Baillargeon's Violation of Expectation (AO1 & AO3)

Question 1

How was Baillargeon critical of Piaget?

Answer 1

She believed there were other reasons behind object permanence; she argued that it could have been because the child’s motor skills were not developed enough to seek out the object or because the child’s selected attention was too limited to maintain interest

Question 2

Outline how the VOE research was carried out

Answer 2

• Showed infants aged 6-8 months a tall and short rabbit pass behind a window.
• In the possible condition the tall rabbit could be seen and the short rabbit could not.
• In the impossible condition neither rabbit could be seen.
• The results showed that the children looked at the impossible condition for longer suggesting that they were expecting the tall rabbit to reappear, demonstrating an understanding of object permanence

Question 3

Explain how VOE has better validity than other methods

Answer 3

• Piaget said that when a baby shifted attention away from an out of sight object they no longer knew it existed, however the baby may have shifted attention because they simply lost interest.
• VOE method eliminates this co-founding variable as simply losing interest would not explain the findings that children looked for longer at the impossible event.

Question 4

Give a criticism of Baillargeon’s work

Answer 4

• It is hard to judge what an infant understands
• We may never know how a baby might actually behave in response to a violation of expectation
• Although they look at impossible events for longer this does not prove that they see a difference (perhaps it is more interesting).
• This means that VOE may not be an entirely valid way of investigating the infant world