cog. development/social cognition Flashcards
cognitive development broadly refers to the development of:
thought processes and
mental activity
jean piaget rejected both sides of nature/nurture debate and held a ___ viewpoint. meaning:
constructivist.
children construct their
own understanding of
the world
according to Piaget, children’s 3 most important processes are:
generating hypothesis, performing experiments and drawing conclusions from their observations
according to piaget, equilibration is:
balancing assimilation and accomodation to create stable understanding
what are the 4 central tenets of piaget’s theory and what they are
qualitative change: children in different stages think in qualitatively different ways
broad aplicability: the thinking characteristics of each stage influence chlidren’s thinking across diverse topics
brief transitions: before entering a new stage children enter a transformative period where they’re “in betwee” the thinking of the old/new stage
invariant sequence: everyone undergos the stages in the same order/does not skip any
piaget viewed the child as a ___
scientist
piaget thought children’s understanding was organized by ___
schemas
schema assimilation:
schema accomodation:
new information
viewed through existing schemas
schemas are
adapted according to new
experiences
what are piaget’s 4 discontinuous stages of development and the ages associated with them
Sensorimotor Stage 0-2 years
Preoperational Stage 2-7 years
Concrete Operations Stage 7-12 years
Formal Operations Stage 12+ years
what is the sensorimotor stage and accomplishments associated with it:
infants learn about the world through touching, sucking, looking, reaching, etc.
accomplishments:
adapting to the environment
object permanence (6-10m)
related to the sensorimotor stage, not until about age 1 do kids pass the ___ error test
A not B
in the last half of the sensorimotor stage, infants begin to repeat other people’s behaviours hours or days after it occurred. this is called ___ ____
deferred imitation
what is a gap of the sensorimotor stage
being able to represent the world mentally
what are the accomplishments of the preoperational stage (and example from class)
Symbolic representations
* Play * Language * Drawing
ex. pretend play with poppy able to use the banana as a “phone”
what are 3 gaps of preoperational stage
- “operations” aka having mental logic
- conservation
-egocentrism
in terms of struggling with conservation tasks, what do children usually resort to using instead of using mental logic
centration (focusing on the perceptual/physical property)
what is a commonly run study showcasing egocentrism
three mountains task
- kids didn’t describe the doll’s viewpoint as different from their own
3 accomplishments of the concrete operational stage:
-Able to use mental logic to
reason about concrete things
* Conservation
* Egocentrism
within conservation, what is decentration
ability to keep track of height, volume, length, number, etc
main gap of the concrete operational stage
ability to reason about abstract, hypothetical concepts
formal operational stage 2 accomplishments:
Able to use mental logic to
reason about abstract, hypothetical things
Logically examine
evidence and test hypotheses
what is meant by piaget’s theory of kids having “natural limits” at a given age
a child who’s in the concrete operational stage, that’s just how they are. not based on outward influences, can’t train kids beyond their natural limits
what 2 main criticisms of piaget’s legacy
Underestimates the influence of
others, of culture
Underestimates infants &
children (tested object permanace with language skills needed instead of just looking time)
t/f current research suggests object permanence can be obtained within 3-5m
true
t/f current research suggests egocentrism develops in line with piaget’s age range
false. even some toddlers are shown to overcome egocentrism
who is responsible for sociocultural theory
LEV VYGOTSKY
vygotsky viewed children as ___ learners
social
vygotsky thought children learned from ___ ___ of their culture
capable members
what is the zone of proximal development
The range of tasks too
difficult to do on your
own, but which are
possible with the help of a
skilled other
in terms of learning through social collaboration, what is scaffolding
in which
“teachers” adjust the level of
support they offer to fit the
learner’s needs
* Giving help, but not more than is
needed
sociocultural theorists believe the foundation of human cognitive development is our ability to establish ____. what is this?
the heart of this is ___ attention
intersubjectivity: participants in a discussion have to be focused on the same topic, as well as the reactions to what’s being communicated
joint
scaffolding is a form of ____ participation
guided
what does vygotsky consider the most important tool for cognitive development
language
3 main points of vygotsky’s legacy
Emphasis on culture
* Role of teaching
* Impact in educational settings
2 main criticisms of vygotsky’s theory
overemphasis of language
undervalue role of biology
t/f vygotsky and piaget both view children as active learners
true
t/f vygotsky and piaget both think children undergo discontinuous change
false.
