Behavioral Perspectives of Lifespan

Behavioral Perspectives of Lifespan

INTRODUCTION

This report entails the behavioral perspectives of lifespan using the experience of a man aged 62 years as an example. Paul’s family (though not his real name) and ours used to stay in the same neighborhood when I was a young boy more than 15 years ago. I chose him as my focus of study to represent the rich parents who get diverted from their responsibilities by the abuse of drugs. I took plenty of my time studying his behavior and how he conducted himself during the day at work and at home too. Additionally, observation, an interview, personal interaction were my methodologies of data collection since they gave me a direct overview of how he manages himself.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Paul, a degree holder in sales and marketing, (62-years-old) is a Caribbean Australian and works for a real estate company in Western Australia- Property West Real Estate. He is currently single, however, six years ago he was married to Jane (not her real name) and had been blessed with three kids (two boys who are identical twins and one girl). He’s currently living in Kensington with her aged widowed-mother since his siblings have left Australia for Europe. His place of residence has a cool surrounding since only 10% of university students stay here leaving the other percentage for professionals, managers, technicians, and trade workers. Majority of the residents have families earning an average of $2000 weekly (“About the profile areas | Kensington | profile.id”, 2018).

BIOLOGICAL FACTORS

Pursuing this further, from my observation I could guess that he had a BMI of approximately 27 because he had a height of 5′ 9″ and a weight of 178 lb and below which he came to second later. After an emotional interview with him, he told me that he was undergoing a lot of depression since his wife divorced her in 2012 something which has affected not only his health life but also working capabilities at his workplace (Appendix B). Since then, he has been having weight fluctuations and insomnia. According to Legg (2018), depression is one of the commonest mind disorders affecting more than adults in Australia and has adverse effects on human health. Also, a recent study by the Australian government has indicated that depression may be caused by a series of the family history of the complex disease something which lacks in Paul’s family, chronic illness, chronic pain and is more associated with grief (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018).  Moreover, I could observe that it was true that his addiction to smoking and drinking alcohol has increased rapidly from being a relatively responsible drinker and smoker to an alcohol abuser and a chain smoker too because he could leave much often to the smoking bay to puff some smoke and had a bottle of Scottish whiskey at his desk. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (2018) confirms that men have 7% tendencies of abusing substances compared to women 3% with alcohol being the most abused substance. As we continued chatting, he told me that this had affected his way of life due to the fact he found himself even neglecting his core duties of paying for his mum’s home care of the elderly and monthly upkeep expenses for his children (Appendix B).

Furthermore, he pulled a khaki envelop from his office drawer and gave it to me to have a look. I came to find out that recently he had diagnosed with the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, and Dysrhythmia which are all related to heart complications which are some of the diseases that caused by extreme depression according to Sane, 2018. From the look on his face, I concluded that his fight against the excessive stress he has been going through, and these chronic diseases might be the core reason behind his high rates of insomnia. According to a recent study conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, chronic pain, and depression have been rated as some of the commonest causes of insomnia. It further adds that insomnia can trigger or worsen depression since it brings along lack of sleep, changes in mood, and shifts in different hormones (Wyer & Srull, 2014). From a distance, I could notice that he was overthinking too much, maybe because of his family or work-related issues, which made him take some depressants to curb the depression. However, during the interview, he told me he had taken some advice from his close friend and decided to take a positive move to visit a counselor who was helping him in fighting depression (Appendix C). Moreover, Paul added that he was the only one in his family of 6 who has had multiple pregnancies because he had a pair of twin boys.

PHYSICOLOGICAL FACTORS

Besides that, in the methodological process, I was able to test some psychological factors such as Paul’s cognitive functioning, self-efficacy, mental health problems among others. It was clearly evident that his cognitive functioning was at his very best due to the fact that, however, he had indulged himself in alcohol and tobacco abuse his language in terms of sentence structure, pronunciation, and grammar was perfect (Appendix C). In fact, he was correcting my grammar if I was wrong. Moreover, throughout the interaction, I could notice that he had a high degree of moral reasoning since I could relate how strict he is a parent in ensuring that his children don’t choose the path he chose when he was a young man. For instance, he would give lectures on having a good moral public image whenever his children visited him in Kensington. According to Proyer et al (2015), parents who have high cognitive functioning usually have high skills in moral reasoning and usually protect their children under all means. I observed that majority of his colleagues would go in and out of his office from time to time and when I asked him during the interview he said that they were coming to get some advice in solving certain problems in the workstation (Appendix A). It is true to say that individual differences in cognitive skills and abilities go hand in hand with the ability of an individual to take logical and superior decisions (Wyer & Srull, 2014). Since sales in not only real estate companies but all business enterprises deal with numeracy which Paul is good at makes him have the ability to comprehend and transform probabilities.

