psychological conflict that must be successfully overcome in order for

a child to develop into a healthy, well-adjusted adult”. ​(Lumen, Education, Society, & the

K-12 learner, Part II: Educational Psychology).

Trust vs mistrust: birth-12 months of age.

Autonomy vs shame/doubt: 1 - 3 years of age.

Industry vs Inferiority: 6 - 12 years of age.

Identity vs role confusion: 12 - 18 years of age

Intimacy vs isolation: 20s - early 40s.

Generativity vs stagnation: 40s - mid 60s

Integrity vs despair: 60s - end of life.

Taking into account the different psychosocial stages it is obvious that Theresa is in the

Identity vs role confusion. That basically “ ​According to Erikson, an adolescent’s main task

is developing a sense of self. Adolescents struggle with questions such as “Who am I?”

and “What do I want to do with my life?” ​(Lumen, Education,society from k-12 learners, ​part

II : Educational Psychology).​ Theresa has not decided really what she wants to do with her life

yet, she loves dancing and that is why she says she is going to be a dancer I guess she is still in

the process to develop that sense. Right now she is looking for a job and she says that she is

going to be independent by the age of 18 years of age. According to what has been said about

this stage, Theresa fits perfectly fine in the Identity vs role confusion.

​ Intellectual Development

​ I found necessary to understand the difference between Intellectual and Philosophical to be

able to talk about this stage, and I found out that Intelligence is a “mental ability” while

philosophical is the “mental action” (Relationship between Intellectual and philosophical

Philosophy Stack exchange),

Piaget noted that ​reality​ is a dynamic system of continuous change and, as such, is

defined in reference to the two conditions that define dynamic systems. Specifically, he

argued that reality involves transformations and states.​[7]​ ​Transformations​ refer to all
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manners of changes that a thing or person can undergo. ​States​ refer to the conditions

or the appearances in which things or persons can be found between transformations.

For example, there might be changes in shape or form (for instance, liquids are

reshaped as they are transferred from one vessel to another, and similarly humans

change in their characteristics as they grow older), in size (for example, a series of

coins on a table might be placed close to each other or far apart), or in placement or

location in space and time (e.g., various objects or persons might be found at one place

at one time and at a different place at another time). Thus, Piaget argued, if human

intelligence​ is to be adaptive, it must have functions to represent both the

transformational and the static aspects of reality.​[8]​ He proposed that operative

intelligence is responsible for the representation and manipulation of the dynamic or

transformational aspects of reality, and that figurative intelligence is responsible for the

representation of the static aspects of reality.​[9]

Snowman explains that “Piaget may have overestimated the formal thinking of adolescents.

Research summarize by Michael Shayer (1997) indicates that only 20 percent of children exhibit

well developed formal operational thinking by the end of adolescence” (Snowman, p. 46).

Theresa as I stated before is very smart, I don’t exactly know if she actually fits or not in the

20% of students that exhibit well-developed formal operational thinking, but she is part Mexican

therefore I strongly believe that her cognitive development has been systematically,

unconsciously and directly, socially and culturally affected by that, and according to her, she

likes to learn from everybody and everywhere, and she states that she has her own opinion of the
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world around her, but in order to acquire more knowledge, she needs to hear the opinion of

others too.

Theresa seems capable to manage and redirect her life in the way she wants, except that she

knows, she needs to work on organizing her time better and to start setting more realistic goals

for herself.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ames, M. E., & Wintre, M. G. (2016). Growth Mixture Modeling of Adolescent Body Mass Index

Development: Longitudinal Patterns of Internalizing Symptoms and Physical Activity. ​Journal of Research

on Adolescence (Wiley-Blackwell),​ ​26(​ 4), 889–901.

https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.csn.edu/10.1111/jora.12239

● Modification of Erickson's Stages of Psychosocial Development. ​Provided by​:

Boundless. ​Located at​:

https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/

human-development-14/theories-of-human-development-70/erikson-s-stages-of-ps

ychosocial-development-269-12804/​. ​Project​: Boundless Psychology. ​License​:

CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

Ferari, S. Dominic. Effects of early life stress on amygdala and striatal development. ​Amygdala and

Striatum support affective valuation throughout life. ​Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.library.csn.edu/science/journal/18789293

Oswalt, Angela, MSW (2009) Adolescent Emotional Development. ​Mental Help.Net​ 1995-2015

https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/adolescent-emotional-development/
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Ebling, F. (2003). Puberty: Mind and Body. ​Journal of Neuroendocrinology​, ​15(​ 3), 323–324.

https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.csn.edu/10.1046/j.1365-2826.2003.01018.x

Relationship between Intellectual and philosophical.

.​https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/.../relationship-between-intelligence-thinking-and

Snowman, Jack. McCown, Rick. Psychology Applied to Teaching. 14th edition. ​Chapters 2-6.