Developmental Psychology: Theories and issues in child development

Question 1

What is meant by a theory of development?

Answer 1

A series of schemes or ideas based on evidence which attempts to explain, describe and predict behaviour through development.

Question 2

What is the difference between minor and major theories of development?

Answer 2

Minor theories deal with small, precise areas of development such as eye movement whether major theories deal with large areas of development as a whole such as emotional development

Question 3

Name the 6 broad groups which the book has divided development into

Answer 3

Motor development, Emotional development, Cognitive development, social-cognitive development, Evolution and ethology, Humanistic and Psychoanalytical.

Question 4

What are the basic motor skills acquired in infancy and childhood known as? Give three examples of these

Answer 4

Motor milestones such as sitting unaided, standing, crawling, walking.

Question 5

What did Arnold Gesell conclude about how movement develops differently from watching hundreds of hours of infant motor movements?

Answer 5

Motor development proceeded from the global to the specific in two directions; in a cephalocaudal trend (from head to toe along the body) and in a proximodistal trend where motor control starts at the centre of the body out to more peripheral segments.

Question 6

State the gross movements that generally come in order of a Childs development and their approximate age range

Answer 6

1-3 months; stepping reflex, lifts head, sits without support
2-4 months; When prone lifts head and uses arms for support
5-8 months; Sits without support
5-10 months; Stands with support and pulls self to stand
5-11 months; crawls
10-14 months; Stands alone and walks alone
13-18 months; walks backwards and sideways, runs, climbs, goes up stairs
18-30 months; Runs easily, skips, jumps, rides and steers a tricycle

Question 7

What did these findings leave Gesell to believe was the thing that shaped motor development

Answer 7

Maturational timeline linked to the nervous system and muscles

Question 8

Who was the first to challenge this and how?

Answer 8

Myrtle McGraw was the first to challenge this and did so by taking identical twins and giving one extensive training in walking, climbing, swimming etc and observed a significant acceleration in his development in comparison to the other twin. This showed other factors other than an innate maturation affecting motor development.

Question 9

Describe two other criticisms of Gesell’s maturation theory

Answer 9

The fact that motor skills develop in a series does not establish a genetic cause (sports etc) secondly it does not account for the considerable individual differences in various motor skills.

Question 10

What alternative motor development theory progressed from this

Answer 10

Dynamic systems theory

Question 11

What did observing a child from when they first attempt a motor skill to when they complete it with ease show

Answer 11

It’s a very similar procedure to adults learning new skills

Question 12

According to dynamic systems theory what is all new motor development the result of

Answer 12

The dynamic and continual interactions of a)nervous system development b)the capabilities and biomechanics of the body and c) environmental constraints and support.

Question 13

Explain three examples of motor developments which demonstrate the dynamic process theory

Answer 13

Leg kicking- tied the infants leg to a dangling toy until the child figured out how to use to to its novel desires. Then tied both feet to it, initially tried to use them independently however learned to move them together. This shows they could change their pattern of interlimb coordination to solve a novel task.
Arm reaching- longitudinal study on infants observed how they first attempted to stably control their head then their shoulders then once they had that under control successful reaching came soon after. This shows new motor skills are learned through adjusting and modifying their already existing abilities.
Infant walking- Infants are very top heavy initially before their weight grows more distributed. This means as they grow they need to learn to adapt to their new weight dimensions in motor developments. Infants were given saddle bags over their shoulders some with feathers and some with a bit of lead. When the babies stood up the ones with lead were more cautious and exploratory before
navigating showing that infants do not have a fixed and rigid sense of their own movements but can adapt to change.

Question 14

Which two opposed views dominated developmental psychology before Piaget? What united these views and set them apart from Piaget?

Answer 14

Psychoanalysis and behaviourism. They were united in their focus on such things as severity of toilet training and rewards and punishment etc however they did not focus, like Piaget, on the child carving their own way through development.

Question 15

What is meant by cognitive adaptions?

Answer 15

Children’s developing cognitive awareness of the world. As a result they become better able to understand the world.

Question 16

What type of theory is Piaget’s theory said to be?

Answer 16

A constructivist theory

Question 17

What two processes are required in order to adapt to the world especially in development?

