Piaget

Question 1

Sensori-motor stage

Answer 1

Infancy: 0-2yrs
Failure to differentiate between self and surroundings
Learning to explore through their senses

Question 2

Pre-operational stage

Answer 2

Early childhood: 2-7yrs
Mental imagery without principled thought
Trouble understanding others perspectives

Question 3

Concrete operational stage

Answer 3

Middle childhood: 7-12yrs
Principled thought confined to real-life problems
Use logic and reasoning

Question 4

Formal operational

Answer 4

Adolescence and adulthood: 12yrs

Principled thought applied to abstract problems

Question 5

What is solipism?

Answer 5

An inability to distinguish between self and surroudings

Question 6

What is achieved through the sub stages of the sensori-motor stage?

Answer 6

Object permanence
Mental imagery
Understanding symbols

Question 7

What are the two primary substages of the sensori-motor stage and the ages they occur

Answer 7

Reflex activity 0-1month

Primary circular reactions 1-4months

Question 8

Define reflex activity

Answer 8

No intentionality, basic reflexes e.g. grasping, sucking etc.

Question 9

Define primary circular reactions

Answer 9

Self-initiate certain schemes

- If an object disappears the infant keeps looking for it in the same place

Question 10

What is the secondary substage and what age does it occur?

Answer 10

Secondary circulator reactions 4-8months

Question 11

Define secondary circular reactions

Answer 11

Infant learns to use one secondary scheme or activate another

Question 12

What are the two tertiary substages and the ages at which they occur?

Answer 12

Tertiary circular reactions 12-18months

Symbolic representations 18-24months

Question 13

Define teritary circular reactions

Answer 13

Can solve A not B task when object remains in the same place but not when it is moved

Question 14

Define symbolic representations

Answer 14

Infant can solve object search with invisible displacement

Question 15

Explain the A not B task

Answer 15

Hide rattle under cloth A so baby will remove cloth A to retrieve the rattle (repeated)
Hide rattle under cloth B
Child will still look for it under cloth A

Question 16

4 months olds: A not B task

Answer 16

No attempt to search for partially or totally hidden objects

Question 17

4-9month olds: A not B task

Answer 17

Visual search for objects

Question 18

9+month olds: A not B task

Answer 18

Search for and retrieve objects but not when hidden in new positions

Question 19

Inhelder and Piaget (1958)

Answer 19

3 mountains task:
Child sits in front of models of 3 mountains each with distinct features e.g. snow/cross etc.
Another person sits opposite the child and asks them to select the photograph of how the other person would see the mountains
Pre-operational children choose their own vantage point

Question 20

Conservation of quantity

Answer 20

Child watches as water is poured into to short and wide jars to the same level (A and B)
Pour water from jar B into a tall thin jar (C)
Children below age 7 state that jar C has more water in it than jar A

Question 21

What is ‘failure to decentre’ with regards to the water in jars study?

Answer 21

An intuitive answer that doesn’t depend on a principle

The water looks higher, therefore it is

Question 22

What is transitive inference?

Answer 22

The use of another unrelated object to make judgements e.g. a stick to see which tower is taller

Question 23

Class inclusion

Answer 23

Child’s inability to respond to subcategories:
Shown a line of 5 red bricks and 2 blue bricks
Correctly respond that there’s 7 bricks
Incorrectly respond that there are more red bricks than bricks as they answer according to the main category

Question 24

Inhelder and Piaget (1958): pendulum problem

Answer 24

What determines the osscillations per minute?
Vary the 4 factors by keeping 1 constant and varying the other 3
It’s the method not the answer that’s important

Question 25

What stage is the pendulum problem used to test?

Answer 25

Formal operational

Question 26

What are the 3 mechanisms of development?

Answer 26

Schemes, assimilation and accomodation

Question 27

Define schemes

Answer 27

Building blocks of thinking
Knowledge sequences that help us plan actions
- Using utensils to eat etc. (subset of routines that drive our actions)

Question 28

Define assimilation

Answer 28

Taking in information using already existing mental structures
Applying schemes to novel content

Question 29

How can assimilation be problematic?

Answer 29

If two objects are similar one may try to do the same action for both

• E.g. having just learned to use a fork, child uses the same motion for a spoon
• Needs to think of a new method due to the conflict of inforamtion

Question 30

Define accomodation

Answer 30

Modification of mental structures to accomodate new information

Question 31

Elkind’s (1956) description of adolescents

Answer 31

Excessively focussed on mental life
Have an illusion of transparency 
Risk-taking
Have a personal fable and private God
Have an imaginary audience
Are self-conscious