Paper 3: cognition and development Flashcards
What is Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, regarding equilibriation, and adaptation?
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
theory revolves around schema - this is a cognitive framework derived from experience, as a way of understanding the world. Piaget explains his theory of development in terms of schema being continually updated.
According to P’s theory, development of schema involves equilibration and adaptation
Equilibration - this is the process where children swing between equilibrium and disequilibrium
Equilibrium is where new info fits with a child’s existing schema. As a result the new info is assimilated into the schema.
Disequilibrium is where new info does not fit with a child’s existing scheme. This creates an unpleasant state of confusion, and creates a motivation to learn in order to return to equilibrium. A child must create a new schema or update their existing one to accommodate the new info.
what are piaget’s stages of cognitive development?
Stages of intellectual development
P proposed 4 stages:
1 - sensorimotor; ages 0-2
Child learns basic language, object permanence (physical things continue to exist when not seen). Children learn physically, through sensory info.
2 - preoperational; ages 2-7
This is where thinking is egocentric (children can only see things from their own perspective). Children has not learned conservation (the understanding that the appearance of an object does not necessarily change its mass/quantity/volume etc)
3 - concrete operational; ages 7-11
This is where children learn conservation and class inclusion. Class inclusion is the idea that things can be subsets of other things, eg a lemon is a fruit AND a citrus fruit.
4 - formal operational; ages 11+
This is where operations (the use of schema) are used in mental actions. By this point children can reason abstractly and hypothetically.
evaluation for piaget’s theory?
Evaluation:
Piaget’s 1952 experiment with beakers (where preoperational children could not tell that the volume of water was the same in different containers) supports his theory of development.
However, the sample lacked population validity as the children were all of Piaget’s colleagues.
Piaget assumes development is linear and innate; does not take into account social differences, eg disadvantaged children with less access to education may go through stages of development slower. Romanian orphanage study backs this up.
While piaget argues that cog dev comes before language dev, vygotsky argues this is the other way round. He argues that a child needs to develop language in order to be abe to develop from others.
what is vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development?
Vygotsky’s theory of development
Vygotsky emphasises social and cultural factors of development. Learning is inter-mental (between two people). He distinguishes between two types of mental functions: elementary and higher. Elementary is innate functions, reflexes, sensory perception, while higher functions include language and reasoning.
V says that higher functions only develop through interactions with others
Language - according to v, lang develops according to the following timeline: social speech: 0-3 (learning to communicate with caregivers), self speech: 3,7 (talking to self), inner speech: this is thinking to self.
In an answer, also refer to the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and scaffolding.
what are vygotsky’s stages of cognitive development?
Vygotsky’s stages of development:
Concept formation:
Vague syncretic: trial and error
Complex: use of some reasoning with limited success
Potential concept: use of a single strategy using some reasoning
Mature concept: successful use of several strategies in reasoning
what is the zone of proxmal development?
Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
This is a gap between a child’s potential ability and their actual ability. A teacher’s job is to guide a child through the ZPD. They do this through scaffolding.
what is scaffolding?
Scaffolding is when a teacher (eg parent/caregiver/professional teacher) helps an infant to learn by providing a framework (scaffold) to help the child learn. The scaffolding is gradually removed until the child is capable of completing the task for themselves.
evaluation for vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development?
Evaluation:
Practical application - teachers can use scaffolding to use infants/children to learn more effectively.
Reductionist - V only focuses on social and cultural factors, and ignores individual differences. Even within the same culture/environment, children will learn at different speeds due to a range of factors, eg biology.
Supporting evidence; scaffolding is widely used. Wood et al found children could not complete a task themselves, but when provided with scaffolding they were able to complete the task.
what is baillargeon’s theory of cognitive development?
Baillargeon
Baillargeon challenges P’s claim that babies develop object permanence; instead argues that babies have an innate physical reasoning system that is present from birth.
