Week 2 Flashcards
Object Permanence
a child’s understanding that an object continues to exist even when it can no longer be observed directly - milestone in Piaget’s model
Evidence that 5 month old infants do have a representation of objects when they cant see them - modern methods
Piaget’s Influence is because… 3
He worked and published in the field for nearly 60 yrs
Examined development from the neonatal period to late adolescence
Range of topics of cognitive development - physical properties, time, language,
Stage theory
development is NOT continuous - move suddenly to a new stage after spending some period of time in each stage with an unchanging skills set -
Abrubt qualitative change across a variety of domains - discontinuous - caterpillar to butterfly
Sensorimotor - birth-2yrs
Trial and error - learn by associating behavior with sensory experiences
The association of physical interactions with objects is virtually synonymous with cognitive development at this stage- the infant interacts with the physical and social world on a physical basis (cognitive development driven by physical interaction). -
The infant is perceptually bound (according to Piaget - can only think about things that they see). She makes progress by associating sensory experiences and her own actions
Language development starts
Object Permanence at 8m accord to Piaget
Preoperational 2-7 yrs
In this stage, the child learns to use symbols (math, language, pretend play) such as words and numbers. Pretend play is considered symbolic and develops in this stage.- later debunked
Cognitive development is rapid including - language, memory and pretend play
Understand past and future but knowledge is still very egocentric
Thinking is concrete - think and reason about things that they can see and touch but have difficulty with hypotheticals or abstract
Concrete operational 7-11
The child can now perform mental operations, which allows logical problem-solving. The child can still only apply these operations to concrete objects.
Understand and use operations such as inference, classification, reversibility and conservation
Thinking is less egocentric
Children understand concrete operations such as conservation of number, mass and liquids but cannot yet apply to abstract or hypothetical content
Formal Operational 12-adulthood - after puberty
The child can now perform mental operations on abstract or hypothetical entities - non-concrete reasoning
Adept at using symbols and can relate them to abstract concepts
Can think about multiple variables to predict outcomes and can formulate hypotheses about either concrete or abstract relationships
No new structures develop after this stage
Sources of Developmental Change - Assimilation
: Interpreting new info in terms of previously understood theories and concepts ex. Knows about cows sees a deer and thinks its a cow
New object is assimilated into the familiar scheme
Sources of Developmental Change - Accomodation
process of changing one’s current theory, understanding or concept in order to cope with new information
Learn about new category of animals after finding the deer - refine understanding
Sources of Developmental Change - Equilibration
balancing assimilation and accommodation to maintain a stable understanding of the world while still allowing for development
Accommodate every time - hard to make sense of the world
Never accommodate - hard for learning and development to take place
Disequilibrium - not satisfied that they can make sense of a new experience with their current understanding
Understanding changes -> equilibrium
Constructivism
Piagets theory is constructivist - child does not passively absorb info but actively shapes the info as observations are made - not a blank slate
A theory of knowledge acquisition that states
that children construct their own meaning
of their observations and experiences by
interpreting observations and experiences
through the lens of the child’s own expectations and prior beliefs
Two children observing the same event could impart very different meanings to the event
Novel - emphasis on role of the child
Shortcomings of Piaget (3)
- Underestimated cognitive competence of infants and children - due to advances in methods
- Relied largely on children’s ability to explicitly report their own understandings
- Used difficult tasks with a conservative bias with respect to how they could be interpreted - if a child failed a task did they lack the ability? - Stage like cognitive development is overstated
- Stage determined modes of thinking in many domains and thinking did not develop until the child moved into a new stage
- No evidence of concurrent changes across a lange number of domains at the moment of stage change
- Variability - depends on the subject that determines thinking and modes vary
- Math, language and pretend play don’t all happen at the same time - Underestimated the importance of social and emotional contributions to development - focused on cognitive development and the child’s interaction
Huge influence of other people on a child
Associationism
An approach that encompasses learning
