Developmental psychology as a science of psychic life genesis: crucial achievements and future research
In the paper a state of art in contemporary psychology of human development is presented. Considerations are concentrated on two issues: the nature and mechanisms of developmental changes. Regarding the nature, we show a shift in research from a study on stable and universal changes to not regular and unique changes. Regarding the developmental mechanism, we try to describe a shift from research concentrated on reactivity to research on own activity of individual in relation with environments. The main thesis of the paper is statement, that psychology of development belongs to the sciences of life, and according to it, should to search for specific rules of change in human functioning and development. The holistic-interactive, functional and relative approaches are indicated as a most effective in this kind of studies.

Does psychology require a concept of human nature?
The primary thesis of this article is in accord with the postulate that notions about mankind are rooted in the concept of human nature. From the perspective of the history of ideas, it is clearly evident that the essence of the human being is intertwined with history while the influence of this intrinsic understanding of man has been and continues to exceed that of history. The strongest evidence of this is found in the philosophy of the human individual constantly present in the psychological discourse despite the intervening, temporary dominance of the empirical paradigm. The belief that everything can be measured and counted stems from mythical thought. This text undertakes an attempt to categorize the conceptual apparatus of contemporary cognitive science. Concurrently, it indicates the definitions and relationships which encompass such concepts as the mind, consciousness, and thinking.

Care of the self and human development
In the paper Care of the self and human development the author would like to draw readers` attention to the concept of self-care. This concept, according to the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, is crucial for humanity formation. Patočka and another 20 century thinker Michel Foucault tried to revive the tradition of the care of the self. It is a matter of fact that this tradition lost its significance in the modern time partially because of the growing importance of scientific approaches toward human being. Despite this, care of the self can still be an important element in the human life. Care of the self can be understood as an alternative in the world dominated by scientism and instrumentalism because it tries to see human development as a process in which two approaches scientific and spiritual become one in the art of living

Care of the self and human development
Trivers (1974) argued that offspring demand much more parental investment than parents want to give. This conflict of interest stems from a genetic conflict. Parents are genetically equally related to all of their offspring (the coefficient of relatedness r = 0.5; children share 50% genes of each of parents) and, for the parents, they present the same value as the “vehicle” of their genes. For this reason, parents are selected to balance investment among their offspring. For the offspring, it is a different standpoint: for each “full” sibling (r = 0.5) its value is twice as much to the other sibling (because it has 100% of its own genes, and the second sibling shares only 50% of its genes), and its value is fourfold higher than the value of a half-sibling (r = 0.25). The “selfish” children, driven by their own genetic interest, try to obtain more parental investment than their parents intend to provide, even at their siblings’  disadvantage. In this situation, a parent–offspring conflict arises that concerns the distribution of parental investment, and what is important, one can expect a sibling rivalry for these resources. In this paper the social and psychological consequences of parent – offspring conflict are discussed: i.a. infanticide, mate preference conflict, sibling rivalry and allomothering as a way in which parent–offspring can be reduced

Individual activity as a factor in the development of outstanding creator
Creative activity of a human being results in works valuable both in individual and social terms. Such activity enables man to gain deeper and better insight into the essence and mystery of the world, its guiding principles and to discover what has been so far unknown. The creative potential of a child becomes evident from the first years of spontaneous activity, language acquisition and artistic creations. Due to this potential, a child makes significant progress in getting to know the surrounding world. Such creative impetus goes through subsequent crises quite soon, with increasing conformist behaviour. However, outstanding creativity does not disappear as fast as egalitarian one and for many years its level remains high. The results of research and of biographical analysis carried out by the author concerning outstanding creators show that individual activity of the creators determines whether creative potential is used or not. Moreover, such individual activity remains a dominant factor stimulating the development of creators, while egalitarian creativity is to a large extent determined by environment and upbringing. Strong ego, dominance and nonconformism make creators independent and self-confident individuals, capable of self-determination and strong-minded, in particular as regards their imperative of creative activity in the field they have chosen. Due to individual activity one does not succumb to the pressure of the surrounding, but exerts independent control upon one’s own resources and the environment. The assumption that individual activity constitutes a dominant factor in the development of outstanding creators was supported with the analysis of biographic facts.