Piaget says that the reason babies will stop paying attention to an object before they are 8 months after it is out of view is because they lack object permanence; Baillargeon would say that the only reason they do not look for objects prior to 8 months is because they lack the motor ability to do so.
describe baillargeon’s violation of expectation experiment?
The violation of expectation
Children between 5-6 months were shown 2 scenarios: one possible event and one impossible event. In the possible event, the rabbit is shorter than the window so cannot be seen through. In scenario 2 the rabbit is taller than the window but still does not appear through it. This violates expectations. They found, on average, infants looked at the impossible event for longer than the possible event. This suggests that infants expected the taller rabbit to appear, and were surprised when it did not. Indicates that infants under 8 months do have a concept of object permanence.
This contradicts Piaget’s claim.
evaluation for baillargeon’s violation of expectation?
Evaluation:
Supports baillargeon’s explanation of infant behaviour. Same results were also found in a repeat of the study with a carrot, and 3 ½ month old babies and got the same results. Shows that the results are reliable.
Even if the infants did pay more attention to the impossible scenario, this does not necessarily show that they understand the impossible scenario. Perhaps the increased attention is to do with novelty rather than impossibility. Suggests that the results may not be valid because they can be explained another way - were measuring something else.
what is social cognition?
Social cognition is the understanding of the self in the context of society and other people.
how did selman investigate social cognition?
Selman’s levels of perspective taking:
Perspective taking is the ability to put yourself into another person’s shoes, and see things from their point of view. As infants grow, they learn to see things from different perspectives, which is what selman’s theory investigates.
selman studies how perspective taking develops in children over time, and did this by describing a scenario to children and studying their responses.
The scenario is the Holly dilemma : a girl injures herself falong out of a tree, promises her dad she won;t climb trees anymore. One day a friend’s cat is stuck up a tree. Selman asks infants: should the girl climb the tree?
Based on the answers, selman identified 5 levels of perspective taking:
what are selman’s levels of perspective taking?
Level 1: egocentric/undifferentiated. 3-6 years. Child cannot distinguish between their own perspective and other people’s - will assume other people have the same perspective as them. Children in level 1 will say holly should climb the tree, because the child answering the Q likes cats so wants to see holly save it. Do not understand Holly or anyone else’s perspective.
Level 2: subjective/differentiated: 6-8 years old. Here, children understand that different people have different info and therefore may have different perspectives. Will understand that different perspective is about different info, but not due to different values etc. in holly situation, the children may understand that holly’s father may be angry if he finds out that holly climbed the tree IF he didn’t know that holly did it to save the cat: lack of info rather than different opinion.
Level 3: self-reflective/second person: 8-10 years. In this stage the child understands people have different values that shape their perspective as well as different info. They can also see things from other people’s perspectives, and understand that other people can also do this. They will say that Holly’s father will understand why Holly climbed the tree, bc they understand that he can put himself in Holly’s shoes.
Level 4: mutual: 10-12. This is where the child can imagine the perspective of a neutral third person. They can integrate 2 perspectives simultaneously. The child would describe the holly scenario from neutral position: holly climbed the tree to save the kittens, father will not punish holly if he knows this (outsider perspective)
Level 5: societal: 12-15. This is where the child can take the perspective of a third party, in the context of wider societal and cultural values. They will be able to understand the influence of these values on different perspectives. In the scenario they will say that holly shouldn’t be punished, due to a wider societal value of caring for animals.
evaluation for selman’s levels of perspective taking?
Evaluation:
Practical application. It can easily be applied to situations like conflict resolution. Teacher could encourage perspective taking in classroom arguments, research has shown this is effective.
Perspective taking is too reductionist to be a complete account of social cognition. Perspective taking is only one component of social cognition, does not explain it as a whole. Eg social experiences like interactions and disagreements, and biological factors like genes are likely to play a part in social cognition, which has not been accounted for.
Most of the research into perspective taking has been done on people from western cultures: is likely to suffer from cultural bias.
