Development Psychology - Cognitive Development Flashcards
Developmental psychology - definition (and central issues)
Psychology that documents the course of social, emotional, moral and intellectual development over the life span. From conception to death.
Central issues: gaining full understanding of these changes, investigating processes which underlie the changes (nature vs nurture)
Nurture argument - John Locke (1960s)
Childhood experiences have a profound and permanent effect on individuals. Newborns are blank slates, adults teach them about the world and how to behave
Nature argument - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1760s)
Children are capable of learning about the world and behaviour without adults. They should be allowed to grow as nature dictates, with little guidance or pressure from parents.
Maturation - Arnold Gesell
First psychologist to study role of nature in behaviour systematically. He looked at development of motor skills in a fixed sequence of stages.
Noted that deviations occur only under extreme environmental conditions
Founder of behaviourist approach - Watson (1990s)
He disagreed with Gesell and said that the environment shapes and molds development
Piaget 1920s-1980s (First to…)
First to suggest nature and nurture work together, the two being inseparable and interactive.
Most development psychologists now accept this view.
Nature and nurture working together
Operate to make human beings both alike and unique.
Inherited genes create predispositions that interact with environmental influences.
It’s often impossible to access how much is due to nature and nurture.
Changes in the brain (infancy -> childhood)
Neural networks connecting brain cells mature, becoming more complex and efficient and allowing near cognitive abilities to appear.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Development proceeds in a series of stages or periods. Entering each stage involves a qualitative change from the previous stage (like caterpillar > butterfly)
Building blocks of intellectual development are called schemas
Piaget’s schemas
Schemas are generalisations formed as people experience the world. They organise past experiences and provide a framework for understanding future experiences.
As children adapt to environment they form basic unite of knowledge including behaviours, mental symbols and mental activities
Assimilation and accommodation processes (Piaget’s schemas)
Two complimentary processes guide development of schemas.
> Assimilation - process of trying to fit new objects into existing schemas. E.g. baby sees a toy, sucks on it as it assimilated the ‘sucking’ schema of a bottle and dummy
Accommodation - process of changing existing schemas to fit new objects. E.g. baby discovers toy more fun when it squeaks so chews instead of sucks.
Piaget’s development stages
> Sensorimotor development 0-2 years
Preoperational development 2-4 years and 4-7 years
Formal operational 11+
Sensorimotor development
0-2 years
> Mental activity confined to schemas about sensory functions and motor skills.
> Can only form schemas of things they can actually touch
> Not able to have mental representation - i.e. can’t ‘think’ of mum
> End of period marked by development of object permanent (around 8 months)
Preoperational development
First half (2-4)
> Children begin to understand, create, and use symbols to represent things that are not present
Second half (4-7)
> Children begin to make intuitive guesses about the world as they try to determine how things work.
> Children seem highly egocentric - appear to believe the way things look to them is how they look to everyone else.
> Do not yet have conservation - don’t understand some logical mental operations
Formal operational
11+ years
> Can think logically about abstractions
> Can speculate, work probabilities and imagine other worlds
> Can deal with analogies and reason using logic
Object Permanence test
Put object in hand then under cloth, remove hand with object left under cloth.
Infant assumes object no longer exists
Current view of sensorimotor development
Now believe infants do more than just sense and move - they develop some mental representations earlier than Piaget suggested.
Conservation test
Long beaker and smaller, fat beaker. Pour same amount of water in each. Child assumes the long beaker has more water in (despite being shown the water is equal first)
Concrete operational thought
Thinking no longer dominated by appearance of things. Can do conservation tasks:
> Simple logic and mental operations on real, concrete objects
> Can reason about what is, but not what is possible
> Hard to reason abstractly - justice, peace, etc.
Piaget’s theory - current obsevations
> Changes from each stage are less consistent and global
> Children’s knowledge and mental strategies develop at different ages in different areas
Cognitive development (current definition)
Changing frequencies in children’s use of different ways of thinking, not sudden, permanent shifts from one way to another
Information processing during childhood
Some describe cognitive development in terms of gradual quantitative changes in children’s mental capacities.
Culture and cognitive development (Vygotsky)
Vygotsky focused on social world of people. The human mind is partially as a product of culture. Children deprived of stimulation will develop differently. Language plays a major role in development
Variations in cognitive development
> Experience and heredity are both factors for understanding cognitive differences among children
Cognitive development can be impaired of raised in a stimulation-deprived environment
