Summary Of Chapter Three

Question 1

Explain the principles of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, including mental structures, maturation, schemes, assimilation, and accommodation.

Answer 1

Piaget believed that cognitive development proceeds in distinct stages. Each stage
involves a different way of thinking about the world. The idea of cognitive stages means
that each person’s cognitive abilities are organized into a coherent mental structure.
The driving force behind development from one stage to the next is maturation. Piaget
proposed that the active construction of reality takes place through the use of schemes,
which are structures for organizing and interpreting information. The two processes
involved in the use of schemes are assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation
occurs when new information is altered to fit an existing scheme, whereas
accommodation entails changing the scheme to adapt to the new information.

Question 2

Outline piaget’s first three stages of cognitive development

Answer 2

Piaget termed the first 2 years of life the sensorimotor stage. Cognitive development in
this stage involves learning how to coordinate the activities of the senses with motor
activities. From about age 2 to about age 7 is the preoperational stage. Here the child
becomes capable of representing the world symbolically. Concrete operations is the
next stage, lasting from about age 7 to about age 11. During this stage, children
become more adept at using mental operations.

Question 3

Explain how formal operations is different from concrete operations

Answer 3

Piaget’s stage of formal operations begins at about age 11 and reaches completion
between ages 15 and 20. Children in concrete operations can perform simple tasks that
require logical and systematic thinking, but formal operations allows adolescents to
reason about complex tasks and problems involving multiple variables.

Question 4

Describe how thinking in adolescence becomes more abstract
and complex, using metacognition, metaphor, and sarcasm as
examples.

Answer 4

The problems Piaget used to assess the attainment of formal operations were scientific
ones. However, a number of other aspects of formal operations focus less on scientific
thinking and more on logical or applied reasoning, including the development of
capacities for abstract thinking and thinking about thinking (called metacognition), as
well as the capacity for complex thinking. Metaphor and sarcasm require complex
thinking because they involve multiple meanings that have to be interpreted.

Question 5

Summarize the major critiques of Piaget’s theory, and Piaget’s responses

Answer 5

Research has shown that not all persons in all cultures reach formal operations, and
most people do not use formal operations in all aspects of their lives. Although he
acknowledged some degree of individual differences, especially in the timing of
transitions from one stage to the next, Piaget asserted that most people proceed
through the same stages at about the same ages because they experience the same
maturational processes.

Question 6

Describe pragmatism and how it affects thinking from adolescence to adulthood

Answer 6

Pragmatism involves adapting logical thinking to the practical constraints of real-life
situations. According to Labouvie-Vief, cognitive development in emerging adulthood is
distinguished from adolescent thinking by a greater recognition of practical limitations to
logical thinking. Michael Basseches views cognitive development in emerging
adulthood as involving a recognition that formal logic can rarely be applied to the
problems most people face in their daily lives. Dialectical thought is Basseches’s term
for the kind of thinking that develops in emerging adulthood

Question 7

Describe reflective judgement and the difference between dualistic thinking and multiple thinking

Answer 7

Reflective judgment is the capacity to evaluate the accuracy and logical coherence of
evidence and arguments. Dualistic thinking refers to seeing situations and issues in
polarized terms–an act is either right or wrong, with no in-between. In contrast,
multiple thinking refers to thinking that there are two or more sides to every story. In this
stage, people tend to value all points of view equally.

Question 8

Identify how the information-processing approach differs from Piaget’s cognitive-developmental approach

Answer 8

The information-processing approach focuses on separating cognitive functioning into
different components, including attention, various aspects of processing information,
and various aspects of memory. Rather than viewing cognitive development as
discontinuous, that is, as separated into distinct stages, the information-processing
approach views cognitive change as continuous, meaning gradual and steady

Question 9

Compare and contrast selective attention and divided attention

Answer 9

Selective attention refers to the ability to focus on relevant information while screening
out information that is irrelevant. Adolescents tend to be better than preadolescent
children at tasks that require selective attention, and emerging adults are generally
better than adolescents. Adolescents are also more adept than preadolescents at tasks
that require divided attention - reading a book and listening to music at the same time,
for example - but even for adolescents, divided attention may result in less efficient
learning than if attention were focused entirely on one thing.

