Key theories in development Flashcards
What is stimulus response psychology?
human behaviour is response to stimuli
most behaviours learned:
through trial and error (instrumental conditioning) behaviour determined by past outcomes
Tolman: latent learning / rats and maze
rat is put into maze, wanders round until find food box (every 24 hours)
Over time rat learns and gets to food box quickly, reduces no. of errors
more likely when there’s food in box and rat is hungry
Tolman’s findings
rat with experience of the maze learned faster once reward was introduced (food)
than rats with no prior experience of maze
What is the cognitive revolution?
behaviour is now seen as an external effect of internal cognitive processes
What is Nativism?
one of the drivers of the cognitive revolution
behaviours must be result of innate knowledge
Spelke: “violation of expectation” paradigm
argued all humans inherit core knowledge of the world
present infants with 2 scenarios:
- possible (follows laws of physics)
- impossible (breaks laws of physics)
e.g a toy that appears to disappear
Spelke findings
infants tended to look longer at impossible events
implies they have knowledge of law
What is innate concepts theory?
humans have cognitive modules which are specialised in the processing of events
- language
-object perception
- moral
innate starting point is essential
What is constructivism?
idea that child actively constructs a model of the world
e.g Piagets, Vygotsky theories
Piaget: 2 mechanisms that lead to change
- assimilation
- accommodation
when these are in balance, child achieves equilibrium
What does assimilation mean?
the process of fitting reality into one’s current cognitive organisation
What does accommodation mean?
adjustments to one’s cognitive organisation resulting from the demands of reality
Vygotksy: “social constructivism”
language is the basis of thought
knowledge develops as a result of social interaction
Vygotksy: Zone of proximal development
the distance between actual developmental level (which has been determined by independent problem solving) and the level of potential development (which is determined through problem solving with guidance)
