Cognitive development Flashcards
CHILDS SENSE OF SELF A01 - subjective self-awareness - explain, Bahrick and Watson (1985) - personal agency study ______________
Objective self-awareness and self-recognition - explain - Amsterdam (1972) babies studies - issues
Psychological self _____________________
ToM (distinguishing self/others) - explain false-belief task _________________________
like warmth, fullness, personal agency - awareness of limbs, as Bahrick and Watson found - responding to video footage of limbs synchronised with their own
This is the ability to self-reflect - Amsterdam 1972 tested 16 out of 88 babies sampled (a less representative sample) - it took til 24 months to properly have self-awareness (recognising their reflection with the rouge on the nose)
Psychological self involves developing a concept of who they are, having psychological statements about themselves not just desrcibing themselves physically
ToM = understanding that others’ minds are seperate from ours - tested by false-belief tests e.g. Sally Anne test - tests whether we recognise that others can have false beliefs compared to us due to seperate mind
CHILDS SENSE OF SELF A02/3 Freudians like Mahler et al. (1973) argue about self-awareness that _________________,
individual differences in objective self-awareness/recognition - in attachment ___________ and culture differences, Van den Heuvel et al. (1992) compare individualist and collectivist children, finding ________________
Baron-Cohen et al (1985) argued autism was a ToM __________
As well as biology, ToM has been linked to _________ (red/hol) using children in experiments - issues - _____________,
they argue a child at birth has no sense of seperateness from the mother,
self-awareness develops faster in securely attached, more independant children - in culture differences, western individualist children used more psychological statements due to greater indepedance.
autism was argued from Baron-Cohen’s research to be a ToM deficit
In holistic interests, studies have linked ToM to family as well as biology - individual differences
Children may have been overestimated, and it is unethical to use them without properly informed consent
EDUCATION APPLICATION A01 - Piaget: explain Readiness, Stages, Motivation and Logical thinking
Vygotsky: explain collaborative learning, MKO, and motivation
Readiness - maturation, you can’t teach a child skills before they are biologically ready
Stages of development - readiness leads to an educational programme which matches the stages e.g. concrete materials for concrete operations
motivation to learn - the teacher must create a challenging environment for accomodating schemas to new info - discovery learning
logical thinking - this makes logic, maths and science important for curriculums
Collaborative: learning in groups towards one goal, sharing understanding
More Knowledgable Other - someone with better understanding than the learner, adult or peers
Motivation to learn: moving through the ZPD thanks to the MKO, with increasingly difficulat tasks and help where needed (scaffolding)
EDUCATION APPLICATION A02/3 -
Sylva (1987) suggested about Piaget’s theory’s applications __________________________ and they may be biased… ____________
However it has been applied effectively e.g. ___________ (1967) changing education
Vygotsky’s theory may be more useful in different settings _____________________
Stigler and Perry (1990) found when comparing these methods in US/Asian schools __________________________
Assessing teaching is complex… _______________
Bennet 1976 compared these active learning approaches to formal learning and found generally __________________
Sylva suggested there were too many criticism of the theory to apply it in education
It is culture biased to western individualism
But the 1967 Plowden report applied it effectively to education
Vygotsky’s theory is collectivist so is best applied to that type of culture, Stigler and Perry 1990 found Asian maths teaching worked best with group learning
learning is complex to assess e.g. different methods have different goals
Bennett 1976 found it was effective for at least some teachers in some subjects to use the child-centred methods
CHILDS UNDERSTANDING OF OTHERS (ToM) A01 - Imitation - Meltzoff and Moore’s 1977 findings ________________
Intentions - Carpenter et al. studies of following gaze, then with autistic children ______________________
Egocentricity _______________________
Role-taking - Selman’s dilemmas ______________________
Deception/planting false beliefs ______________________________
Meltzoff & Moore 1977 found found newborns could imitate various facial gestures they saw
Carpenter et al. found infants aged 1 can understand others intentions, following gaze/pointing and this was the same in autistic children so understanding intentions is seperate from ToM
Piaget’s egocentrism is being unable to take other’s perspectives, typical before age 4
Selman testing role-taking with dilemma situations - showing how we learn to take other people’s/cultures’ perspectives
Around age 3, children can deceive others to plant a false belief in their minds, this is linked to role-taking
UNDERSTANDING OF OTHERS A02/3 - Hobson 1984 gave further support for ToM being seperate from other parts of understanding others like Carpenter did _______________________However some evidence suggests they are interlinked (hearing impaired children) _________________________
Schaffer 2002 linked role-taking to ________________________
in terms of holism, ToM has also been explained by _________
Nature vs nurture in stages ___________
Ethics of researching with children ________________________
Hobson 1984 found also found autistic children performed as well as others on the 3 mountains task despite ToM deficit
Children with hearing impairments usually develop ToM less quickly
Schaffer 2002 linked role-taking to children’s popularity
ToM can be linked to evolution too, because it allows vital adaptive social interactions
Nature and nurture are important, affecting these stages of development in understanding, and how quickly/effectively we go through them
Studies of young children may be unethical in that they may not understand the experiment so might not give informed consent
PIAGET'S THEORY A01 - Mechanisms: Schema \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Assimilation \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Accommodation \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Equilibriation \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Operations \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Stages: Sensorimotor - \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Pre-operational \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Concrete operations \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Formal operations \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
