3C - Process Of Psychological Development Flashcards
Emotional Development
Changes in how a person experiences, interprets and expresses the full range of emotions and their ability to cope with them
Attachment
Close social and emotional bond between infant and their caregivers
Harlow
Wanted to research whether attachment was based on biological or emotional needs
He separated eight infants rhesus monkeys from their mothers at birth and reared them in individual cages
Each cage had substitute mothers, one was made of cloth the other wire
A feeding bottle was attached to one of the mothers and infants where assigned either the wire surrogate providing milk or cloth
He predicted that the monkeys would prefer/attach to the surrogate mother who provided milk (he thought attachment was primarily feeding)
In both conditions, infant monkeys spent more time clinging/cuddling to cloth mother surrogates and only go to wire for food/milk
He also demonstrated that in scary situations, infant monkeys would run to surrogate mothers for comfort
He concluded that ‘contact comfort’ was more important than feeding when forming attachments in rhesus monkeys
Social Development
Changes in a person’s ability to interact with other people and function as a member of society
Observational Learning
The acquisition of new behaviours as a result of observing the actions of others and the consequences of those actions
Bandura
He did an experiment with 66 children and showed them a film of a model interacting with a Bobo doll
Group One - watched the model being aggressive followed by a researcher praising the model for their behaviour with food reward
Group Two - watched the model being aggressive followed by being criticised for behaviour
Group Three (control group) - model was aggressive but was not punished or rewarded
After watching they were put in a room with toys, including Bobo doll
He found that children in the group that watched the model being rewarded were more likely to act violently towards doll (by mimicking behaviour)
There was also a reward for correctly replicating aggressive behaviour and children who had seen the model punished were more likely to do so
He found that just watched violence does not mean they will replicate acts, many other factors are involved in determining if the child will copy/do the same
Cognitive Development
Changes in an individual’s mental abilities, including thinking, learning, imagination, memory and more
Piaget
He noticed that children actively explored their environment and believed that cognitive development was dependent on children’s ability to adapt to their
constantly changing world
The children were able to achieve this through assimilation and accommodation
Also came up with four stages of cognitive development
Assimilation Vs Accommodation
Ass - cognitive process involving taking a new concept and fitting it into or making it part of pre-existing mental idea/structure
e.g - thinks shampoo is sauce from pre-existing idea
Acc - cognitive process that involves changing or adjusting existing ideas to deal with situation
e.g - concept is adjusted so understand that sauce is kept in kitchen
Age Range For Each CDS
Sensorimotor (0-2)
Pre-Operational (2-7)
Concrete Operational (7-12)
Formal Operational (12+)
Sensorimotor
In this first stage, infants are developing their ability to coordinate their sensory input with their motor actions. Their main interactions are via their senses and reflexes, so learning tends to be done by relating sensory and motor information
Sensorimotor Key Accomplishments
Object Permanence-
The understanding that even if things cannot be seen, heard or touched, they still exist (e.g - peak-a-boo)
Goal-Directed Behaviour-
The ability to perform a series of steps with a particular goal in mind (e.g - child wants and then walks over to retrieve toy)
Pre-Operational
During this stage, children learn to use symbols more confidently, such as words or images, to solve simple problems and to talk about things that are not physically present
- They are also egocentric, unable to view someone else’s perspective
- They can only focus on one task at a time (centration)
- They believe inanimate objects are alive (animism)
Pre-Operational Key Accomplishments
Symbolic Thinking-
The ability to use symbols to represent objects that are not physically present
e.g - paper towel roll becomes sword
Transformation-
The understanding that things can change physical state
e.g - ice can become water
Reversibility-
The ability to follow a line back to its starting point
e.g - taking and putting a Potato Head apart/together
Concrete Operational
Piaget called this the ‘concrete’ operational
stage because children can now perform
several mental operations on real, tangible, concrete objects and actual events
Concrete Operational Key Accomplishments
Conservation-
Understanding that properties of an object remain the same, even if its appearance changes
Of Volume - knowing that if you pour water from a shorter glass into a taller glass, the volume of liquid remains the same
Of Number - knowing that the number of a group of objects does not change even if the physical appearance changes
Of Length - knowing that the length of objects is fixed even if the position is changed
Of Mass - knowing that mass stays the same even if the object’s appearance changes
Classification-
The ability to organise objects or events in categories based on common features that set them apart from other categories
For example, if a child who can classify is presented with the shapes shown in Figure 3C–33, they will be able to group them based on whether they are a triangle, square or circle, as well as based on size (large, medium or small) and/or colour
(orange, blue or green)
Formal Operational
During the formal operational stage,
adolescents become more systematic
in their problem-solving attempts
Formal Operational Key Accomplishments
Abstract Thinking-
A way of thinking that does not rely on the ability to see, touch or hear something
e.g - understand concept of time, distance, discrimination etc
Idealistic Thinking-
Comparing self or others to perfect standards and striving to be the best version of self
e.g - teenager may desire to become lawyer and understands complexities to achieve this goal
What Was Learnt From Piaget?
Now understand ‘developmental readiness’ that is you cannot do a task if you aren’t developmentally ready to do so
Know not to push children too early and feel disappointment when they don’t achieve task
Criticisms Of Piaget
- Age ranges were off
- children were distracted (only complete tasks when really focused)
- overestimated language ability
- his sample choice were his own children (they were white and from wealthy family)
Sampling Types
Convenience
Random
Stratified
Types Of Investigation Designs
Between-Subjects-
Participants were either in control or experiment group (random)
Within-Subjects-
were in both control and experiment group
Mixed-
Combines features from both types to assess change in members of each group over time
