Week 3 - Chapter 3

Question 1

What is cognitive development?

Answer 1

Changes over time in how people think, how they solve problems, and how their capacities for memory and attention change

Question 2

Who is Jean Piaget?

Answer 2

Influential Swiss developmental psychologist, best known for his theories of cognitive and moral development

Question 3

What are cognitive stages?

Answer 3

Periods in which abilities are organized in a coherent, interrelated way

Question 4

What is a mental structure?

Answer 4

The organization of cognitive abilities into a single pattern, such that thinking in all aspects of life is a reflection of that structure

Question 5

What is the cognitive-developmental approach?

Answer 5

Approach to understanding cognition that emphasizes the changes that take place at different ages

Question 6

What is maturation?

Answer 6

Process by which abilities develop through genetically based development with limited influence from the environment

Question 7

What are schemes?

Answer 7

A structure for organizing and interpreting information

Question 8

What is assimilation?

Answer 8

The cognitive process that occurs when new information is altered to fit an existing scheme

Question 9

What is accomodation?

Answer 9

The cognitive process that occurs when a scheme is changed to adapt new information

Question 10

What are Piaget’s stages of development?

Answer 10

The sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operations, and formal operations

Question 11

Explain the sensorimotor stage

Answer 11

The cognitive stage in the first 2 years of life that involves learning how to coordinate the activities of the senses with motor activities

Question 12

Explain the preoperational stage

Answer 12

Cognitive stage from ages 2 to 7 during which the child becomes capable of representing the world symbolically (through the use of language) but is still limited in ability to use mental operations

Question 13

Explain the concrete operations stage

Answer 13

Cognitive stage from ages 7 to 11 in which children learn to use mental operations but are limited to applying them to concrete, observable situations, rather than hypothetical situations

Question 14

Explain the formal operations stage

Answer 14

Cognitive stage from age 11 and up in which people learn to think systematically about possibilities and hypotheses

Question 15

What are mental operations?

Answer 15

Cognitive activity involving manipulating and reasoning about objects

Question 16

What is the pendulum problem?

Answer 16

Piaget’s classic test of formal operations, in which people are asked to figure out what determines the speed at which a pendulum sways from side to side

Question 17

What is hypothetical-deductive reasoning?

Answer 17

Piaget’s term for the process by which the formal operational thinking systematically tests possible solutions to a problem and arrives at an answer that can be defended and explained

Question 18

What is abstract thinking?

Answer 18

Thinking in terms of symbols, ideas and concepts

Question 19

What is metacognition?

Answer 19

The capacity for “thinking about thinking” that allows adolescents and adults to reason about their thought processes and monitor them

Question 20

What is complex thinking?

Answer 20

Thinking that takes into account multiple connections and interpretations, such as the use of metaphors, satire, and sarcasm

Question 21

What are individual differences?

Answer 21

Approach to research that focuses on how individuals differ within a group, for example, in performance of IQ tests

Question 22

What is postformal thinking?

Answer 22

Type of thinking beyond formal operations, involving greater awareness of the complexity of real-life situations, such as in the use of pragmatism and reflective judgement

Question 23

What is pragmatism?

Answer 23

Type of thinking that involves adapting logical thinking to the practical constraints of real-life situations

Question 24

What is dialectical thought?

Answer 24

Type of thinking that develops in emerging adulthood, involving a growing awareness that most problems do not have a single solution and that problems must often be addressed with crucial pieces of information missing

Question 25

What is reflective judgement?

Answer 25

The capacity to evaluate the accuracy and logical coherence of evidence and arguments

Question 26

What is dualistic thinking?

Answer 26

Cognitive tendency to see situations and issues in polarized, absolute, black-and-white terms

Question 27

What is multiple thinking?

Answer 27

Cognitive approach entailing recognition that there is more than one legitimate view of things and that it can be difficult to justify one position as the true or accurate one

Question 28

What is relativism?

Answer 28

The cognitive ability to recognize the legitimacy of competing points of view but also compare the relative merits of competing views

Question 29

What is committment?

