"How do children develope" Flashcards
accommodation (akkomodasjon)
the process by which people adapt current knowledge stuctures in response to new experiences.
acculturation (akkulturasjon)
the process of adjusting to a new culture while retaining some aspects of one’s culture of origin.
achievement motivation
refers to whether children are motivated by mastery or by others.
activating influences
potential result of certain fluctuations in sex-linked hormone levels affecting the contemporaneous activation of the nervous system and corresponding behavioral responses.
active learning
learning by engaging with the world, rather than passively observing objects and events.
adrenarche
period prior to the emergence of visible signs of puberty during which the adrenal glands mature, providing major source of sex steroid hormones; correlates with the onset of sexual attraction.
adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
traumatic childhood experiences, such as abuse, neglect, violent exposure, or deathof a parent, that are linked to mental or physical health problems later in life.
affiliation
tendency to affirm connection with others through being emotionally open, empathetic, or supportive
affordance
the possibilities for action offered, or afforded, by objects and situations.
agender
individuals who do not identify with any gender category.
aggresion
behavior aimed at physically or emotinally harming or injuring otheres.
aggressive-rejected (peer status)
children who are viewed by their peers as especially prone to physical aggression, disruptive behavior, deliinquency, and negative behavior such as hostility and threatening others.
allels
two or more differens forms of a gene.
ambivalent sexism
model of sexism that includes two components; 1) hostile sexism (endorsement of men’s dominance with negative views of women seeking equality), 2) benevolent sexism (the belief that men need to protect women, and that women and men have complementary traits).
amniotic sac
a transparent, fluid-filled membrane that surrounds and protect the fetus.
amygdala
an area of the brain that is involved in emotional reactions.
Piaget’s theory remains the best-known cognitive developmental theory. What accounts for its longevity?
1) Piaget’s observations and descriptions vividly convey the texture of children’s thinking at different ages. 2) the exceptional breadth of the theory. It extends from infancy through adolescence and examines topics as diverse as conceptualization of time, space, distance, and number; language use; memory; understanding of other people’s perspectives; problem solving; and scientific reasoning. 3) it offers an intuitively plausible depiction of the interaction of nature and nurture in cognitive development, as well as of the continuities and discontinuities that characterize intellectual growth.
Piaget’s theory
the theory of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, which posits that cognitive development involves a sequence of four stages — the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages — that are constructed through the processes of assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration.
According to Piaget, three of the most important of children’s constructive processes are …
generating hypotheses, performing experiments, and drawing conclusions from their observations.
the dominant metaphor and assumption in Piaget’s theory
1) “child as scientist”, 2) children learn many important lessons on their own, rather than depending on instruction from others, 3) children are intrinsically motivated to learn and do not need rewards from other people to do so.
Assimilation (assimilere/tilpasse)
the process by which people incorporate/translate incoming information into a form that fits the concepts they already understand.
Equilibration
the process by which people balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding.
Equilibration includes three phases …
1) equilibrium: people are satisfied with their understanding of a particular phenomenon
2) disequilibrium: new information leads them to
perceive that their understanding is inadequate. This realization puts people in a state of confusion; they recognize shortcomings in their understanding of the phenomenon, but they cannot generate a superior alternative.
3) advanced equilibrium: develop a more sophisticated understanding that eliminates at least some of the shortcomings of t
he old one, creating a more advanced equilibrium within which a broader range of observations can be understood. Through innumerable equilibrations, children learn about the world around them.
the central properties of Piaget’s stage theory
- Qualitative change: for instance, children in the early stages of cognitive development conceive of morality in terms of the consequences of behavior, whereas children in later stages conceive of it in terms of intent. Thus, a 5-year-old would judge someone who accidentally broke a whole jar of cookies as having been naughtier than someone who deliberately stole a single cookie; an 8-year-old would reach the opposite conclusion. This difference represents a qualitative change because the two children are basing their moral judgments on entirely different criteria.
2) Broad applicability: The type of thinking characteristic of each stage influences children’s thinking across diverse topics and contexts.
3) Brief transitions: Before entering a new stage, children pass through a brief transitional period in which they fluctuate between the type of thinking characteristic of the new, more advanced stage and the type of thinking characteristic of the old, less advanced one.
4) Invariant sequence: Everyone progresses through the stages in the same order without skipping any of them.
