week 1 lecture 2 - historical and philosophical perspectives

Question 1

1st developmental study

Answer 1

• king of Egypt believed Egyptian was 1st language
• had babies taken out and unexposed to language to see what they spoke first
• did not speak Egyptian

Question 2

controlled-rearing studies

Answer 2

deprivation studies

Question 3

What experience is needed to develop depth perception? (controlled-rearing kitten study)

Answer 3

did not have typical depth perception when:
- unexposed to light
- removed motor experience

Question 4

Genie

Answer 4

Emphasizes the importance of critical periods of nature vs. nurture in developing years

Question 5

poverty of the stimulus argument

Answer 5

when the stimulus is impoverished, we have a difficult time learning about it

Question 6

Plato

Answer 6

• born with knowledge
• strict discipline and self-control

Question 7

Aristotle

Answer 7

• all knowledge comes from experience
• child-rearing should adjust to the needs of child

Question 8

Who viewed cognition as a mental organ?

Answer 8

Rene Descartes and Noam Chomsky

Question 9

John Locke

Answer 9

introduced the term tabula rasa (blank slate); over the course of our lives, we build upon our blank slate

Question 10

David Hume

Answer 10

everyone is capable of learning from experiences

Question 11

When did empirical research begin?

Answer 11

1800s and early 1900s

Question 12

Why did empirical research begin?

Answer 12

• social reform movement (child labor laws)
• Charles Darwin

Question 13

Charles Darwin

Answer 13

• Evolution by natural selection
• Biographical sketch of an infant (Kept observations of his own kids’ development and made systematic observations)

Question 14

Sigmund Freud

Answer 14

• behavior is motivated by innate, unconscious, instinctual drives
• drive changes over development
• universal stages
• emphasized early development

Question 15

principles of behaviorism

Answer 15

• study only directly observable things
• no mental phenomena

Question 16

What is the basic mechanism of change according to behaviorism?

Answer 16

stimulus and response

Question 17

Pavlov

Answer 17

• classical conditioning
• suggests that nurture can overcome nature

Question 18

Skinner

Answer 18

• operant conditioning
• reinforcement with rewards
• positive reinforcement may be used to shape behavior

Question 19

operant conditioning

Answer 19

self-initiated actions recur when reinforced by rewarding consequences

Question 20

Watson

Answer 20

• Little Albert
• Startled the baby with a loud noise and associated that noise with a rat; Albert soon became afraid of rats and other furry objects

Question 21

What was behaviorism a response to?

Answer 21

eugenics

Question 22

cognitive revolution

Answer 22

Goal was to explain behavior by thinking about the mind and mental processes

Question 23

Jean Piaget

Answer 23

• father of modern developmental psychology
• Studies the aspect of child cognition (like a zoologist)
• Observed and experimented with his own children
• Jump-start to the scientific study of child development

Question 24

Leo Vygotsky

Answer 24

Development is a process if internalizing social and cultural information