Answer 17

Assimilation- when we treat new objects, people and places as if they’re familiar (treating Garda like all Garda)
Accommodation- changing and altering these schemas as we gain new experiences and insights.
These both work together during infancy.

Question 18

Why are these processes called functional invariants?

Answer 18

They don’t change during development- we’re always adapting to the world around us.

Question 19

Name the four stages of cognitive development and their associated ages according to Piaget

Answer 19

Sensorimotor stage of infancy (0-2), Pre operational stage of childhood (2-7), concrete operations stage of middle childhood (7-11) and formal operations stage of adolescence (11

Question 20

What do infants develop in the sensorimotor stage

Answer 20

“thought in action’ and object permanence- pulling a cloth to retrieve a toy that is out of sight. At the end language is developing rapidly and is able to sort through thought as well as sensorimotor activities.

Question 21

What two limitations are there to children’s thinking in the pre operational stage

Answer 21

Ego centrism- the tendency to only see from your point of view and inability to see from other’s
Animism- to assign consciousness, feelings and other human qualities to animals or inanimate objects.

Question 22

What characteristic of thinking in the is displayed in Piaget’s conservation tasks?

Answer 22

Centration- The focusing on one aspect of something to the exclusion of others

Question 23

Give three examples of conservation tasks

Answer 23

Varying lengths in rows of sweets
Wider and shorter vs taller and narrower glasses
Balls of clay into clay sausages

Question 24

Given a longer row of 6 sweets and a shorter row of 7, what stage do children still pick 6 and when do they start to pick 7?

Answer 24

Pre operational; 6

Concrete operations; 7

Question 25

Before the formal operations stage what is the major limitation to children’s thinking?

Answer 25

The realm of possibilities

Question 26

How do information processing approaches view the brain?

Answer 26

A complex system through which information flows

Question 27

How does the information processing approach explain cognitive processes?

Answer 27

In terms of inputs and outputs

Question 28

What are strategies in information processing approach?

Answer 28

Knowledge used to solve particular problems

Question 29

What three 20th century innovations are rooted in information processes approach?

Answer 29

Computers and their processes, the view that an organism cannot be understood without knowing the perceivers environment and constructivism, the view that babies are not born with any knowledge and have to ‘construct’ knowledge and the ability to represent reality mentally. It also says perception fills in the bits we cannot see or hear directly.

Question 30

According to the information processing approach is cognitive development proceeded in a top down or bottom up processing?

Answer 30

Bottom up, beginning with the input or uptake of the information by a child and building complex systems of knowledge from the origin.

Question 31

What two parameters are important in perceiving causality?

Answer 31

Temporal and physical proximities

Question 32

What did Les Cohen find when testing babies on how they perceive causality.

Answer 32

That at 4 months the babies could perceive the independent movements of two balls colliding but not their causal relationship. They found that causal perception between 4 and 6 months consists in knowing the higher order ( the causal relationship) , complex relations between objects and their motions.

Question 33

What is meant by object unity in regard to infant development?

Answer 33

When two parts of an object are visible but its centre is hidden, do infants perceive the pieces to be connected?

Question 34

What did Scott Johnson et al. find in infants regarding object unity?

Answer 34

4 month olds perceived the two objects but not as one whole. Development of object perception therefore again consists of detecting the higher order relations among lower order components.

Question 35

How may a child develop in arithmetic?

Answer 35

Trying and adapting new strategies (memorisation, counting fingers)

Question 36

what is meant by connectionism

Answer 36

A modern theoretical approach that developed from information processing accounts in which computers have programmed to stimulate the action of the brain and nerve cells (neurons)

Question 37

Describe how a connectionist model works

Answer 37

First it inputs information, coded in a way a computer then it outputs information in a way a human can understand. In between this there are dozens to thousands of units processing the information. The model learns by changing the activation strengths and connections among units. It is given multiple opportunities to process the feedback and often some feedback in-between trials. Because there is no previous knowledge it acts like a ‘blank slate’ and therefore like a child. Initially it has to guess to respond but eventually is capable of learning remarkably sophisticated information.

Question 38

What two elements of the human psych were programmed in connectionist models according to the book?

Answer 38

Perceiving causality and computing salience into a model which was meant to replicate the idea of different brain systems that respond to specific visual features in an input image; luminance, motion, colour and orientation. It did this based on competition among features.