theories such as classical conditioning,
operant conditioning, behaviorism and social
learning theory. This perspective suggests that
people have only general-purpose learning
mechanisms, allowing them to associate
one stimulus with another. According to this
perspective, the newborn mind is a blank slate
Learning happens by associating one stimulus with another or by associating a behavior with a reward or punishment
Classical conditioning -
neutral stimulus becomes associated with psychologically meaningful stimulus - dogs and bell
Unconditioned stimulus - served to elicit the response before the training - food
Unconditioned response - response to this stimulus - salivation
Pair bell with unconditioned stimulus - neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus eliciting the conditioned response
Behaviorism
Watson - little albert
Little Albert Experiments
Developing 11m showed a white rat - paired with loud startling noise
Developed a lasting phobia of rats and other animals
Can be used for systematic desensitization - expose people with phobias to their fear - pair with reward
Advocated for strict discipline - regimented feeding schedule - conditioned to eat at regular intervals - kid would not be hungry between meals
Discouraged affection
Operant Conditioning
A type of learning in which a specific behavior
becomes more or less likely as a result of
reinforcers or punishes
Consequence that makes the behavior more likely to occur is a reinforcer - negative or positive
Consequence that makes the behavior less likely - punisher
BF Skinner - empiricist - child is passively shaped by their environment
Extreme - every behavior the result of operant conditioning - rewards and punishments that came before - could create a perfect society
Attention could serve as a reinforcer - attention seeking behavior ex. Time out
Social Learning Theory
Bandura - explain behavior in terms of stimulus and response learning
Process by which adults taught children to behave as proper adults
Observational learning - actor’s behavior changed as a result of observing a model - imitation
Witnessing a punishment could affect likelihood which operant couldn’t explain
The Standard Social Science Model (3 assumptions)
The standard social science model is a
summary of current thoughts about human
nature, including the assumptions that
underlie most undergraduate curriculum
and reports in the popular press.
Assumes
1. human mind is a blank slate at birth and everything is learned
2. Biology is irrelevant or that the influences of biology are minor (and evo history)
3. There are not many specific learning mechanisms, but rather very few, very general learning mechanisms
Shortcomings of associationism 3
Blank slate assumption
- Evidence that infants have a rich set of concepts and expectations about the world
Biology can’t be ignored
- All psychological processes have a relevant history - selection pressure can reveal function and design
- Relation back to increased fitness in the EEA- food or affection
- No explanation for why reinforcers are reinforcing without biology
Time out - biological explanation for being ostracized
- A few general learning mechanisms can’t explain what children learn
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model
Consider the entire ecological system in which a child was developing - interaction btw the developing child and their contexts - bidirectional and reciprocal
Microsystem
1- The individuals, groups and resources that the
child interacts with on the most frequent basis,
including family, school, peers and neighbors.
Physical resources in the immediate environment - bedroom, playground
Mesosystem
2
The effects that emerge from interactions
between the entities in the microsystem. For
example, the child’s religion may impact the
way the family interacts with the school, or
the parents’ divorce may affect how the child
interacts with the community
Stronger and more numerous relationships lead to a richer and more stable environment for the developing child
Exosystem
3 Institutional entities that affect indirectly
Parent teacher association - local government
Macrosystem
4 One’s culture, including prevailing values,
beliefs and attitudes that may impact the
child’s development. Examples would
include attitudes towards gender equality
and sexual mores.
Chronosystem
5 Changes over time that affect the
developing child, such as a death in the
family, a job-related move, or a change
in the government.
Developmental Systems Theory
A perspective that emphasizes that when
it comes to complex systems, the whole
is more than the sum of its parts. This
perspective reminds us to consider all the
resources contributing to development,
genetic and environmental, rather than
emphasizing the contribution of one over
the other
Bidirectional influences - gene expression influences and is influenced ex. - things that happen to the adult phenotype can turn genes on and off - levels continue to impact each other
- Termite mound - when born - they don’t get genes but they also inherit the environment or mound that their parents created