Childhood - D Zuj

Question 1

What are the 4 phases in Piaget’s developmental model?

Answer 1

Sensorimotor, Pre-operational, Operational and Formal operational

Question 2

What are some traits of the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 2

Working out how body operates, touch-based. No object permanence. 0-2 years

Question 3

What are some traits of the pre-operational stage?

Answer 3

Thinking about problems - improvement in problem solving abilities. Development of object permanence. 3-7 years

Question 4

What is deferred imitation?

Answer 4

Deferred imitation is imitating parents and siblings. E.g. toddlers being able to unlock phones without being shown

Question 5

What is an a-not-b error?

Answer 5

Continuing to look in (previously successful) place A even though they have observed object being put in place B instead. Likely a result of not being able to understand the difference between two. Theorised to be due to a lack of inhibition

Question 6

What is habituation?

Answer 6

Assessing gaze duration of infants to ascertain ability to identify differences

Question 7

What did the DeVos (1991) study find?

Answer 7

Carrot moving behind the different height obstructions

Question 8

What is symbolic function (Piaget)?

Answer 8

Realising that one thing can be used to represent another (symbolism). Limited by a toddler’s comparative egocentrism.

Question 9

What is animism (Piaget)?

Answer 9

Being that moving objects are alive and capable of thinking. Not common with familiar objects

Question 10

What does Piaget’s 3 mountains test demonstrate?

Answer 10

Children’s inability to understand another person having a different perspective to them

Question 11

What is centration? (Piaget, pre-operational)

Answer 11

Only being able to focus on one element of an object. This can manifest itself in the glass question - a taller glass doesn’t mean there’s more water but going from water height alone leads children to this conclusion

Question 12

How does horizontal decalage affect children’s ability to solve problems?

Answer 12

It means that they won’t be able to solve multiple conservation problems just because they can solve one

Question 13

What is rational imitation?

Answer 13

A child beginning to understand potential motivations for people doing something a certain way (e.g. pushing a button with hand or head)

Question 14

What are concrete operations?

Answer 14

Maths, organising things and reasoning are all concrete operations

Question 15

What does the formal operational stage bring? 12+

Answer 15

Able to hypothesise, better ability to understand more maths e.g. algebra.

Question 16

What are some criticisms of Piaget’s theory?

Answer 16

Lack of room for individual differences. Are the stages invariant? How can the stages go wrong? Is development best described as a discrete or continuous process? No emphasis on social effects.