The mind through the eyes of a child

Question 1

What did Philippe Aries (1962) argue?

Answer 1

That ‘childhood’ was a social construction and not generally recognised as ‘special’ until 16th/17th century.

Question 2

What was Aries evidence?

Answer 2

Pictures of children
Contemporary accounts/practices
Analysis of the condition of children from our current perspective

Question 3

Why did Aries fail?

Answer 3

To take into account the bigger socioeconomic picture

Question 4

What was Jean Piaget (1896-1980) interested in?

Answer 4

The origins and development of knowledge and understanding. (Genetic epistemologist)

Question 5

What did Jean Piaget argue?

Answer 5

The acquisition of knowledge came about through interaction with the world (contrast with nativism and empiricism).

Question 6

What was Piaget’s most famous idea?

Answer 6

Stages of development
He argued that children’s thinking progressed through a series of stages, each characterised by thinking of a particular quality.

Question 7

What are the stages?

Answer 7

Qualitatively different
Occur in an invariant order
Are logically interdependent- later stages depend absolutely on having developed earlier ones
Never skipped

Question 8

What ages are sensory-motor?

Answer 8

0-18/24 months
(development of object knowledge)

Question 9

What ages are pre-operational?

Answer 9

2-7 years

Question 10

What ages are concrete operational?

Answer 10

7-11 years

Question 11

What ages are formal operational?

Answer 11

11+ years

Question 12

What paradigm is most predominant methods for inferring infant knowledge?

Answer 12

Habituation/Dishabituation

Question 13

What was Lev Vygotsky interested in?

Answer 13

Cross-cultural and cross-species studies
What made humans different from other animals was speech, or ‘second signalling system’ of the Pavlovian psychologists.