week 1 lecture 2 - historical and philosophical perspectives Flashcards
1st developmental study
- 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
controlled-rearing studies
deprivation studies
What experience is needed to develop depth perception? (controlled-rearing kitten study)
did not have typical depth perception when:
- unexposed to light
- removed motor experience
Genie
Emphasizes the importance of critical periods of nature vs. nurture in developing years
poverty of the stimulus argument
when the stimulus is impoverished, we have a difficult time learning about it
Plato
- born with knowledge
- strict discipline and self-control
Aristotle
- all knowledge comes from experience
- child-rearing should adjust to the needs of child
Who viewed cognition as a mental organ?
Rene Descartes and Noam Chomsky
John Locke
introduced the term tabula rasa (blank slate); over the course of our lives, we build upon our blank slate
David Hume
everyone is capable of learning from experiences
When did empirical research begin?
1800s and early 1900s
Why did empirical research begin?
- social reform movement (child labor laws)
- Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
- Evolution by natural selection
- Biographical sketch of an infant (Kept observations of his own kids’ development and made systematic observations)
Sigmund Freud
- behavior is motivated by innate, unconscious, instinctual drives
- drive changes over development
- universal stages
- emphasized early development
principles of behaviorism
- study only directly observable things
- no mental phenomena
What is the basic mechanism of change according to behaviorism?
stimulus and response
Pavlov
- classical conditioning
- suggests that nurture can overcome nature
Skinner
- operant conditioning
- reinforcement with rewards
- positive reinforcement may be used to shape behavior
operant conditioning
self-initiated actions recur when reinforced by rewarding consequences
Watson
- 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
What was behaviorism a response to?
eugenics
cognitive revolution
Goal was to explain behavior by thinking about the mind and mental processes
Jean Piaget
- 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
Leo Vygotsky
Development is a process if internalizing social and cultural information
