Historical Roots Flashcards
Between Plato and Aristotle, who believed in what?
Plato: Nature, we are born with knowledge
Aristotle: Nurture, knowledge is learned
What did John Locke believe?
Tabula rasa: a blank slate, emphasized nurture
Importance of early strict parenting- progressive freedom
What did Jean-Jacques Rousseau believe?
Leaned towards nurture- children are innately good
Children learn through spontaneous interactions with objects and people rather than instruction
2 reasons why the study of child development begin?
1) Due to social reform movements around child labour laws
2) Darwin’s theory of evolution: kept diary of his own child’s development
What did Freud believe/emphasize?
Unconscious desires could influence development
Emphasized importance of emotional bonds in early years
What book did G.Stanley Hall write?
Wrote Adolescence, which increased widespread interest in child development
A) What did John Watson found?
B) Did he believe in nature or nurture?
A) Founded behaviourism: development controlled by environmental conditions, particularly rewards and punishment
B) Nurture, said he could train any infant to any career path
A) What is behaviourism’s operant conditioning?
B) How did John Watson’s Little Albert Study support this theory?
A) Rewarded behaviour will increase, punished behaviour will decrease
B) Played loud noise when infant saw rat, infant grew to fear all furry things. Showed that fear was taught and thus, supported behaviourism
In what way did views on child development radically shift?
Realized development is not just about change in knowledge, but change in the underlying cognitive processes
What field did Jean Piaget found?
Founded Cognitive Development, said that how we learn and what we can learn varies on the child’s brain capacity and ability
1) What is Nativism?
2) What is Empiricism?
1) Mental capacities and structures are innate/not acquired by learning
2) We learn from our experiences as we discover the world
What are the six themes in child development?
1) Nature and Nurture
2) The Active Child
3) Continuity/Discontinuity
4) Mechanisms of Developmental Change
5) The Sociocultural Context
6) Individual Differences
What is an implication from Watson’s Little Albert Study?
Easy to teach kids to fear spiders but harder to teach fear from flowers, suggests that even with conditioning there is not equal potential to learn behaviour for every situation
A) What does “the active child” refer to?
B) What are three mechanisms of the active child?
A) What role do children play in their own development?
B)
1) Preferences to attend to certain things (e.g. people over objects)
2) Motivation to learn (e.g. will actively try to learn/experiment, practice language on own, engage in pretend play)
3) Actively seek out their own environment (increases with age, e.g. friends, toys, etc.)
What is Continuity and Discontinuity?
Continuity: enrichment over time
Discontinuity: abrupt, more stage like changes
