Introduction to Understanding Human Development (contd.) Flashcards
What are the three theories of cognitive development?
- Piaget’s cognitive-developmental theory;
- Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory;
- Information processing perspectives.
What specifically did Piaget think about development?
Piaget: Children actively constructi understanding – universal stages
What was Vygotsky concerned with?
Influences of socio-cultural context on development of thinking
Adaptation: the developmental process
Adaptation involves movement between states of:
equilibrium > disequilibrium > equilibrium
Adaptation is comprised of two processes:
assimilation + accommodation
What is assimilation?
The individual deals with a new event by incorporating it into existing structures.
What is accommodation?
The individual’s structures change to deal with a new event.
Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
Universal stages with an invariant sequence
Described in terms of achievements and limitations of thinking
The Sensori-Motor Stage (birth- 2 years)
Development of intelligence from basic reflexes to simple mental representations.
Initial state - reflex actions on self and immediate environment.
By 2 years performing internal actions
Thinking = Internal action
What are the important achievements in the sensori-motor stage?
Intentional actions.
Internal representations of the objects and events.
Object permanence:
Recognition that objects exist apart from one’s actions or observation of the object.
What are operations according to Piaget?
Operations:
are internalised (mental) actions,
can be manipulated and transformed,
can be returned to their original form.
The Pre-Operational Stage
Two sub-stages: pre-conceptual and intuitive
Develops the tools for logical thought - language, symbols, mental imagery.
But thinking does not demonstrate logical operations.
What are the four features of the pre-operational stage?
- Centration: centering on one striking perceptual feature.
- States vs Transformations: making judgements from end states.
- Non-reversible thought: does not return mental action back to its starting point.
- Ego-centrism - Thinking about the external world in terms of their own perspective or point of view (see Three mountains experiment).
Concrete Operations- Logical Thought
What are the four features of this stage?
Decentration: freed from dependence on perceptually salient features
Co-ordination of states and transformations into a logical unit
Reversibility: can reverse an action back to its starting point internally.
Conservation: the amount remains the same even with transformations of appearance.
Formal Operations
Internal Manipulation with logical forms.
Operations on operations - thinking about thinking.
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning (e.g. pendulum problem)
Isolating variables.
Mental manipulation of possible combinations.
What are the criticisms of Piaget’s theory?
Underestimates young children’s reasoning abilities and
Overestimates the reasoning abilities of adolescent and adults.
Vygotsky
Vygotsky: Influences of socio-cultural context on development of thinking
Cognitive growth a socially mediated activity – one in which children gradually acquire new ways of thinking and behaving through cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society. (apprenticeship model)
Rejected notion of all children progressing through same stages of cognitive growth.
How do information processing theories view cognitive development?
Information-Processing theories view cognitive development in terms of a detailed analysis of thinking processes
Adopt the perspective that the human mind is a continuously developing, symbol-manipulating system – similar to a computer into which information flows, is operated on, and is converted to output (answers, inferences, and solutions to problems).
What is Ethology?
Ethology: The study of behaviour within an ecological context. Ethologists believe that a variety of innate behaviour patterns were shaped by evolution just as physical characteristics were.
Ethological and Evolutionary theories (imprinting)
“Imprinting” is a process in which newborns of many species become attached to the mother at first sight and stay near her.
Human newborns do not “imprint,” but they are drawn to visual and emotional connection with others.
Systems
Focus: Development as outcome of complex interactions within systems
Bronfenbrenner: Ecology of development – from the microsystem to macrosystem
What do ecological theories of development emphasise?
Foremost issue is the interaction of nature and nurture.
Emphasize the importance of socio-cultural context.
Emphasize the continuity of development.
Children’s active role in their own development is a central focus.
What is Bronfenbrenner’s Bio-ecological Model?
Bronfenbrenner conceptualizes the environment as a set of nested structures, each inside another.
Each structure emphasizes a different level of influence.
The environmental forces at each level vary in effect on each child.
There is complex interconnectedness among the levels, which are called systems.
