Cognitive Development Flashcards
Jean Piaget‘s Theory (cognitive developmental approach)
- children of different ages think differently
- changes in cognitive development proceed in dusting stages -> discontinuous
- each persons cognitive abilities are organized into one coherent mental structure/scheme
- driving forces behind development from one stage to the next is maturation
Piaget‘s study approach
observed his own childs; let them play with toys and observed their problem solving
Piaget’s observations
huge age differences in thinking; big developmental burst where they figure out stuff -> ones it is figured a transformational change happens
continuous change
-> information processing theories
development happens slowly and no clear development stages are visible
discontinuous change
-> Piaget
distinct stages in development can be identified -> resulting from „AHA“ Moments
Equilibrium
-> cognitive balance; your scheme matches environment
Disequilibrium
-> your scheme does not match environment -> distress; adaptations need to be done to restore balance between schemes and experiences
Assimilation
interpreting new information in terms of existing schemes; how does new situation fit the scheme
Accommodation
modifying/changing scheme to adapt to new information (when things in environment change)
organization (children perceiving the world)
kids create hierarchical scheme to denote all the differences in the world and see what belongs to what
Piagetian Stages
- Sensorimotor
- Preoperational
- concrete operations
- formal operations
Sensorimotor - Piagetian Stages
0-2 years;
cognitive development involves learning how to coordinate activities of the senses with motor activities
Preoperational - Piagetian Stages
2-7 years;
capable of representing the world symbolically (ex. language)
Concrete Operations - Piagetian Stages
7-11 years;
become more adept at using mental operations which leads to a more advanced understanding of the world
Formal Operations - Piagetian Stages
11-15 to 20 years;
allows adolescents to reason about more complex tasks and problems involving multiple variables
concrete operations stage in depth
allows to understand reversibility (of objects and ideas), moving away from centration - can focus on several things at a time, moving away from egocentrism - understand different points of view/perspectives
Constructing ideas (when do kids understand sarcasm, poetry, …)
kids don’t understand such things, since they take it literal
-> environment determines when kids will actually understand
formal operations in adolescence
rational and systematic thought about abstract and hypothetical events; hypothetical deductive reasoning (what got you there?); naive idealism - good at thinking what is possible but not necessarily about what is actually probable
Metacognition
“thinking about thinking”; enables efficient learning and problem solving due to the understanding of biases in thoughts and knowledge about own abilities
-> being aware of one’s thinking process
Contributions of Piaget’s Theory
- pioneer in this field; active constructor of knowledge
- sequential course
- role of errors
- ecologically valid
Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory
- some abilities can be seen earlier than as stated by him
- horizontal decalage; uneven performance
- role of experience and scaffolding (idea that we break learning into chunks; what we can deal with at a time)
- influence of culture
Post-formal thinking (Labouvie-Vief)
- Pragmatism; adapt thinking to real life constraints (ex. compromise) -> dialectic thought = some problems might not have a clear solution
- reflective judgment; reflecting on evidence and arguments (always two sides of a story), multiple thinking, relativism (what is best), commitment (to a view point)
Information Processing Approach (inspired by computer)
-> cognitive changes as continuous; gradual and steady
- focussed on thinking process that exist at all ages
- human thinking has several capacities: attention, processing and memory -> if we don’t pay attention to things they will be forgotten, if we don’t rehearse them they will not end up in long term memory
deductive reasoning - information processing and reasoning
top down; general statement to specific conclusion, based on prior knowledge/proof
-> theory - hypothesis - observation- confirmation
inductive reasoning - information processing and reasoning
bottom up; begins with specific thing (ex. an observation) and looks for general theory = specific to general
-> observation - pattern - tentative hypothesis - theory
limitations of information processing
- reductionism; broken into parts, meaning/coherence as a whole becomes lost
- holistic perspective; several things play a role at the same time
- computer analogy; computer has no reflective behavior as we humans do
Vygotsky’s ideas
-> social process of learning
- zone of proximal development; gap between what adolescence can do alone and what they need guidance for -> scaffolding as the amount of assistance which is given at a time (decreases as adolescents become more competent at a task)
Guided Participation (Barbara Rogoff)
teaching interaction in terms of cultural and social values (ex. cookie backing every Sunday)
Strengths - Vygotsky’s Theory
- importance did social contexts of learning and cognition
- new methods of assessing cognitive ability and of teaching reading, math and writing
- useful in multiethnic society
Limitations - Vygotsky’s Theory
- no explanation of the processes governing the development
- only a general approach and few standard tasks
social cognition (definition)
describes the way we think about other people, social relationships and social institutions
-> requires perspective taking (starting from 10-12 year; mutual perspective taking), see where those come from
-> society shapes our perception -> pro social behavior increases
Perspective taking (Selmans research)
the ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others
Adolescent egocentrism (Elkind’s research)
having difficulty distinguishing your own thinking about yourself from thoughts of others
-> teenagers think there is always an audience watching them = imaginary audience
(maladaptive behavior from lack of ToM)
-> highly conscious of how you look and act, being special/unique = personal fable
optimistic bias (related to personal fable)
bad things are more likely to happen to others than to ourselves
-> towards health risk behavior
