Cog Dev

Question 1

Who was Piaget? What did he do?

Answer 1

He was a Swiss zoologist who developed and interest in intelligence testing and then moved into researching cog dev
He studied children informally to create a stage theory of cognitive development

Question 2

According to Piaget what do children learn through?

Answer 2

They learn through interaction and cognitive maturation

Question 3

What is ‘cognitive maturation?’

Answer 3

The biological unfolding of cognitive abilities

Question 4

What is a ‘schema?’

Answer 4

A mental structure based on previous experiences that help us to formulate expectations and ‘how’ to operate in the world
They consist of ‘units of understanding’ about the world which can be behavioural or cognitive
Some are innate and some develop through interaction

Question 5

What is assimilation? When does it occur?

Answer 5

It occurs when an individual incorporates/merges new knowledge into an existing schema, so a child is able to understand new information in terms of existing knowledge about the world
e.g. an existing schema e.g. sucking is used on a new stimulus e.g. toy

Question 6

What is accommodation and assimilation driven by?

Answer 6

The need to restore equilibrium (balance)

Question 7

What does accommodation involve?

Answer 7

Adapting an existing schema or developing new ones to cope with new info and restore equilibrium
It involves a child adapting an existing schema to fit new info or creating a new one

Question 8

Example of accommodation

Answer 8

A child may have a schema or bird being that it flies, but when they come across a non-flying bird e.g. penguin, this cannot be assimilated into a schema and so they will have to accommodate their bird schema to allow for the idea that not all birds can fly

Question 9

What is equilibration?

Answer 9

The balance achieved between existing schemas and new knowledge, if their is balance then the individual is in a state of equilibrium - all knowledge is contained in schemas

Question 10

What is disequilibrium?

Answer 10

A state of imbalance, when new knowledge cannot be made to fit the schemas

Question 11

What are the strengths of Piaget’s structures and processes? (2)

• practical applications
• evidence for the role of schemas

Answer 11

1) Has practical applications to education - the idea that learning is driven by disequilibrium and the motivation to classify information saw a change in education in 1960s to ‘discovery learning’ where children are encourage to explore and develop their understanding
2) Evidence to support - Fantz used picture of faces to test innate face schemas and found infants as young as 4 years old had a preference for schematic faces - assessed in amount of time spent looking at each face - validates the theory

Question 12

What are the weaknesses of Piaget’s structures and processes? (2)

• reductionist
• underplayed other factors

Answer 12

1) Reductionist as it over simplifies the complex process of acquiring new info - Piaget also didn’t provide evidence to support the existence of accommodation and assimilation and they are difficult to measure - theory is unfalsifiable
2) Underplayed the role of culture/language and overplayed the role of biology - Piaget saw language as another ability that develops, whereas Vygotsky saw it as an essential component in cognitive understanding, Piaget also believed all children would be motivated to understand new info - not realistic as children differ - explanation is incomplete

Question 13

What are the assumptions of Piaget’s stages of intellectual development?

Answer 13

• Stages are determined by innate, maturation changes
• The age at which stages are reached can vary, but the sequence is the same
• At each stage there are qualitative changes, not just quantitative
• Cognitive operations and structures should be integrated, but they can move across stages if stuck on one aspect

Question 14

What is horizontal declage?

Answer 14

The ideas that is a child is stuck on one aspect of a stage they can still move across, and then build on current understanding and fill in the gaps

Question 15

What are Piaget’s stages of intellectual development?

Answer 15

1) Sensorimotor stage
2) Preoperational stage
3) Concrete operational stage
4) Formal operational stage

Question 16

What ages is a child in the sensorimotor stage? how do they learn?

Answer 16

From birth-2 years

They acquire knowledge through action

Question 17

What ages is a child in the preoperational stage? how do they learn?

Answer 17

From 2-7 years

Acquire knowledge through visual perception

Question 18

What ages is a child in the concrete operational stage? how do they learn?

Answer 18

From 7-11 years

Acquire knowledge through physical reasoning

Question 19

What ages is a child in the formal operational stage? how do they learn?

Answer 19

11+ years

Acquire knowledge through abstract thinking

Question 20

What is object permanence? What stage did Piaget name this in?

Answer 20

The realisation that objects have a permanent existence even when they are out of sight - named in the sensorimotor stage?

Question 21

What did Piaget believe happens in the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 21

He believed that infants learn to co-ordinate sensory input with motor actions
He used the term ‘circular reactions’ to describe how an infant repeats actions over and over to test sensorimotor relationships

Question 22

At what age and stage did Piaget believe object permanence developed and why?

