Psych 2ap3- sept 25th Flashcards
Who is Piaget? is he a constructivist or empiricist?
A researcher on child development, he is a constructivist
Since Piaget is a constructivist, what does this mean?
While empiricists only look at the object, constructivists believe they construct their knowledge of the world by INTERACTING with the object
What are Piaget’s assumptions?
- discontinuous development (learning happens in distinct stages)
- children are active agents
- constructive knowledge
- domain general mechanism
What type of theory is the discontinuous development theory? What does this mean?
Stage theory, invariant, universally iexperienced
How does Piaget account for individual differences in development?
It is not the stages themselves changes, but the SPEED of development that causes individual differences
What is the domain general mechanism?
The belief that children aren’t naturally good at a particular thing, but they go through different knowledge/activities and pick up on it better simply out of interest (the cognitive ability hasn’t changed)
What type of theory does domain general mechanism theory contrast with?
information processing theories (people are naturally better at a particular thing)
What does children being active agents mean?
Children are curious and seek out stimulation in their environment, choose their own development
What is the constructivist approach?
Children build their knowledge through interactions with objects/environment and the speed of development (individual differences) depend on the different objects child is interacting with
What is assimilation vs accommodation in development?
Assimilation: New experiences are incorporated into a child’s existing theories
Accommodation: new experience modify’s a childs theory
How do developing ideas happen?
Specific —-> general
How do updating ideas happen?
General —> specific
What are schemas?
Information blocks, that are constructed upon with other schemas
First stage of cognitive development/when?
sensorimotor (0-2 years)
What is an example of a scheme?
A schema for what a cat looks like
Second stage of cognitive development?
pre-operational (2-7 years)
Third stage of cognitive development?
Concrete operational (7-11 years)
Fourth stage of cognitive development?
Formal operational (11-adulthood)
During the sensori-motor stage what do we see evidence of? How old are the infants during this?
8-12 months: object permanence (knowing objects don’t disappear when out of sight), cause-and effect behaviour, and goal directed behaviour
What is the a-not-b error? did the 9-month old pass it?
Baby understanding where an object is when it is switched from point a to point b. no, although the child passed object permanence, it did not pass a-not b
What is the pre-operational stage characterized by?
have the sensory/motor reflexes but still limited mentally
What can kids in the pre-operational stage not do?
reversibility (reverse an action/series of steps) and conservation (understand that the same AMOUNT remains, despite changes in appearance, and egocentrism
What is eco-centrism in the pre-operational stage?
when understanding is limited to one’s own perspective
What video/study showed egocentricism?
the mountain task
What is the concrete operation stage?
can do concrete mental problems to solve a problem, reversibility and constructivism is understood by them, less influenced by external appearance
What is the formal operational stage?
Us: can reason abstractly, generate ideas, heightened metacognition
What is heightened metacognition?
Ability to evaluate one;s own thoughts and actions from an objective perspective