Schema are mental structures for organising/understanding information
Assimilation involves incorporating new information into a schema
Accommodation is adapting the schema to fit information that doesn’t fit it
Equilibriation is the drive behind cognitive development, to remove imbalance in thinking
Operations are our logical mental rules
The sensorimotor stage (0-2) involves learning object permanence (objects keep existing when hidden)
At the pre-operational stage (2-7) thinking is egocentric (can’t understand others’ perspectives)
In the concrete operational stage (7-11) children begin to understand conservation (quantities don’t change when the container changes or they look different)
With formal operations (11+), abstract or hypothetical thinking becomes possible
PIAGET’S THEORY A02/3 - Arguing for nature over nurture, Baillargeon and DeVos 1991 showed infants have more knowledge than this with the rolling car task (object permanance) __________________
Piaget’s 3 mountains task for pre-operational __________________
Hughes 1975 version _______________
Piaget’s beaker problem for formal operations __________________
Limitations (underestimating, ignoring social factors, culture bias, research methods) ________________________
Baillageon and DeVos 1991 (nativists) used the rolling car task with infants - where they looked for a hidden carrot on a train track (showing object permanance)
Piaget showed 4-year-olds pictures in this task and out of the pictures they chose theirs, not that of the doll. However in Hughes’ 1975 version with the naughty boy and policeman, they were more successful due to better realism
Piaget’s beaker problem showed logical thinking in the formal operational stage by using strategy to combine the right liquids for this task
Underestimates children’s abilities at younger ages, ignores social factors like group work, biased towards individualist Western perspective, research problems like confusing designs and demand characteristics)
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY A01 -
Elementary to higher mental functions (via culture) ____________________________
Role of language ____________________
Role of experts/MKOs and the ZPD and scaffolding ____________________________________
We are born with the elementary mental functions e.g. memory, then culture turns these into higher mental functions
Culture, containing the body of knowledge, is transmitted via language.
The expert helps the child learn by guiding them through problem-solving tasks, gradually moving responsibility to the child as they gain the knowledge. The child hence moves across the Zone of Proximal Development - moving from tasks they can do to those they cannot yet - with the help of scaffolding i.e. the More Knowledgeable Other providing examples/illustrations/etc. to allow them to progress.
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY A02/3 -
Carmichael’s 1932 support for role of language (canoe/bean drawing) __________________
Role of ZPD - McNaughton and Leyland 1990 study (children and mothers working on jigsaws) _________________________
Limitations: amount of research and importance of social influence ____________________________
Strengths: Positivity _______________
Carmichael (1932) gave participants one of two labels for drawings and this affected how they drew it later (e.g. as a canoe or as a bean). This supports language affecting recall.
McNaughton and Leyland (1990) observed children working with their mothers on jigsaw puzzles or working alone, with the differences showing the importance of the ZPD.
Relatively little research compared to with Piaget’s theory. Vygotsky overemphasised social influences.
More positive - involves assisting and helping the learner.
KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF MORAL UNDERSTANDING A01 -
Pre-conventional level ______________________________
Conventional level _______________________________
Post-conventional level ______________________________
His 1958 supporting study interviewing 84 male teenagers _____________________________
At the pre-conventional level, Kohlberg claimed children purely act to avoid punishments and gain rewards.
At the conventional level, following social rules is motivated by maintaining social order and good relationships with others.
At the post-conventional level, the individual forms their own abstract moral principles seperate from the laws of society.
In 1958 Kohlberg interviewed 84 male teenagers on various moral dilemmas and analysed responses to create the stage theory.
KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF MORAL UNDERSTANDING A02/3 -
One issue is the theory focussing on moral _______ rather than moral _____ … ____________________
Gilligan (1982) argued the theory was gender biased: __________________________
Lack of realism, free will/determinism? ____________________
The theory emphasises moral thinking over moral behaviour - the two can differ strongly.
Gilligan (1982) argued the theory was gender biased in that she believed male morality focussed on justice and female morality on relationships.
The theory is based on hypothetical desicisions rather than real-life scenarios the participants actual faced, so lacked realism.
The theory is deterministic because it claims we all go through the same stages in the same order and pace no matter what.
MIRROR NEURONS (BIOLOGY) IN SOCIAL COGNITION A01
What MNs are/how they work _______________________
Lacoboni et al. 2005 study into MNs and context/intentions ____________________
How they can aid perspective-taking and empathy _______________________
Neurons which are active both when we perform an action and when we see someone else perform the same action
Lacoboni et al. (2005) demonstrated that MN responses are linked to intentions as well as the action itself. Participants were shown 3 video clips of a tea party and there was a particular amount of MN activity when participants watched the context clip.
MNs allow perspective taking by allowing us to experience someone else’s actions like they are our own. Likewise, with empathy, we experience others’ emotions as though they are ours just as with behaviour.
MIRROR NEURONS (BIOLOGY) IN SOCIAL COGNITION A02/3
Gopnik (2007) - MNs are a myth - problems with the evidence/applications ___________________
Animal research, biology, psych as sci _________________________
Gopnik (2007) claimed MNs are a scientific myth in that the evidence comes mainly from non-human animals so may not apply to humans, and cannot be used to explain various complex behaviours.
The animal research into MNs may be justified as it would be unlikely to cause any harm, and has revealed significant information.
Using MNs to explain wide-ranging forms of human behaviour is biological reductionism and determinism.
Given the lack of substantial evidence MN research does not support pschology as a science.