Piaget → discontinuous change,
Vygotsky → continuous change
t/f piaget thought language was a vital key to learning.
false. vygotsky thought this
what is theory of mind and who rooted its foundation
- The ability to think about mental states in ourselves and
others; understanding that mental states influence behaviour
piaget
what are the findings of the false beliefs tasks
younger children answer according to reality, older children answer according to mental states (ex. unexpected transfer task)
t/f children 4 and younger fail false belief tasks
false. only 3 and younger
what is “theory theory”
as kids develop they change their theories of theories of mind. kids outgrow their naive mental states and minds of others. eventually they realize that people can have false beliefs
what is modular theory
theory that everyone has an inate module for thinking about mental states but what changes from age 3-5 is brain maturation. module theory think brain development is what allows kids to conceptualize false beliefs
in terms of theory of mind development, what does it mean by “changes in processing” being an issue with not being able to pass the false belief task
children have difficulty with the processing demands of the task. the tasks themselves have too many steps/are too difficult such as the need for verbal responses/future prediction
t/f infants can not succeed in non-verbal false belief tasks
false. there is some evidence to contradict this
what is the “curse of knowledge” in relation to theory of mind development
Having to temporarily “hide/inhibit” your knowledge of reality
what is the main controversy surrounding theory of mind in terms of what is actually causing the change in false beliefs
is it actually children’s conceptions of mental states that are changing or it is their verbal ability
what group of individuals struggle most with passing the theory of mind test
autistic individuals
do individual differences such as #siblings, pretend play, parenting, etc affect ability to clearly think about mental states?
yes
t/f scoring higher in theory of mind doesn’t influence peer relationships or academic achievement
false
t/f getting better at lying may be coorelated with getting better at theory of mind
true
t/f the age ranges for getting better at theory of mind and getting better at lying are mostly the same
true
explain the experiment run in the ding et al study
3-year-old children asked to not
lie in a deception task, but to win they have to lie. then they get put in theory of mind training group or control group.
what were the main results of the ding et al finding
once 3 year olds had theory of mind training they were better at lying
- why do we reason about social groups/group membership?
may generate a sense of belonging/safety
by what age can kids explicitly
characterize race, reason about skin
colour as stable characteristic
3-4y
at ___ old, kids think if they were born with a certain skin colour it will remain stable across development
4 y
t/f infants prefer familiar race faces,
respond to race as a perceptual category
true
in terms of race what does “essentialism” refer to
reasoning
about race as a stable and informative
feature of identity
t/f In dominant racial groups
explicit in-group positivity + out-group negativity increase with development
false
t/f margilanlized racial groups have generally less in-group positivity
true
whats an example of young infants responding to race as a perceptual category
by 3months, babies tend to look longer towards people of their own race
what age range does essentialism thinking happen
6-10y
children from marginalized groups show essentialist thinking earlier. why?
bc they often deal with prejudice earlier in life
what is the implicit association test (IAT)
Measures the strength of
association between
concept (i.e., race) and
attribute (i.e. evaluation,
good vs. bad) using response time
t/f in marginalized racial groups equal preference for their in-group and for the dominant racial group is showed even with age
true
what are the 2 main factors contributing towards our attitudes about race
ingroup bias and social norms of dominance
t/f there was a notable implicit ingroup preference between latin/white but none between latin/black
false. other way around
the Gonzalez, Steele, & Baron (2017) study aimed to answer what question? what did they do to answer it?
Can children’s implicit biases be reduced through exposure to counter-stereotypical examples? Introduced examples of white, black, or control (flower) and had white/asian children use the IAT
what are 2 limitations of the Gonzalez study
they didnt include adults
their findings could be due to developmental differences
t/f there is a fairly small correlation from the implicit biases of IAT to real world behaviour (showing prejudice etc)
true
t/f we would expect both the white child and white adult to have the same level of implicit in-group bias. (as opposed to a white child and black child)
true
when discussing implicit bias, dominant racial groups have ___ and non-dominant racial groups have ___
more, less
what was the finding pf the minimal group paradigm test (with tshirt colours)
- mere membership in a group can lead us to have in-group preference
in the Gonzalez, Steele, & Baron (2017) study were older children able to shift their implicit bias by being exposed to more counter-stereotypical examples. ?
yes
two limitations of the Myth of Norm. Development reading
they can’t make a proper “control” factor/group because everyone speaks diff languages/has diff ethic backgrounds
they use convenience samping