Piaget hypothesized four stages of cognitive development
In each stage, children exhibit new abilities that enable them to understand the world in qualitatively different ways than they had previously: the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage.
the sensorimotor stage
(birth to age 2 years), infants’ intelligence is expressed through their sensory and motor abilities, which they use to perceive and explore the world around them. These abilities allow them to learn about objects and people and to construct rudimentary forms of fundamental concepts such as time, space, and causality. Throughout the sensorimotor period, infants live largely in the here and now: their intelligence is bound to their immediate perceptions and actions.
the preoperational stage
(ages 2 to 7 years), toddlers and preschoolers become able to represent their experiences in language and mental imagery. This ability allows them to remember the experiences for longer periods and to form more sophisticated concepts. However, as suggested by the term preoperational, Piaget’s theory emphasizes young children’s inability to perform certain mental operations, such as considering multiple dimensions simultaneously. This leads to children’s being unable to form certain ideas, such as the idea that pouring all the water from a short, wide glass into a taller, narrower glass does not change the total amount of water, even though the column of water is higher in the second glass. In other words, they do not recognize that the increased height of the liquid column in the second glass is compensated for by its being narrower.
the concrete operational stage
(ages 7 to 12 years), children can reason logically about concrete objects and events; for example, they understand that pouring water from one glass to a taller, narrower one leaves the amount of water unchanged. However, concrete operational reasoners cannot think in purely abstract terms or generate systematic scientific experiments to test their beliefs.
the formal operational stage
In the final stage of cognitive development, (age 12 years and beyond), adolescents and adults can think deeply not only about concrete events but also about abstractions and purely hypothetical situations. They can also perform systematic scientific experiments and draw appropriate conclusions from them, even when the conclusions differ from their prior beliefs.
anal stage
the second stage in Freud’s theory, lasting from second year through the third year, in which primary source of pleasure comes from defecation (avføring).
androgen insensititety syndrom (AIS)
condition during prenatal development in which androgen receptors malfunction in genetic males, impending the formation of the external genitalia; in these cases, the child may be born with female external genitalia.
androgens
class of steroid hormones that normally occur at slightly higher levels in males than in females and that affects physical development and functioning from the prenatal period onward.
A-not- B error
the tendency to reach for a hidden object where it was last found rather than in the new locations where it was hidden.
In this error, once 8- to 12-month-olds have reached for and found a hidden object several times in one place (location A), they tend to reach there again even when they have observed the object being hidden in a different place (location B) and are prevented from immediately reaching for it
antisocial behavior
disruptive, hostile, or aggressive behavior that violates social norms or rules and that harms or taks advantage of others.
anxiety disorders
a set of mental disorders that involve the inhability to regulate fear or worry.
Apgar score
method for evaluating the health of the newborn immediately following birth based on skin tone, pulse rate, facial response, arm and leg activity, and breathing
apoptosis
genetically programs cell death
arborization
formation of new dendrit trees and branches.
assertion
tendency to take action on behalf of the self through competetive, independent, or aggressive behaviors.
association areas
part of the brain that lie between the major sensory and motor areas and that process and integrate input from those areas.
attachment
an emotional bond with a spesific person that is enduring across time and space.
attachment theory
theory based on John Bowly’s work that posits that children are biologically predisposed to develop attachments to caregivers as a means of increasing the chances of their own survival.
attention-defict hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
a syndrome that invoves difficulty in sustaining attention.
object permanence
the knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of view.
infants late in their first year begin to search for objects of interest that have disappeared from sight
deferred imitation
the repetition of other people’s behavior a substantial time (minutes, hours, or even days) after it originally occurred.
In the last half-year of the sensorimotor stage (ages 18 to 24 months), according to Piaget, infants become able to form enduring mental representations. The first sign of this new capability is deferred imitation
When we consider Piaget’s account of cognitive development during infancy, several notable trends are evident …
- At first, infants’ activities center on their own bodies; later, their activities include the world around them.
- Early goals are concrete (shaking a rattle and listening to the sound it makes); later goals often are more abstract (varying the heights from which objects are dropped and observing how the effects vary).
- Infants become increasingly able to form mental representations, moving from “out of sight, out of mind” to remembering a playmate’s actions from days earlier. Such enduring mental representations make possible the next stage, which Piaget called preoperational thinking.
Piaget viewed the preoperational period as …
… including striking cognitive acquisitions and equally striking limitations. Perhaps the foremost acquisition is symbolic representations; among the most notable weaknesses are egocentrism and centration.
symbolic representation
the use of one object, word, or thought to stand for another
