Developmental Psych Flashcards
Four stages of Piagetian development:
- sensorimotor
- preoperational
- concrete operational
- formal operational
Sensorimotor stage
Birth-2 years
-Infants acquire information
about the world through their senses and motor
skills
-Reflexive responses develop into more
deliberate actions through the development and
refinement of schemes
Object permanence:
The understanding that an
object continues to exist even when it cannot be
seen
Sensorimotor learning
During the sensorimotor stage, infants begin
learning about the relationship between
sensation (e.g., vision or audition) and movement generation
What part of the brain contributes a large part to
the development of sensorimotor skills and
motor coordination?
Cerebellum
Preoperational stage
2-7 years
Children think symbolically about objects, but they reason based on intuition and superficial appearance rather than logic.
Egocentrism:
The tendency for preoperational thinkers to view the world through their own experiences
Concrete operational stage
7-12 years
-During this stage, children begin to think about and
understand logical operations, and they are no
longer fooled by appearances.
-Children begin to understand that some actions are reversible
-Still cannot reason abstractly, or hypothetically, about what might be possible.
Formal operational stage
12+ years
-Adolescents can think
abstractly, and they can formulate and test
hypotheses through deductive logic.
-Adolescents can consider abstract notions
and think about many viewpoints at once.
Socioemotional selectivity theory:
As people grow older, they view time as limited and therefore shift their focus to meaningful events, experiences, and goals
Challenges to Piaget’s theory of development
-overestimating the ability of adolescence and underestimating infant’s capacity
-neglects cultural and social interaction factors in the development of children’s cognition and thinking ability
Describe the physiological and cognitive changes that accompany development through adulthood
Physiological: 30-50 decline in muscle mass, eyesight, hearing, reaction times, eye movements
Cognitive: Working memory capacity decreases, decline in fluid intelligence, loss of ability to gain new knowledge, dementia
Explain the relationship between major life transitions and development
Marriage and investing in close personal relationships generally leads to happiness, satisfaction, and less mental health risks
Socioemotional selectivity theory: as we age, we shift toward more meaningful events and reflect on positive memories instead of negative
Discuss delay discounting behavior and how it changes over the lifespan
It changes over the lifespan because the delayed reward and delayed gratification changes in value as a person matures
Discuss the results of Green, Fry, and Myerson (2004) and how they relate to human development
The results were that while age impacts delay discounting, it is the qualitative aspects of the subjects that truly impact it and it is seen relative to age.