Due to his state of mental health problems, he tries very hard to balance both personal life and work but most of the times he ends up failing. From my observation, he has very poor skills in multitasking events something which I believe was a cause of his divorce because he used to work a lot during the day so as to meet the company’s expectations as well as trying to spare some time to spend with her mother. In his article, Cockerham (2016) says that high rates of depression can lead an individual to make poor and worse decisions and indulge themselves in substance abuse. For instance, Paul’s uncontrolled behavior of alcohol consumption, which I later came to realize that he thought it would relieve him from stress, disabled his thinking capacity which landed him on poor decisions (Appendix B). However, throughout the interview I noticed that his level of self-esteem is too high since he always stacked on his ideas, had high assertiveness, he didn’t seek approval from others, and he rarely hesitated which are some of the aspects highlighted by Fagan (2018). Apparently, Fagan (2018) asserts that the sense of self-esteem builds up during an individual’s lifespan and peaks at the age of 60 to 70 years. Phycologists also agree that between these years is when people have very high self-esteem due to cognitive advancements which help them to realize about the real and ideal self (Proyer et al, 2015). Additionally, his studies have been accompanied by concurrent success all through meaning that his ability to acquire and grasp knowledge is very high. I came to realize later during the interview that he was undergoing his master’s education in one of the universities in Australia as a part-time activity but dropped out due to intense stress and depression at that moment.

SOCIAL FACTORS

Paul’s ability to speak Chinese, Mandarin, French, Cantonese, Tasmanian and Torres Strait Island languages perfectly without making any errors. I guessed that this was what made him have very high self-esteem in approaching customers from across all the corners of Australia as well as China and France. DFM has elaborated that for successful sales and marketing a salesperson ought to Have broad language diversification in order to reach as many customers as possible (Evans, 2018. During the interview, I saw more than two portraits with Bible verses scribbled on them which made me curious. He explained that he was a very strong believer of the Christian faith and he once served as a church leader close to 9 years ago (Appendix C). All along the interview, he kept on insisting how family, used to and forever will, meant a lot to him even though his wife had divorced him due to his busy schedule (Appendix B). This was evident through the presence of his family photos all over his office table and walls. Besides, he told me that he made sure that he had dinner with his children at his house twice every month. Moreover, he blamed himself for the divorce and whenever he failed to pay for his mother’s home care due to the negligence of duty.

During the interview and interactions, he came to shed light on his family information which he had been holding for so long. He stated that her daughter was in her first year studying law in the University of Melbourne while his twins one was in his third year studying engineering in the University of New South Wales while the other was still in this third year in the Australian College of Nursing doing Nursing. Following this further, he was loved by almost every workmate in Property West Real Estate company because he was very polite, understanding, always willing to help, and most of them all, a good decision maker which are some of the attributes of sociology of leaders (Cleland, 2017). In his article, Webster (2018) says that a good leader should exhibit responsive and directive behavior. Also, he adds that a good leader ought to have traits such as confidence, compassion, flexibility, diligence among others. Paul never looked down upon any employee but rather listened to them and gave them advice accordingly. He told me that he never saw himself quitting his job since it meant a lot to him because he had been in the sales and marketing profession for centuries although he had encountered a lot of challenges along the way (Appendix C). According to (Altman, 2018), for any business enterprise to be successful, the employees should be willing to dive into the challenging and competitive market.

PREDICTION IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS

Paul had very clear objectives on how he was going to change his life in the following five years. he affirmed that the counseling he was undergoing was very positive since, however, the changes were gradual, he could notice them. He was sure that he could go back to being a more responsible son, father, and employee by reducing the consistent consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. He stated that he was working on his dream of opening his own real estate company was soon coming to a reality. Him being voted severally as the best salesperson in the real estate, he was going to train his personnel so as to instill the skills behind his success as well as explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the industry. In order to stay healthy, he was going to start physical exercises at the nearest gymnasium as well as having a self-discipline of his diet. Since he did not want any other person to undergo what he was undergoing, he promised to partner with some health organizations to create awareness on the dangers of depression and the effective ways of handling the issue among divorced couples as well as people within his age bracket.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, depression is one of the most dangerous states a person can find him or herself in because it changes the normal functioning of the brain leading to a miserable life (Karp, 2016). As discussed above, this state of health makes a person make intensive regrettable decisions. Moreover, people who are experiencing the same condition as Paul ought to find counseling through professional psychiatrists so as to find refuge. Although I came to meet my objectives, the methodologies had their challenges too- mostly interaction and interview method. This is because Paul received a lot of phones calls as well as interruptions from the people’s daily activities in the park. Despite that, the methodology had strengths too because they were very extensive in the collection of data and information allowing room for more clarification during the interviews and interactions.

