Developmental Psychology

Question 1

Piaget’s theory of classical development

Answer 1

• Observed his own children to form this theory
• Piaget focused on cognitive structures that children acquire by interacting with their environment: schemata and concepts
• Processes to adapt to environment: assimilation and accomodation
  o Example: child grows up around dogs, thus has a dog schema. Then sees a cat, if the cat is called a dog (assimilation), if the cat is treated as its own category (accommodation)

Question 2

define schemata

Answer 2

mental representations that define a particular category/behaviour e.g. grasping schema

Question 3

define concepts

Answer 3

rules that describe properties of environmental events and their relations to other concepts

Question 4

define assimilation

Answer 4

new information is modified to fit into existing schema

Question 5

define accommodation

Answer 5

new schemata’s produced or old schemata changed by new information

Question 6

Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development

Answer 6

• Stages always occur in same sequence
• Dependent on physical maturation of the brain but may also be influenced by environment/ experiences e.g. school speeds progress
• Stages:
  o Age 0-2: sensorimotor period
  o Age 2-7: pre-operational period
  o Age 7-11: concrete operational period
  o Age 11+: formal operational period

Question 7

Stage 1: sensorimotor (0-2yrs)

Answer 7

• Children learn by using their senses and motor activities
• Object permanence: out of sight = out of existence (learned after first year) e.g. putting ball under bucket and out of view does not mean its gone
• Deferred imitation: forming mental representation of actions that are recalled later e.g. child found shaving in bathroom after watching daddy
• Rudimentary symbolic thinking: words to represent objects e.g. start to use words like ‘dog’ to represent actual objects
• Search and investigate: develop understanding of the world through trail and error e.g. involving touch and sucking

Question 8

Stage 2: pre-operational (2-7yrs)

Answer 8

• Language ability develops rapidly
• Counting/ working with numbers
• Increased ability to think symbolically and logically
• Still have difficulties mastering conservation problems
• Start to develop theory of mind: ability to imagine what other people are thinking – to predict their intentions/ behaviour
• Still have egocentrism, but start to lose it by the end: belief that others see the world exactly like oneself
• Failure to master conservation problems

Question 9

Stage 3: concrete operational period (7-11yrs)

Answer 9

• Development of organised and rational thinking
• Logical analyses – but only applied to physical objects or specific things
  o Inductive reasoning: if child’s three friends are rude, then she concludes that all children’s friends are rude
• Abstract or hypothetical thinking is not yet developed
• Complex cause and effect relations
  o Child in earlier stage may believe that she got sick because she misbehaved
  o Child in this stage may understand that she is sick because she played with her sick friends
• Classification of objects
  o Show picture of 2 black cows and 1 white cow and ask if there are more black cows or cows
  o Child in earlier stage: black
  o Child in this stage: cows
• Empathise with others
  o Loss of egocentrism and development of theory of mind
• Mastery of conservation problems

Question 10

Stage 4: formal operational period (11+ yrs)

Answer 10

• Adolescence
• Abstract reasoning: according to Piaget not everyone reaches this stage
• Ability to hypothesise, test, and re-evaluate hypotheses
• Begin thinking in a formal systematic way
• Logical thinking
• Ability to work through abstract problems and use logic without presence of concrete manipulation

Question 11

criticisms of Piaget’s theory

Answer 11

• Based on his own children who may develop at different rates
• Small sample size
• Other ways to think about development

Question 12

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development

Answer 12

• Sociocultural environmental is vital for cognitive development
• Language drives cognitive development by internalising social interactions and others’ mental states
• Children learn from more competent others presenting alternative perspectives
• Zone of proximal development: range of tasks/ skills that a child is unable to master alone but can perform with the assistance of peers/ adults
• Scaffolding: appropriate assistance given by the teacher to assist the learner to accomplish a task. Requires examples on how to solve a problem while controlling the environment so that learner can gradually expand knowledge without excessive frustration
• Course/ content of intellectual growth not universal but is a product of culture