The process of psychological development Flashcards
infancy age range
0-12 months
toddlerhood age rrange
1-3 years
childhood age range
3-12 years
adolescence age range
12-19 years
young adulthood age range
19-35 years
middle adulthood age range
35-65 years
late adulthood age range
65 + years
what are theories
simply ideas used to explain a phenomenon and while they can be supported by data this does not mean that they are neccessarily factual. They are acceptable until disporoved
how do we describe the time periods of psychological development
non-concrete and non-dogmatic
emotions
temporary feelings which arise from personal experiences usually occuring as an unconcious response
emotional development
the continuous, lifelong development of skills that allow individuals to control, express and recognise emotions in an appropriate way. the range of emotions and our knowledge pf how and when to express them become increasingly sophisticated as we age and develop
how is emotional development conceptualised
through the development of ‘theory of mind’ which refers to an individuals ability to attribute and understand mental states, beliefs, experiences and emotions of oneself and others
the skills used to develop ‘theory of mind’ are
recognising the emotions of others, assigning words to certain emotions, partipicating in imaginary play (e.g ability to act out other emotions), understanding that the expression of certain emotions may lead to consequences
attachment
the long lasting bond between two individuals
attachment theory
refers to the bond between an infant and their primary caregiver. that this attachment formed significantly impacts the infants emotional development. it has the potential to enhance or reduce their ability to express their own emotions and recognise the emotions of others throughout their lifespan
who is harry harlow
american psychologist who is best known for his maternal seperation, dependancy needs and social experiments on rhesus monkeys, he conducted several experiments to iinvestigate the factors influencing development of attachmennt between infant monkeys and their mothers
what was harry harlows most famous experiment
1958 - aimed to determine the role of food provision (breastfeeding) in the formation of infant-mother attachments
what occured in harry harlows 1958 experiment
Each cage contained two surrogate or
‘substitute’ mothers that were roughly the
same size and shape as a real rhesus monkey
mother. One of the surrogates was covered in
towel-like fabric or cloth, and the other was
left uncovered with exposed wire. A feeding
bottle was attached to one of the surrogates in the same area where a breast would be on a real mother. The infants were then assigned to one of two conditions. In half of the
monkeys’ cages, the cloth mother provided milk with a feeding bottle and in the other half’s cages, the wire mother provided milk
with the feeding bottle.
what was harlows hypothesiss
infant monkeys would prefer and become attached to the surrogate mother that provided via the feeding bottle, he believed that infant-mother attachment was based primarily on feeding
what were the findings of harlows experiment
in both conditions, infant monkeys spent significantly more time cuddling/clinging to the cloth surrogate mother, when the wire mother provided food, the infant monkeys would go to the wire mother to feed but immediatley return to the cling to the ckoth surrogate, when placed in novel/scary situations the infant monkeys woyld turn to the cloth mother for comfort, those exposed without the surrogate mother would cower in feae, sometiimes paralysed, some huddled in a ball sucking ttheir thumbs
what was the ultimate conclusion of harlows experiments
contact comfort (provided by the softness of the cloth covering) was more important than feeding in the formation of an infant rhesus monkeys attachtment to its mother
emotional development in infancy
8 weeks-smile and frown, 3-4 months express delight, fear, anger, etc 1-2 years jealousy and affection
childhood (2-puberty) emotional development
2-3 yrs temper tamtrums, label and recognise emotions in others, empathy
adolescence (puberty-18) emotional development
less emotional dependance on parents, extreme emotions, seek help with emotions
adulthood (18-65) emotional development
more empathy, managing emotions, mid-life crisis
old age 85+ emotional development
calmer, emotional wisdom, focus on positivity
observational learning
the acquisition of new behaviours as a result of observing the actions of others and the consequences of those actions
modelling
a form of learning whereby we observe the behaviour of others and then replicate it
infancy cognitive development
use senses to explore the world around them 9 months - recognise faces and sounds, imitate gestures, simple words, 12 months - speak multiple works, imitate animal sounds and associate names with objects, 18 months - understand 10-50 words
childhood cognitive development
2 yrs - 100-150 words, 10 new words learnt each day, mental imagery, memory, attention span, learning to read, later use logic and problem solving
adolesccene cognitive development
indpendance in thinking through problems and situations, think hypothetically, metacognition
adulthood cognitive development
cognition stabalised/ reached its peak by the age of 35, develop experrtise in studies/careers
assimilation
a cognitive process that involves taking a new concept and fitting it into or making it a part of a pre-existing mental idea or structure, during assimilation, the childs underlying cognitive skills and world views remain unchanged
schema
our pre-existing mental ideas relating to a given concept that helps us organise and interperet new info
acommodation
a cognitive process tthat involves changing or adjusting existing ideas to deal with new situations
cognitive development
a gradual, life-long process and is somewhat reliant on biolgocial and physical development, includes the growth in mass of tthe brain, cognitive development must be inferred as we cannot directly observe
jean piaget
his work changed the views of many psychologists in terrms of the cognitive capabilities in infants, his theoroes were first translated into english in the 1920s
what was jean piagets theory of cognitive development
