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Sample Personal Statement for Teenager & Juvenile Developmental
Psychology
In my undergraduate program, I received education across two
fields—a degree program in law at the Law School of XX University and
a degree program in psychology at XX University. My rigorous academic
trainings across those two fields have given me necessary
qualifications for pursuing a more advanced program either in
psychology or in law, endowing me with a unique advantage in
interdisciplinary knowledge.
As far as I am concerned, law and psychology are reciprocal. They all
pertain to human behavior. As a matter of fact, my thesis in law,
entitled “ XXX “ explores juvenile delinquency by examining the
complicated psychological factors of the younger generation of China
in family, school and neighborhood settings. However, there are
essential differences between them. In terms of the causal
relationships of human behavior, law is primarily concerned with the
treatment of the consequences of human behavior while psychology
probes into the motivations that cause people to act as they do. In
the framework of human relations, law aims at orderly and
well-regulated social relationship while psychology, with its
interventions into the process of human development, seeks to
facilitate the healthy development of the individuals.
While law and psychology are both indispensable to the proper
functioning of our society, when it comes to making a choice between
those two fields in which to pursue a graduate program, I decide to
opt for a program in Developmental Psychology. My decision is
motivated by the fact that law can only deal with the aftermath of
human behavior whereas psychology can provide preventive measures
against possible negative human behavior. Child & adolescent
psychology, a field I am interested in, may facilitate the development
of healthy personality structure that may enable children and
adolescents interact with the society in a harmonious manner.
I have received sound academic trainings that a student of psychology
can expect in China, excelling particularly in Developmental
Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Experimental Psychology and other
core courses, all of which have imparted to me the necessary
theoretical knowledge. My 87/100 GPA in Psychology has made me the top
student in my class and the winner of a series of the university’s
top-level scholarships. As an undergraduate, I have attempted at some
tentative research by submitting essays and research papers to
provincial-level and university-level journals (please refer to my
Resume). In performing those researches, I find that I have benefited
considerably from my solid mathematics foundation and the related
methodology—my score for the Advanced Mathematics course is 98/100
while the SPSS was nearly full mark. I have mastered important
statistical and quantitative methods, computer programming and LISREL
with much facility and I excel in designing experiments and preparing
questionnaires.
I started to perform formal academic research at the Developmental
Psychology Lab in XX University two years by working as a research
assistant to Prof. XX, a leading Chinese scholar on social development
in childhood and adolescence and peer relations. By focusing on the
peer relations, social cognition, social self-concept, attributions,
and past social experiences, I completed a full-length research paper
XX, which became a poster presentation at the XX. My research
indicates that in addition to maintaining an appropriate level of
social self-concept and optimistic attributional style, it is
essentially worthwhile to emphasize another two strategies to improve
the positive peer nominations: to pay special attention to the
attributions to negative events of the life, and to attribute social
popularity or success to some stable causes. Based on my distinguished
academic performance, I attended the XX and the XX.
Off campus, I have worked as a social worker offering psychological
consulting for the “No Worry Teenagers” column for the authoritative
journal XX, dealing with the problems concerning interpersonal
relations and social cognition of adolescents and young adults. This
experience allowed me to gain insight into many important aspects of
the mental lives of this group of people beyond the mere statistical
data. However, it is a regret that my knowledge is insufficient to
offer adequate consulting service to my audience of such diverse
backgrounds. This fact reveals to me the need to undertake more
advanced studies to improve my professional competence.
I am strongly interested in the developmental psychology of
adolescents because by helping adolescents build up a healthy
psychology that may enable them to successfully integrate into the
competitive world of adults, hence fewer social problems could be
created. In my proposed program, I would like to concentrate on the
following subjects: social cognitive and social-emotional development
in childhood and adolescence; peer relations and family relations and
their influence on development; resilience in high risk settings;
development of self-esteem; gender differences and similarities, and
research methods. The University of XX’s graduate education is very
strong in those fields. Your faculty consists of distinguished
professors who come from leading universities and have made important
research achievements. Your program offers students a total of 14
labs, among which Multiple Identities and Interpersonal Interactions
Lab is most relevant to my study. I expect that your Ph.D. program can
give me instruction in the fundamental theories and knowledge of
developmental psychology and also give me rigorous training in
planning, conducting and evaluating research. I would like to identify
Prof.XX as my potential advisor, whose research interests covers a
wide spectrum, including most of the fields I am interested in.
To me, psychology means care, psychological research is to find out
how to care and psychological service is to offer the care. My career
objective is to develop into a research-oriented professor who can
perform substantial research on adolescent psychology. I will study
those features of psychology that Chinese adolescents share with their
XX counterparts as China is under heavy influences of XX culture. But
I would also examine the role of traditional Chinese culture in
shaping the psychology of Chinese adolescents. Apart from my
professional activities, I will continue to offer voluntary,
non-profit consulting services to those who are in need. Adolescent
psychological consulting is only of recent origin and much is to be
improved. My prospective XX education will enable me to make important
contributions in this regard.
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