Quiz on Intro to Developmental Psych and Cognitive Development Flashcards
Cross-sectional research
Research one specfici group, or compare two or more specific groups at the same time.
PROS: It is easy to control for random variables. It can be easily replicated. It is relatively inexpensive. It is good at telling you how people at different ages behave.
CONS: It doesn’t show any changes over time. It doesn’t account for cohort differences.
Cohort
A group of people born at the same historical time.
Longitudinal research
Study the same group of people over a long period of time.
PROS: You get a very large amount of info about the group. It is the only research method that can prove change over time.
CONS: It is very expensive and time consuming. It is hard to control for random variables (ex. people moving away, death, etc.). There is a high attrition rate.
Attrition
People leaving the study
Biographical research
Also known as retrospective research, when you study the impact of an event in someone’s life after it happened.
PROS: You can find out about unexpected phenomena.
CONS: Memory is pretty unreliable as we may remember the event incorrectly. We also cannot account for many variables that influence up until the point of interest in the topic.
Jean Piaget
The groundbreaking developmental psychologist who tried to answer the questions, “What basic ideas to children have to know to correctly understand the world?” and “How do we learn those beliefs?” He did so by breaking down cognitive development into four stages (SM, P, C, F) where different ideas and concepts appear in children that allow them to understand the world. He argued that we have thoughts even before learning a language. He believed in developing because of nature because we naturally progress through the stages and little can be done to influence when that happens.
Lev Vygotsky
A lesser-known developmental phycologist who made important contributions as well. He argued that we do not think about things that aren’t coded in language. He believed children develop because of nurture. His reasoning is that we are fundamentally shaped by our environment and constantly moving into new zones of proximal development. We are able to do things with some help, but not entirely on our own. Once we master one idea or concept, we get help with the next and so on.
Object permanence
The knowledge that things continue to exist even when you can’t see them anymore. This concept is critical for understanding the physical reality of our world.
Sensorimotor stage
The first stage of cognitive development that lasts from birth to age 2 where we develop object permanence. At this stage, infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions (5 senses) and motor activity.
Conservation
The principle that quantity remains the same even if the shape changes. This concept is critical for understanding the physical reality of our world.
Egocentrism
Before children develop theory of mind, they believe that everyone sees and thinks exactly what they see and think.
Theory of mind
The understanding that other people have their own points of view (physically and mentally). The ideas that other people have their own minds that are separate from ours. This is a critical concept for developing interpersonal relationships.
Symbolic thought
The understanding that one thing can represent something else. Ex. reading a map and knowing the map represents a specific thing or place.
What role does language play in our development of symbolic thought?
Piaget thought that language was indicative of symbolic thought. He assumed that before we can talk, we have ideas, and then words get layered on top of those ideas.
Vygotsky disagreed and said that we do not think about things that are not coded in thought.
**There is no way of proving whether Piaget or Vygotsky is correct
Preoperational stage
The second stage of cognitive development, lasting from age 2 to 6/7 where children grasp the ideas of conservation, theory of mind, and symbolic thought. This is also when a child learns to use language but doesn’t yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.
Concrete reasoning
A correct understanding of our physical world, but the reasoning is based in reality rather than abstraction.
Concrete operational stage
The third stage of cognitive development, lasting from ages 7-12 where children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about events. They can comprehend math transformations and conservation.
Abstract thinking
The development of a theoretical or conceptual understanding of both earlier concepts and new concepts.
Formal operation stage
The fourth (and final)stage of cognitive development, lasting from age 12 to adulthood, where people begin to think logically about abstract concepts. There is also potential for mature moral reasoning.
Do we develop cognitively due to nature or nurture?
According to Piaget, we develop cognitively due to nature. He says that we naturally progress through the different stages of cognitive development (SM, P, C, F) and that there is very little that can be done to influence when our thinking develops.
On the other hand, Vygotsky says that we develop cognitively more due to nurture. He says that we are fundamentally shaped by out environment because we are constantly moving into new zones of proximal development when we are able to do or think about something with some help, but not entirely on our own. Once we master the concept, we get help with the next one, and so on.
Zones of proximal development
People are increasingly ready to learn things at certain stages of life. The stages of life vary slightly from person to person based on the way they have been nurtured.