REFERENCES

About the profile areas | Kensington | profile.id. (2018). Retrieved from https://profile.id.com.au/south-perth/about?WebID=120

Altman, I. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianaltman/2014/12/22/how-to-grow-your-business-in-a-challenging-market/

Cleland, J. (2017). [Accepted Manuscript] Sociology as a Population Science. Social science & medicine (1982).

Cockerham, W. C. (2016). Acting Mentally Disordered: The Example of Schizophrenia, Anxiety, and Depression. In Sociology of Mental Disorder (pp. 70-94). Routledge.

Depression. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.sane.org/mental-health-and-illness/facts-and-guides/depression

Evans, M. (2018). The Language Of Advertising – Vocabulary – Postscript | Linguarama. Retrieved from http://www.linguarama.com/ps/marketing-themed-english/the-language-of-advertising.htm

Fagan, A. (2018). How Self-Esteem Changes Over the Lifespan. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/brainstorm/201809/how-self-esteem-changes-over-the-lifespan

Karp, D. A. (2016). Speaking of sadness: Depression, disconnection, and the meanings of illness. Oxford University Press.

Legg, T. (2018). The Effects of Depression in Your Body. Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/effects-on-body

Proyer, R. T., Wellenzohn, S., Gander, F., & Ruch, W. (2015). Toward a better understanding of what makes positive psychology interventions work: Predicting happiness and depression from the person× intervention fit in a follow‐up after 3.5 years. Applied Psychology: Health and Well‐Being, 7(1), 108-128.

Webster, V. (2018). 10 Qualities of a Good Leader. Retrieved from https://www.leadershipthoughts.com/10-qualities-of-a-good-leader/

Wyer Jr, R. S., & Srull, T. K. (2014). Social cognition and clinical psychology: Anxiety, depression, and the processing of social information. In Handbook of Social Cognition, Second Edition (pp. 305-354). Psychology Press.

APPENDIX A

I accompanied Paul to Property West Real Estate, his place of work, where most of my interactions, and observations were made. His place of work exhibited a busy environment with clients moving in and out of the offices very often and different meetings being conducted in the company’s boardroom and offices. Most of the employees were always on phone calls while others were busy scribbling notes on their dairies. The workplace had roughly more than thirty employees but the rate of customers flow was very high.

Consequently, Paul had a busy schedule because if he was not busy attending a client he was on a long phone call or speaking to his workmates. For instance, at 10:10 A.M. he had a brief talk with his workmate who was asking on how he could attract private investors in buying some of the company’s real estate developments. Moreover, the frequency of his phone calls was hyper, for example at 2:56 P.M. just after making a call at 2: 48 P.M. he received another call which lasted for almost one hour. The following is a 60-minute overview of my observation.

According to the above information, the following table represents percentages of how Paul managed his time.

Additionally, his workmates visited his office twice, he made one and received six phone calls though he just picked one, had meetings twice and attended to a client only once. I came to find out that most of the phone calls ware about his awaiting trip to London to attend a seminar on real estate investments.

APPENDIX B

In the evening, after his working hours elapsed, we decided to take a walk around a park in the town so as to obtain a lot more information about himself through the interaction.  He answered almost most of my questions boldly though some were very emotional since they were touching most of his sorrowful moments. He added that the experiences he underwent as a child while growing up were not easy that’s why he put a lot of efforts in his studies so as to achieve what he currently has. Though he said that he was satisfied with his work and workplace, he was not contented with his personal life due to the fact that he was undergoing a lot of depression and health problems – chronic diseases. I came to realize that he lacked many friends since he had decided to become a loner. Playing golf, travelling, cycling, and reading were his best activities while swimming, boat riding, and sky diving were his least favorite activities since he feared death.

Although the conversation, Paul was easy talking to due to the fact that he gave detailed information without being shy or afraid. He added that he had to manage his time effectively to keep an eye on her mum, visit his children, do his activities, and perform his duties at work. He regretted most of the decisions he had made due to excessive alcohol consumptions and blamed it on himself but he was on his journey towards recovery with the help of a psychiatrist. After the interaction, I later found that he is a missioned, caring, hardworking man.

APPENDIX C

THE INTERVIEW

Although Paul is a very busy man, he made time for a short interview in his office so that I could clarify some of my findings.

THE QUESTIONNAIRE