Question 39

What do Piaget’s and the information processing approaches have in common?

Answer 39

Both try to identify children’s abilities and limitations as development proceeds and how new levels of development advance from earlier, simpler ones.

Question 40

What is meant by the zone of proximal development?

Answer 40

The zone which represents problems or ideals which a child could not overcome without the help of an adult.

Question 41

What is meant by introspectionism?

Answer 41

An approach to psychology in which people were asked to reflect on their perceptions, thoughts and feelings.

Question 42

What is the law of effect?

Answer 42

A law stating that if a repeated action results in a positive reward, that action will continue.

Question 43

What did extreme forms of behaviour reduce all behaviour to?

Answer 43

Chains of stimuli and responses

Question 44

What specific type of perspective is this to have (chain of stimuli and responses)

Answer 44

A reductionist perspective

Question 45

What is meant by social learning theory?

Answer 45

The application of behaviourism to social and cognitive learning that emphasises the importance of observational learning.

Question 46

What developed from the social learning theory?

Answer 46

Social cognitive theory

Question 47

What is meant by ethological approaches?

Answer 47

Approaches which emphasise the evolutionary origins of many behaviours that are important for survival

Question 48

Give an example of ethological behaviour?

Answer 48

Imprinting (ducklings)

Question 49

What is meant by a precocial species

Answer 49

One that is able to move around almost immediately after birth

Question 50

What are the two implications of ethology’s concepts of behaviours?

Answer 50

They require a target (mother duck in imprinting) and a critical ( or sensitive) period

Question 51

What are meant by primary and secondary drives?

Answer 51

Primary drives are basic needs such as hunger or thirst while a secondary drive is something which provides such a basic need (such as a parent) and so we strive for it as we are positively conditioned towards it.

Question 52

What is meant by monotropy?

Answer 52

The view that a child has a basic need to form an attachment with one significant person.

Question 53

Name and describe the three personality structures in psychoanalytic theory.

Answer 53

ID- Primitive set of urges with which an individual begins life.
Ego- The rational thought that evolved to control the urges of the ID in order to meet the demands of reality and maintain social approval and esteem.
Superego- A collection of ideals and an individuals morality. What we refer to as our conscience and it is often in conflict with our ID.

Question 54

What name was given to Freuds five stages of development? Describe them

Answer 54

The five Psychosexual stages:

• Oral stage (0-1); infant’s greatest source of pleasure is from stimulation of the lips, tongue and mouth.
• Anal stage (1-3); Child gets greatest psychosexual pleasure from taking control over the anus and retaining or eliminating faeces in potty training
• Phallic stage (3-6); Children obtain the greatest pleasure from stimulating their genitals. The superego develops.
• Latency stage (6- adolescence); the years of torment from infancy go into a resting period.
• Genital stage (adolescence onwards); sequel feelings become more apparent and urgent which can be a struggle to cope with.

Question 55

According to Freud how does the superego develop?

Answer 55

During the Phallic stage the son develops sexual feelings for his mother but realises his father would be his biggest competitor he then fears castration at the hands of his father (Castration Complex) To resolve this the child adopts the ideals of his father and develops a super ego. For girls the Electra complex develops and girls develop feelings towards their father and fear retribution at the hands of their mother. They resolve this by empathising with their mother, adopting her ideals and developing a superego.

Question 56

What is meant by reaction formation in psychoanalysis?

Answer 56

When an individual may act, often unconsciously to negative aspects of their personality

Question 57

What is Freuds expectation of a child who is toilet trained harshly

Answer 57

They will become anally retentive (obsessively clean and tidy) unless you recognise it (maybe unconsciously) and act against it, therefore reaction formation occurs. ie it is non falsifiable.

Question 58

What is meant by the humanistic theory?

Answer 58

Emphasises that humans have free will and are motivated to fulfil their potential.

Question 59

What is meant by self actualisation?

Answer 59

Fulfilment of needs beyond those necessary for survival

Question 60

Name Maslow’s hierarchy of need in order of importance

Answer 60

• Physiological needs
• Safety and security
• Love and Belonging
• Esteem
• Self actualisation

Question 61

Name three debates in psychology

Answer 61

Nature vs nurture
Stability vs change
Continuity vs discontinuity