Answer 22

He believed it developed in the sensorimotor stage at around 9 months, as this is around when perserverative search begins

Question 23

What is a strength/supporting evidence for Piaget’s sensorimotor stage?

Answer 23

His own research supported the idea that object permanence develops at this stage - he had a child play with a toy and then covered it with a cloth - found that children under 8 months would not continue to search for the toy, whereas those over 8 months would - suggests they are aware the object exists when they can’t see it

Question 24

What is a weakness/contradictory evidence for Piaget’s sensorimotor stage?

Answer 24

Later research suggests object permanence develops later - Bower (1982) found that infants as young as 3-4 months were surprised when an object disappears from a place they had seen it previously - suggests the changes in this stage suggested are accurate, but the ages are different

Question 25

What is ‘animism?’ What stage did Piaget name this in?

Answer 25

Attributing human intention to objects e.g. sun in shining because it’s happy - named in Pre-operational stage

Question 26

What is egocentrism? What stage did Piaget put this in?

Answer 26

Only seeing the world from your perspective and being unaware of others viewpoints - named in pre-operational stage

Question 27

What did Piaget believe happens in the pre-operational stage?

Answer 27

He believed that children in this stage have emerging ideas about how things work, but struggle with many aspects of logical thinking

Question 28

How did Piaget and Inhelder (1956) test egocentrism?

Answer 28

The 3 mountains task - children were shown 3 models with different features and saw views of the model from different angles - they were asked to select from pictures was a doll on the other side of the model could see - Children under 7 chose the picture that showed their own viewpoint, showing they could not grasp that others had a different viewpoint (egocentric)

Question 29

What is class inclusion? What stage did Piaget name this in?

Answer 29

The ability to work out how categories of objects relate to one another, includes sub categories - named in the Pre-operational stage

Question 30

What was Piaget’s research into class inclusion?

Answer 30

He showed children pictures of toy cows - 3 black cows, 1 white cows - he asked them if there were more black cows or more cows - younger children (up to 6) were unable to answer correctly and said more black cows - shows young children cannot appreciate sub-categories and cannot grasp class inclusion

Question 31

What is conservation? What stage did Piaget name this in?

Answer 31

The ability to recognise that reorganising the appearance of material and objects does not alter properties like volumes, quantity and number - named in the pre-operational stage

Question 32

What is a weakness/contradictory evidence for Piaget’s pre-operational stage? (Hughes)

Answer 32

Hughes (1975) suggests egocentrism declines earlier than suggested - it happens earlier if it makes human sense to the child - there was a ‘naughty boy’ hiding from police officers - children as young as 3 1/2 - 5 years old were able to perform the task in this format of hiding the boy from the police officers view - suggests the changes may be accurate but the ages may be earlier

Question 33

What are the strengths/supporting evidence for Piaget’s pre-operational stage?

Answer 33

Support for class inclusion from Piaget and Szeminska (1941) - children were shown 18 brown and 2 wooden beads and asked 30 Q’s - 1) are all the beads wooden 2) are there more brown or white beads 3) are there more brown or wooden beads - pre operational children answered the first 2 correctly but not the last, whereas children in the concrete operational (7+) answered all correctly - suggests pre-op children do not have class inclusion

Question 34

What is a weakness/contradictory evidence for Piaget’s pre-operational stage? (Samuel and Bryant)

Answer 34

Samuel and Bryant (984) suggested conservation of number/liquid is earlier than suggested - they found if only one question was asked to the child rather than 2, many more children conserve at an earlier age - suggests demand characteristics in Piaget and Szeminskas study - questions the validity

Question 35

What is a weakness/contradictory evidence for Piaget’s pre-operational stage? (McGarrigle and Donaldson)

Answer 35

McGarrigle and Donaldson suggested the way that the task was presented may make it seem children as less competent - they used a conservation of number task and found 16% of 6 year old showed number conservation if the experimenter messed up the rows, whereas 62% showed conservation if a ‘naughty teddy’ messed it up - suggests Piaget’s research was inaccurately measured

Question 36

What is a strength of Piaget’s pre-operational stage? (about research)

Answer 36

His research evidence and other contradictory evidence found that younger children did perform worse than conservation tasks, supporting Piaget’s idea that maturation was a crucial factor, even if this was earlier age + children made more errors on average on a conservation of volume task than on conservation of number

Question 37

What are the key characteristics of the concrete operational stage?

Answer 37

Egocentrism stops
Class inclusion is mastered
Reversibility and Transitivity are understood if given concrete examples
Conversation is achieved gradually

Question 38

At what age is conservation of numbers achieved? What stage?

