Example of Case Vignette in Psychology

CASE VIGNETTE 4 Jake is an 18 year old single male who was born in Los Angeles, California, where he still lives with his mother and his brother. His dad is a sales representative and is off working during the week. When his father is home during the weekend he just drinks and watches ball games on TV. When he gets drunk he yells at Jake and his mom and throws everything around the house. He drinks all the time when he’s home but he can’t hold his drinking. Distraught, his mom also drinks and often ends up in fights with her husband when they are both drunk. Several times they had to call in the cops when things become uncontrollable. Jake just takes off when they start fighting. He started drinking and smoking when he was 13, in the eighth grade. He describes this time as a total mess, not that he did any better in previous years. But when all the kids were talking about high school and the classes they were going to take, he was just trying to figure out where he was going to get money for his next pack of cigarettes. Currently, he smokes about one pack a day. He has a cup of coffee in the morning before school and at night he drinks 3 or 4 beers and a few shots of vodka. On weekends, he really gets down to partying and experiments with a variety of drugs. He tries whatever is available - pot, coke, mescaline, XTC, mushrooms – and sees it as not a big deal. When he’s partying, he likes to mix things up like tequila and mushrooms depending on what’s going on and who’s around. He had experienced blacking out when he’s had too much to drink and said he had overdosed a few times. Aside from cigarettes and coffee, he says his favorite drug is speed (stimulants, usually methamphetamines). When he was eight years old he was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and was given Ritalin which, in his opinion, seemed to have helped a little. At present, he does not take any medication but resorts to partying and his drugs and alcohol. He also tends to compare himself with his brother who is a complete math ‘geek’. He has always gotten good grades and has never been in trouble. He says he’s responsible, dependable, healthy and clean. His parents seem to take pride in his brother and Jake considers himself his “evil twin”. Analyze and explain Jake's behavior using the Triadic Reciprocal Causation of Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory. ANSWER: Social Cognitive Theory was produced by Albert Bandura in the year 1977 wherein this theory suggests that learning may be conducted through observation. Observational learning consists of a model that serves as the director of an action that is being followed by the subject. The model gives motivation to the behavior that may be imitated and enacted by the observer. Models can be parents, relatives, peers, characters in a TV show and teachers. The behaviours being imposed may either be commendable or adverse. This theory explains the perspective of an individual as an effective force who both control and is being controlled by the environment. It also indicates the powerful interplay between people and their personal factors that includes their behavior and the environment, and this action is being called as Reciprocal Determinism. Jake’s situation and other individuals tend to display attitudes and behaviors that are learned, whether it be deliberately or inadvertently. He started to drink and smoke at a very young age. His father drinks whenever he is home during the weekend from work. He yells and throws everything around the house when drunk. In result to that, Jake’s mother gets upset so she also drinks and always ends up in a fight with her husband when they are both drunk. Jake is also diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. A factor that may be involved in the development of ADHD is genetics. A person with ADHD has difficulties in paying attention and controlling impulsive behaviours. With this kind of life that Jake had, at the age of 13 he starts drinking alcohol and smoking and when their classmates are talking and thinking about their profession in the future, he thinks where he can get money to buy cigarettes. He smoke a pack of cigarettes, and his breakfast is drinking coffee, and drinking liquor at night, while, in weekend, he spends his time experimenting various types of drugs. With the reoccurring situation in Jake’s life where he encountered his family affairs and faced these circumstances at a young age, he had the opportunity of taking up his parents as his models as part of growing up. Young adults learn positive and/or negative attitudes and behaviors depending on people that surround them and the environment in which they live. Majority of the case is the legal guardians are the primary models that are being admired by the young ones where behaviors are learned and imitated through the observable actions implicated by the models. As it is being said that “Home is the starting point of education of an individual”, family has become the motivator of Jake in stimulating his behaviors that later on begin to mature as part of aging. The behavior of parents and other family members is crucial to understanding the attitudes and behaviors of youth and the outcomes that follow as the adolescents grow older. Jake’s case shows that peers and family members influence his behavior by providing reinforcement for key behaviors, and modeling the outcomes associated with those behaviors. This part of Bandura’s Theory is the Triadic Reciprocal Causation. This assumes that personal factors, environment and behavior influence each other. For example, his mother and father or family members who smoke can expose siblings or other members of the family to the immediate positive outcomes associated with smoking such as solidarity, commonality, and building closer relationships. Other reinforcement may derive from schools and peer-friendship groups. Two basic elements are included in social cognitive theory, denoting the cognitive processes that influence Jake’s behavior: self-efficacy and outcome expectancies. The first is related to a person’s belief that they can maintain control over the facts that influence their life and it comprises a general cognitive mechanism which intervenes in the person’s behavioral response to the received stimuli. It refers to the evaluation made by the individual in relation to his/her ability to perform an action in a certain situation. KEY ANSWER: