Read the Following Case History

question 61

Essay

Read the following case history. Then write an essay responding to the questions that follow.
Jimmy is the eldest of three children born to Jeff and Eileen Green. Up until the age of 7, Jimmy lived in a household characterized by extreme turmoil. Jeff Green was an alcoholic who frequently came home drunk and beat Eileen. Jimmy witnessed these beatings on several occasions. In fact, it was Jimmy who called the police the night that Jeff beat Eileen so badly that she was hospitalized with a concussion and broken ribs. Jeff was sentenced to prison for assault, and, upon his release, he had no further contact with the family.
After Jeff was incarcerated, Eileen took two jobs to support her family. She rarely had time for her children. When she was home, she was often hostile: She berated Jimmy as worthless and scolded him for his failure to be more helpful at home.
By the time he was 12, Jimmy stayed away from home as much as possible and was frequently truant from school to hang out on the street with his friends. He especially looked up to Bill, a boy 2 years older who taught him how to shoplift and how to break into cars to steal stereo equipment. As Jimmy got older, he engaged in many car and home burglaries. He also got into numerous fights: At the slightest insult, he would fly into a rage.
Jimmy is now 16. He has an extensive criminal record for burglary and assault.
Compare and contrast how a psychoanalytic theorist and a social learning theorist would make sense of Jimmy's behavior. What assumptions would each make about the source of Jimmy's troubles? What factors in Jimmy's life would they consider most important in understanding his behavior? What sorts of strategies might each recommend to help Jimmy quit his delinquency?

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Definitions:

Adult Personality

Characteristics and patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior that are established during adulthood.

Ego

In Freud’s structural model, the part of personality that considers external reality while mediating between the demands of the id and the superego.

Instinctual Influences

Innate, biological drives or motivations that impact human behavior and decision-making, often operating outside of conscious awareness.

Neo-Freudian Theorist

Psychologists who have adapted and expanded upon Sigmund Freud's original theories of psychoanalysis while incorporating their own beliefs about the human psyche and behavior.