Answer 38

Concrete operational(?) 6-7 years

Question 39

At what age is conservation of length achieved? What stage?

Answer 39

Concrete operational - 7-8 years

Question 40

At what age is conservation of weight achieved? What stage?

Answer 40

Concrete operational - 8-10 years

Question 41

At what age is conservation of volume achieved? What stage?

Answer 41

Concrete operational(?) 11-12 years

Question 42

What problems does a child still have in the concrete operational stage?

Answer 42

Abstract thinking - finding it difficult to solve problems of transitivity inferences without concrete examples

Question 43

What are some examples of struggling with abstract thinking?

Answer 43

Being unable to answer ‘What if?’ questions e.g. what if aliens landed
Being unable to go through the process of logical reasoning

Question 44

What is Piaget’s formal operational stage characterised by?

Answer 44

It’s characterised by scientific thinking (hypothetical deductive)

Question 45

What are the key characteristics of the formal operational stage?

Answer 45

Using abstract thinking and clear strategies
Making hypothesis and testing them systematically to deduce conclusions
Using language - instruction works better

Question 46

What was Piaget and Inhelder’s research on the formal operational stage?

Answer 46

They used the ‘beaker problem’ which involved the children to work out how to combine different coloured liquids from 5 different beakers in order to turn the liquid yellow - the focus was on HOW they children approach the problem - found that younger children tried random combinations whereas children in the formal operational stage tried logical strategy

Question 47

What is a weakness/contradictory evidence of Piaget’s formal operational stage? (Wason and Shapiro)

Answer 47

Wason and Shapiro criticised the assumption that with maturation changes everyone will reach the stage of being capable of abstract thought - gave pt’s a deductive card to figure out how cards link - only 2/16 pt’s got the answer right when cards were E,K,4,7 (12%) but when the same problems was given with more concrete cards e.g. Manchester, Leeds, Car, Train 10/16 solved the problem - suggests abstract thinking not essential

Question 48

What is a criticism about Piaget’s formal operational stage? (culturally biased)

Answer 48

Studies in other cultures have found that children from European academic families valued academic abilities, but other cultures place an emphasis on a more basic level of concrete thinking, and that abstract thinking is not always a feature of society - not universally applicable

Question 49

What is a strength of Piaget’s stages of intellectual development?
- Practical applications

Answer 49

Piaget’s theory has practical applications - concepts of readiness - it has helped attribute educational activities that are suitable to a child’s age - it has helped us to understand the processes by which the child learns to make sense of the world ad take control over its surroundings - has helped to contribute to develop teaching methods to help children achieve developmental milestoones

Question 50

What are the weaknesses of Piaget’s stages of intellectual development? (4)

• reductionist
• doesn’t explain why
• research has shown ages vary
• methods of analysis

Answer 50

1) Piaget’s theory is reductionist and over simplifies processes of acquiring new info, he also did not provide evidence for the existence of accommodation and assimilation and they’re unmeasurable - unfalsifiable
2) Explains what changes but not why they occur at different points in childhood i.e. how a child goes from being egocentric to an abstract thinker - no trace of maximal plasticity or neuro anatomical changes
3) Research has shown a wide variation in the ages at which children achieve successes suggested - Hughes (1975) found that children as young as 3 1/2-5 years old showed low levels of egocentrism
4) Methods of analysis were vague ,unscientific, unstandardised and small - this reduces the generalisability of any finding as it is ethnocentric and at times androcentric - Piaget’s methods were vague and unscientific meaning they lack evidence

Question 51

Who is Baillargeon and what does she do?

Answer 51

A Canadian psychologist who has become a leading researcher into infant abilities, she builds on the work of Piaget and attempts to explore what infants understand

Question 52

What is Baillargeon’s main assumption?

Answer 52

That young infants have a much more advanced understanding of the world than Piaget proposed e.g. like Bower she believes that object permanence occurs earlier
Also suggested that a lack of motor skills and greater distractions can explain lack of perserverative search shown by infants

Question 53

What does violation of expectations research involve?

Answer 53

What you expect to happen is not what happens, and children’s responses to this are investigated

Question 54

What idea does violation of expectations research stem from?

Answer 54

The idea that of children understand how the physical world operates then they will expect certain outcomes in situations - if they do not occur and the children acts accordingly then they have intact knowledge of the physical world

Question 55

How does violation of expectations research work?

Answer 55

• Baillargeon focused on measuring the gaze of the infant (what they looked at an for how long)
• They would show the infant a series of images or events and measure responses through eye tracking technology
• The kids are exposed to a possible/habituation event and then introduced to the impossible event