Developmental Psychology 2 Flashcards
Priority 2
Name Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development.
Sensorimotor (0-2 years), preoperational (2-7 years), concrete operational (7-12 years), and formal operational (12+ years).
What are the key achievements of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage?
Object permanence, deferred imitation, which represent the beginning of symbolic thought.
What is deferred imitation?
Ability to imitate an observed act at a later time.
What are circular reactions?
The means by which, according to Piaget, learning occurs, wherein behaviors are performed to reproduce events that happened initially by chance.
What is the key achievement of Piaget’s preoperational stage?
Dramatic increase in symbolic thought, e.g., language, substitute pretend play. Emergence of intuitive thought.
What is substitute pretend play?
Objects stand in for something else.
What is intuitive thought for Piaget?
Substage of preoperational stage in which children begin reasoning and become aware that they have knowledge, but don’t know where it came from.
What are some limitations of Piaget’s preoperational stage?
Egocentrism, magical thinking, animism, lack of conservation, centration, irreversibility.
What is centration?
Tendency to focus on one detail to the neglect of other important ones.
What is irreversibility?
Lack of understanding that some actions can be reversed.
What are the key achievements of the concrete operational stage?
Development of reversibility and decentration, allowing child to conserve; transivity and hierarchical classification.
What is conservation and how does it develop?
Understanding that the properties of an object don’t change, even if its physical appearance does. Conservation of number develops first, then length, liquid, mass, area, weight, and volume.
What is horizontal decalage?
Piaget’s term for sequential mastery of concepts within a given stage of development.
What is transivity?
Piaget’s term for being able to sort objects mentally (think working memory).
What are the key achievements of the formal operational stage?
Process of abstract concepts, e.g., using hypothetical-deductive reasoning and propositional thought.
What is hypothetical-deductive reasoning?
Piaget’s term for the ability to arrive at and test alternative explanations.
What is propositional thought?
Piaget’s term for critical thinking, the ability to evaluate the logical validity of verbal assertions abstractly (without concrete references).
What is formal operational egocentrism?
The naive belief, prevalent among adolescents with new abstract reasoning powers, that the world can become a better place through implementation of the adolescent’s idealized schemes.
What is the imaginary audience?
The adolescent belief that others are as concerned about her/his behavior as her/himself.
What is the personal fable?
The adolescent’s belief that s/he is unique and indestructible and that rules are excepted for them.
What has research shown about Piaget’s theories?
Confirmed invariant sequence of development. Piaget appears to have underestimated the cognitive abilities of children. Only about half of adults reach formal operational thought; of them many only use it in their areas of expertise.
What is the information processing theory of development?
Cognitive processes are analogous to computer processes, operating through rules and logic, with limited qualitative and quantitative capacities. Children become better information processors (thinkers) as brain capacities expand and rules and logic improve.
What are the key concepts of Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development?
Cognition depends on social, cultural, and historical context. Development occurs as children intrapersonally apply knowledge that was gained interpersonally.
What is Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development?
A metaphorical gap between what a child can do alone and what s/he can do with help from more competent others. Learning occurs more rapidly in the zone.
