Developmental Differences in Learning Flashcards
What does Skinner say about language development that uses operant conditioning.
He said that children learn language through positive reinforcement as parents tend to reward babies when they develop words by giving it attention. And that correct utterances are positively reinforced with the thing it is associated with, thus the child begins to learn the communicative value of words.
How do the principles of operate conditioning explain why a child continues to develop language?
Due to a parent getting used to the babbling of a child they begin to pay less attention to the child and so this motivates them to vary the babbling and sometimes they may produce more recognisable speech sounds which would catch the attention of a parent, reinforcing them again.
Use the terms ‘shaping’ and ‘chaining’ to briefly describe how language would develop into more complex sentences.
Due to the parent saying words like “daddy” to their child they are shaping their sounds and words and as the child becomes more developed in speech the chaining of this reinforcement allows them to for more complex speech.
Give 3 criticisms of language development using learning theories.
1) Learning cannot account for the rate at which children acquire language as shaping is a lengthy process yet children’s language development happens very quickly
2) There are infinite number of sentences in a language and so all these sentences cannot be learned by imitation
3) Brown and Hanlon (1970) observed children using verbs incorrectly (e.g. hitted) which would not be learnt through imitation as adults use verb forms correctly
How can reinforcement explain how gender development is learnt?
A girl might be playing with dolls which would get reinforced by a parent doe to its gender appropriateness.
Describe how one complex gender appropriate behaviour can be learnt via behaviour shaping.
A father could positively reinforce his son every time he picks an activity that is related to being aggressive, such as sports, rough and tumble play, and fighting children that make fun of him.
How can children learn gender behaviour via modelling.
SLT says you can learn behaviour through observing a role model, behaviour of this role model that is imitated is done through modelling. A boy may learn a gender behaviour through observing a footballer and so they may imitate the behaviour of a footballer by being sporty. The motivation to do so may be internal or external if the model is rewarded by things such as fame and attention.
How does Bandura’s bobo doll study support the social learning theory in explaining gender development.
He found that same sex models are more effective for increasing aggressive behaviour, and that boys watching male role models copied 25.8 of the aggressive acts compared to 12.4 for female model. This could be due to perceiving more similarities between same sex role models.
Give 3 supporting evidence of the learning explanation of gender development.
1) Sears et al (1957) found that parents allowed sons to be more aggressive
2) Dweck et al (1978) found that teachers reinforced girls for working neatly
3) Smith and Llyod (1978) found that when someone babysits, those dressed in blue were more likely to be offered a hammer rattle than dressed in pink
Give 3 weaknesses of the learning explanation of gender development.
1) Low generalisability as much research took place in USA 1970s, the findings may not be generalisable to other gender socialisation in different parts of the world
2) Reductionist as case study of David Reimer may suggest gender due to nature as when castration went wrong and he lost his penis and was raised as a girl, he still felt like a boy
3) Low ecological validity for research that takes place in a lab