itt proposed that we move through four distinct and sequential stages from birth to adulthood in developing our cognitive abilitiesm also suggested that individuals do nooot develop the mental capabilities of a later srage without having forst aquireed those of an earlier stage
what are the stages of piagets theory
sensorimotor stage 0-2 yrs, pre-operational stage 2-7 yrs, concrete-operational stage 7-13 yrs, formal operational stage 13+
what is the sensorimotor stage
infants construct their understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiencees with motor abilities
what are the key cognitive accomplishments of the sensorimotor stage
object performance and goal directed behaviour
object performance
an understanding that an object continues to exist even after they can’t be touched, seen or heard
goal directed behaviour
a planned series of events with a purpose
what is the pre-operational stage
when the child becomes increasingly able to assimilate and accomidate and therefore tthink in more complex ways, increasingly able to internally represent events
what are the key cognitive accomplishments of the pre-operational stage
egocentrism, animism, transformation, centration, reversability, EATCR
egocentrism
the inability to see things from others point of view
animism
the belief that everything has a conscious
transformation
understanding that something can change from one state, form or structure to another
centration
the child can only focus on one quality or feature of an object at a time
reversability
the ability to mentally follow a sequence of events or line of reasoning back to its starting poiint
what is the concrete operational stage
the thinking of a concrete operational children revolves around what they know and what they can experience through their senses
key cognitive accomplishments of the concrete operational stage
conservation and classification
conservation
the understanding that certain properties of an object can remain the same even when the appaerence changes
classification
the ability to organise objects or events into categories based on common features that set them apart from other categories
formal operational stage
more complex thought processes and sophisticated thinkinh, thinking doesn’t rely on senses in order to understand concepts (non-tangible)
key cognitive accomplishments of the formal operationl stage
abstract thinking and logical thinking
abstract thinking
a way of thinking that does not rely on being able to see ore visuualise things in order to understand concepts
logical thinking
refers to the ability to think in a systematic way and develop a plan to solve problems
strengths of piagets theory
inspired countless other studies, he anticipated issues that others would fault him on and hoped that future researchers might provide modifications and improvments to further the theoru, impact on educt=ational practice
weaknesses of piagets theory
he underestimated childrens cognitive cpapbilitiees, the timing for each stage varies considerably, observations were biased as they were of his own children
social behaviour
any behaviour that consists of interaction between 2 or more people
who was albert bandura
in the 1960s bandura and colleagues conducted a series of experiments on learning where children watched the behaviour of others and the childrens resulting behaviour was examined, this lead him to develop the social learningg theory
social learning theory
social behaviour is kearned primarily by observing and imitating the actions of others and is also influenced by being rewarded and or punished for these actions
observational learning and what is required
watching others behaviours and the consequences of them (vicarious learning), there are five processes for observational leearning to occur
modelling
when the observer demonstrates the learned behaviour by imitating it
what are the 5 elements of observational learning
attention, retention, reproduction, motivatiion and reinforcemement
attention
when the learner actively watches the models behaviour - allocating mental awareness and energy
retention
learner makes the consciuos effort to store the memory in a mental representation to be used later
reproduction
the learner decides whether tthey posses the ability to perform what was observed
motivation
the learner must want to perform the learned behaviour and there needs to be a desirable consequence
reinforcement
the learner is reinforced or punished when the behaviour has been performed
what was banduras most famous experiment
investigated the effectiveness of observational learning in preschool children, known as the bo-bo doll experiments and specifically aimed to investigate if aggression/antisocial behaviour could bbe learnt through observational learning
what weree the three stages of banduras experiment
modelling, aggression arousal and test for delayed imitation
stage 1, modelling
children were individually shown into a room containing toys and played for 10 mins, 24 children watched an adult model behaving aggressively towards the bobo doll - attacking, shouting, usinh a hammer, another 24 childrem were exposed to a non-aggressive model who played in a quiet and subdued manner, the final 24 children were not exposed to any model
stage 2, aggression arousal
all the chiild, each group of 24, were subjected to mild agression arousal, each child was seperatly taken to a room with relatively attractive toys, as soon as the child started to play with these toys the experimenter told the child that these were her very best toys and had decided to reserve them for other children
stage 3, delayed imitation
the children when then placed ina room containing aggressibe and non-aggressive toys, the chiild was in the room for 20 mins and their behaviour was observed and rated through a one way mirror, observations were made at 5 sec intervals therefore giving 240 response units for each child
what were the results of banduras experiment
children who observed the agressive model made for more imitative aggressive responses tthan tthose who were in the non-aggressive or control groups, girls in the aggressive model condition had physical agressive responses if the model was male and more verbal responses if the model was female, boys were more likely to imitate male models than girls were to female models, boys imitated more physically aggressive acts than girls
how did bandura reinforce his experiment
tthe children were placed into 3 conditions, 1
aggression was rewared, 2 agression was punished, 3 no cosequence for the agression