Answer 29

Cognitive status in which people commit themselves to certain points of view they believe to be the most valid while at the same time being open to reevaluating their views if new evidence is presented to them

Question 30

What is the information-processing approach?

Answer 30

An approach to understanding cognition that seeks to delineate the steps involved in the thinking process and how each step is connected to the next

Question 31

What is discontinuous?

Answer 31

A view of development as taking place in stages that are distinct from one another rather than one gradual, continuous process

Question 32

What is continuous?

Answer 32

A view of development as a gradual, steady process, rather than as taking place in distinct stages

Question 33

What is short-term memory?

Answer 33

Memory for information that is the current focus of attention

Question 34

What is long-term memory?

Answer 34

Memory for information that is committed to longer-term storage, so that it can be drawn upon after a period when attention has not been focused on it

Question 35

What is working memory?

Answer 35

An aspect of short-term memory that refers to where information is stored as it is comprehended and analyzed

Question 36

What are mnemonic devices?

Answer 36

Memory strategies

Question 37

What is automaticity?

Answer 37

Degree of cognitive effort a person needs to devote to processing a given set of information

Question 38

What is executive functioning?

Answer 38

The ability to control and manage one’s cognitive processes

Question 39

What is reductionism?

Answer 39

Breaking up a phenomenon into seperate parts to such an extent that the meaning and coherence of the phenomenon as a whole becomes lost

Question 40

What is critical thinking?

Answer 40

Thinking that involves not merely memorizing information but analyzing it, making judgments about what it means, relating it to other information, and considering ways in which it might be valid or invalid.

Question 41

What is organizational core?

Answer 41

Term applied especially to cognitive development, meaning that cognitive development affects all areas of thinking, no matter what the topic

Question 42

What is social cognition?

Answer 42

How people think about other people, social relationships, and social institutions

Question 43

What is perspective taking?

Answer 43

The ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others

Question 44

What is mutual perspective taking?

Answer 44

Stage of perspective taking, often found in early adolescence, in which persons understand that their perspective taking interactions with others are mutual, in the sense that each side realizes that the other can take their perspective

Question 45

What is social and conventional system perspective taking?

Answer 45

Realizing that the social perspectives of self and others are influenced not just by their interaction with each other but by their roles in the larger society

Question 46

What does it mean to be prosocial?

Answer 46

Promoting the well-being of others

Question 47

What is theory of mind?

Answer 47

The ability to attribute mental states to one’s self and others, including beliefs, thoughts, and feelings

Question 48

What is adolescent egocentrism?

Answer 48

Type of egocentrism in which adolescents have difficulty distinguishing their thinking about their own thoughts from their thinking about the thoughts of others.

Question 49

What is an imaginary audience?

Answer 49

Belief that others are acutely aware of and attentive to one’s appearance and behavior.

Question 50

What is a personal fable?

Answer 50

A belief in one’s personal uniqueness, often including a sense of invulnerability to the consequences of taking risks.

Question 51

What is the optimistic bias?

Answer 51

The tendency to assume that accidents, diseases, and other misfortunes are more likely to happen to other people than to one’s self.

Question 52

What is the psychometric approach?

Answer 52

Attempt to understand human cognition by evaluating cognitive abilities using intelligence tests

Question 53

What is fluid intelligence?

Answer 53

Mental abilities that involve speed of analyzing, processing, and reacting to information

Question 54

What is crystalized intelligence?

Answer 54

Accumulated knowledge and enhanced judgement based on experience

Question 55

Who is Vygotsky?

Answer 55

Russian psychologist who emphasized the cultural basis of cognitive development

Question 56

What is the zone of proximal development?

Answer 56

The gap between how competently a person performs a task alone and when guided by an adult or more competent peer

Question 57

What is scaffolding?

Answer 57

The degree of assistance provided to the learner in the zone of proximal development, gradually decreasing as the learner’s skills develop

Question 58

What is guided participation?

Answer 58

The teaching interaction between two people (often an adult and a child or adolescent) as they participate in a culturally valued activity.