Developmental Psychology Theories

Question 1

Maturational theory

Answer 1

• Founded by Arnold Gesell
• Recapitulation Theory - ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny (the development of an organism exactly mirrors the evolutionary development of the species)
• maturation controlled by genetic not environmental factors

nature (genetics) determines what we can do, not nurture. Whatever you do is all given from what is in you DNA.

Question 2

Maturation Theory proves:

Answer 2

• Twin studies (no matter how fast they pick up a skill, they will reach the goals eventually)
• inherent progression in the development of physical skills - emerges even without training.
• Skill development can’t be accelerated by training before biological development has reached point of readiness to learn. (if your body isn’t physically ready for an activity, you can’t do it no matter how much you train.)

Question 3

Behavioural Theory

Answer 3

• Classical Conditioning
• Created by Pavlov in 1897
• a learning process in which an original neutral stimulus - such as the word exam, food, or the bark of a dog, becomes associated with a particular physiological or emotional response or both, that the stimulus did not originally produce (he believes that it is all about learning to learn about a skill)

Question 4

Pavlov’s Dog

Answer 4

1. food -> salvation
2. bell -> no salvation
3. bell + food -> salavation (repeat this process as training)
4. Bell -> salavation

bell becomes the conditioned stimulus (was neutral stimulus)
food is the unconditoned stimulus

Question 5

Operant conditioning

behaviour theory

Answer 5

Created by B.F Skinner in 1936
- learning produced by the rewards and punishments of active behaviour (on operant) of a human or other organism interacting with the environment

reward is more powerfull and commonly used in schools and learning trainings

Question 6

Law of Effect

Answer 6

• created by Thorndike in 1905
• Those actions that are rewarded - “ the effect” - will tend to be strenthened and will be more likely to occur in the future, whereas those actions are punished will be weakened and thus less likely to occur in th the future.

Question 7

Reinforcer definition

Answer 7

a stimulus that increases the probability the operant associated with it will happen again

Question 8

positive and negative reinforcement examples:

Answer 8

positive: smile or favourable comment
negative: negative refers not to something bad, but to remove something (like taking away a kid’s iPad)

Question 9

Cognitive Theory

Answer 9

• Jean Piaget (1952)
• Stages of Cognitive Development

Question 10

Stages of Cognive development

Answer 10

• Sensorimotor(birth-2 years): differentiates self from objects, recognises self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise
• After 8 months: achieves object permanence: realises that continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense.

Question 11

Pre-operational (2-7 years)

Answer 11

Learns to use language and toprepresent objects by images and words (counts with fingers)

Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others

Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the red blocks

Question 12

Concrete operational (7-11)

Answer 12

Can think logically about objects and events

Achieves conservation of number (6) mass(7)

Question 13

Formal operational (11+)

Answer 13

can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically

Becomes concerned with the hupothetical, the future, and ideological problems