Children advertising
Children consist the significant part of commercial recipients and as a consumers have a great importance for companies. At the same time commercials have significant and multidimensional influence on children. It is truism to say that adults make their buy or not decisions under the pressure of their children, who obtain the knowledge about the market and products straight from the commercials. They receive the commercial content from plethora of media. Until recently mostly from the TV screen, nowadays more often from computer one. If we take into account that commercials are at the same time the instrument of creation of needs, pointer of their fulfillment, trendsetter and identity builder we can not be blind on its significance for the personality of young men.
Because of the obvious commercial reasons there is no possibility to eliminate the products and the children addressed advertising out of the market. However this do not mean we should no constrain such broadcasts because of their form or content. That is the main reason to construct legal constrains. The fundamental ones are included in regulations fighting the unfair competition. In the Polish unfair competition act legislator included the ‘commercial’ article 16 combating forms and contents that infringe the fair competition rules. One of the clauses prohibits advertising that ‘uses the credulity of the children’ – pt 3) pt 1 art. 16 unfair competition act. This is solely one clause within whole act that tackles this issue. Additionally it’s construction causes doubts about the interpretation. It is hard to asses when actually one can say about the use of immanent children virtue of credulity.
Another, important act is the statue on the radio and television containing clauses directly regulating rules on children advertising. According to the act it is prohibited to broadcast commercials that directly incite children to buy products or services, or encourage children to uphold pressure on their parents or other persons in the aim to incite them to buy advertised products or services (art. 16).
Among the most important regulation falls provisions of pharmaceutical law. According to them “Advertising of healing product can not be directed to children or contain element addressed to them” (art. 53 p. 2). However even short analyze of tv commercials of healing products for children leads to the conclusion that almost each is apparently addressed to them taking into account their content, fairytale scenery, costumes or children actors. Above leads to the conclusions that even the most detail regulation does not prevent children against harming influence of commercial content, if the traders would not have will to do it.

Neuropsychology of later lifeng
Contemporary debate on human aging is intensive and multifaceted in nature because of agerelated transformation in many contemporary societies, i.e. a rapid increase of mean life expectancy (increasing numbers of healthy old people). The aim of this article is to discuss changes in brain and behavior that occur in later life. Life-span developmental neuropsychology emphasizes a close relationship between cognitive problems in later life and age-related loss of large neurons in some parts of the brain. Large neurons shrink into smaller neuron classes. The most pronounced atrophic changes have been reported in the prefrontal area, hippocampus, ubstantianigra and locus cinereus. This article presents also common clinical conditions of later life, such as differential diagnosis of age-associated behavioral changes and dementias. There may be multiple causes of neurogeriatric disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. There has been considerable interest in the possible causative role of cognitive and brain reserve which differs among individuals. Therefore between-individual heterogeneity related to normal cognitive aging is signifi cant. Namely, if cerebral pathology occurs (e.g., neurodegeneration with dementia), persons with a greater reserve may not demonstrate the same cognitive impact as others with the same pathology (e.g. lesion size) but less reserve. It is also widely believed that mental difficulties in lder adults cannot be easily attributed to psychomotor slowness which may reflect a loss of white matter tissue, i.e. dysmielinisation of nerve fibers. This article emphasizes an importance of ecologically valid assessment of older adults, whose everyday activities and real--world abilities cannot be predicted by the traditional tests and sophisticated procedures emerging from purely experimental investigations.

The sense of the quality of life for long-lived people
The changing demography and the progress in medicine, pharmacy, undertaking preventive actions, allow a wider group of people reach the age of aging, and even a longevity. Unparalleled in the human history number of people will reach and exceed the ninetieth and hundredth year of life. Therefore the main aim of this study was to determine the level of the sense of the quality of life for generations of 90+ and comparing it with the sense of the quality of life for people in earlier stages of aging (75–89, 60–74). The sense of the quality of life was defined as a multidimensional occurence, including four main spheres of man’s functioning: psychophisical, psychosocial, subjective and metaphisical (spiritual).

RECENZJA

Sokol B.W. , Müller U., Carpendale J.I.M., Young A.R., Iarocci G. (red.) (2010), Self and Social Regulation. Social Interaction and the Development of Social Understanding and Executive Functions.

Oxford: Oxford University Press

RECENZJA
Dryll E., Cierpka A. (2011), Psychologia narracyjna. Tożsamość, dialogowość, pogranicza
Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Eneteia

Sprawozdanie z Międzynarodowego Sympozjum Vocational counselling in the context of education
practice in Poland
1 grudnia 2011 roku na Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny w Krakowie