Research Methods and Cognitive Development

Question 1

Developmental psych

Answer 1

• How we are as children
• How we change as we get older

Question 2

Cross-sectional research

Answer 2

• Research one specific group, or compare in the moment two or more specific group

Question 3

Cross-sectional research positives

Answer 3

• easy to control fro random variables
• easily replicated
• Relatively inexpensive
• good at telling you how people at specific ages act

Question 4

Cross-sectional research negatives

Answer 4

• Doesn’t show change over time
• Doesn’t account for cohort differences (group of people born at the same historical time)

Question 5

Longitudinal research

Answer 5

Study the same group of people over a long period of time

Question 6

Longitudinal research positives

Answer 6

• Get a very large amount of information about the group
• The only research method that can prove causation

Question 7

Longitudinal research negatives

Answer 7

• Very expensive and time consuming
• Hard to explain for random variables
• High attrition rate (people leaving the study)

Question 8

Biographical research

Answer 8

• Also called retrospective research
• Study the impact of an event in someone’s life after it happens

Question 9

Biographical research positives

Answer 9

• Can find out about unexpected phenomena

Question 10

Biographical research negatives

Answer 10

• Memory is pretty unreliable
• We cannot account for many variables that influence up until the point of interest

Question 11

Cognitive development

Answer 11

• How our thinking changes as we get older
• We are trying to determine:
  
  • what basic ideas children have to know to correctly understand the world
  • how we learn those beliefs

Question 12

Ways that we think about the world

Answer 12

• Object permanence
• Conservation
• Theory of mind
• Symbolic thought
• Concrete reasoning
• Abstract thinking

Question 13

Object permanence

Answer 13

• The knowledge that things continue to exist even when you can’t see them anymore
• critical for understanding the physical world
• Piaget says that we develop this around 8 months in the sensorimotor stage, which lasts from birth to age 2

Question 14

Conservation

Answer 14

• The principle that quantity remains the same even if the shape changes
• Piaget says develop around age 5, in the preoperational stage

Question 15

Theory of mind

Answer 15

• The understanding that other people have other points of view (literally + metaphorically)
• The idea that other people have their own minds that are separate from ours
• Critical for interpersonal relationships
• Before theory of mind develops, children are egocentric
• Develops around age 4-5 in the preoperational stage

Question 16

Symbolic thought

Answer 16

• The understanding that one thing can represent something else (map)
• Piaget also thought this developed in the preoperational stage
• Language indicative of symbolic thought

Question 17

Language

Answer 17

• Before we can talk, we have ideas, and then words just get layered on top of those
• Lev Vygotsky - we don’t think about things that aren’t coded language

Question 18

Concrete reasoning

Answer 18

• A correct understanding of our physical world, but reasoning is based in reality, rather than abstraction
• Piaget says that this occurs between ages 7-12

Question 19

Abstract thinking

Answer 19

• The development of a theoretical or conceptual understanding of both earlier and new concepts
• Piaget says that we develop this starting around the age of 12, which is the beginning of the Formal Operational stage

Question 20

How does our thinking change over time?

Answer 20

• Piaget - believes that this is “nature” - we naturally progress through these stages, little can be dont to influence
• Vygotsky - we are fundamentally shaped by our environment because we are constantly moving into new “zones of proximal development”
  
  • we can do something or think about something with some help, but not entirely on our own
  • once we master the concept, we get help with the next thing, etc