Question 10

Distinguish between short-term, long-term and working memory, and explain how adolescence use mnenomic devices

Answer 10

Short-term memory is memory for information that is currently the focus of your
attention. It has a limited capacity and retains information for only about 30 seconds or
less. Long-term memory is memory for information that is committed to longer-term
storage, so that you can draw on it again after a period when your attention has not
been focused on it. Working memory is a “mental workbench” where you keep
information as you are working on it. Mnemonic devices are memory strategies, such as
organizing information into coherent patterns, and adolescents use mnemonic devices
more than younger children do.

Question 11

Give an example of automaticity, and explain how executive functioning develops in adolescentce

Answer 11

Automaticity refers to the reduced effort required to process information for tasks that
are highly familiar. Executive functioning refers to the ability to control and manage our
cognitive processes. Improvements in executive functioning allow adolescents to
perform many cognitive tasks that young children cannot.

Question 12

Sunrise critiques of the information-processing approach

Answer 12

According to the critics, information-processing theorists and researchers are guilty of
reductionism, breaking up a phenomenon into separate parts to such an extent that the
meaning and coherence of the phenomenon as a whole become lost. In addition,
according to some scholars, emotions must be taken into account when considering
cognitive functioning.

Question 13

Describe the features of critical thinking and adolescence and how it can be best promoted in schools

Answer 13

Adolescents reach the potential for critical thinking, but teaching techniques in many
secondary schools rarely bring out this potential; colleges and universities have more
success with emerging adults. The promotion of critical thinking requires small classes
and a classroom environment in which focused discourse between teachers and
students is the norm

Question 14

Explain how decision-making abilities change in the course of adolescence, including with respect to judging risks

Answer 14

From early adolescence through emerging adulthood, there is an increasing capacity to
evaluate information and anticipate the possible consequences of a range of choices. In
laboratory experiments, adolescents take more risks than adults do on “hot tasks” that
provide immediate feedback on rewards and losses. Studies indicate that adolescents’
risk judgments are more influenced by emotions and the presence of friends than
adults’ judgments are.

Question 15

Explain what social cognition is and what it means to stay cognitive development functions as an “organizational core”

Answer 15

Social cognition is the term for the way we think about other people, social
relationships, and social institutions. Cognitive development in adolescence functions
as an organizational core that affects all areas of thinking, no matter what the topic.

Question 16

Chart the stages of Selman‘s theory of perspective taking and explain how “theory of mind” is related to perspective taking.

Answer 16

As children grow into adolescence, they become better at perspective taking, the ability
to understand the thoughts and feelings of others. According to Selman, in early
adolescence, about ages 10 to 12, children become capable for the first time of mutual
perspective taking. After mutual perspective taking comes social and conventional
system perspective taking, meaning that adolescents come to realize that their social
perspectives and those of others are influenced not just by their interactions with each
other but also by their roles in the larger society. Theory of mind is the ability to attribute
mental states to one’s self and others, including beliefs, thoughts, and feelings.

Question 17

Describe how the imaginary audience and the personal fable reflect adolescents’ cognitive development

Answer 17

The imaginary audience results from adolescents’ limited capacity to distinguish
between their thinking about themselves and their thinking about the thoughts of others.
The belief in an imaginary audience that is highly conscious of how you look and act
leads to the belief that there must be something special, something unique, about you
(the personal fable).

Question 18

Describe the main way intelligence is assessed

Answer 18

Attempting to understand human cognition by evaluating cognitive abilities with
intelligence tests is known as the psychometric approach. The most widely used
intelligence tests are the Wechsler scales, including the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for
Children (WISC-V) for children ages 6 to 16 and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
(WAIS-V) for persons ages 16 and up. The Wechsler tests contain six Verbal subtests
and five Performance subtests. The results of the Wechsler tests provide a Verbal IQ
and a Performance IQ as well as an overall intelligence quotient (IQ).

Question 19

Explain how adoption studies show the expression of genotype to environment effects from childhood through adolescence

Answer 19

The correlation in IQ scores between adopted children and their adoptive parents is
highest early in childhood, then declines with age, through adolescence. This finding
indicates that adoptive parents (like other parents) have a strong influence in
constructing their children’s environment in the early years. However, with age, children
and then adolescents increasingly seek out their own environmental influences
friends, media, leisure activities- based on their genotypic characteristics, an example
of active genotype › environment effects.

Question 20

Explain how the zone of proximal development is related to scaffolding, in Vygotsky’s theory.

Answer 20

The zone of proximal development is the gap between what adolescents can
accomplish alone and what they are capable of doing if guided by an adult or a more
competent peer. Scaffolding refers to the degree of assistance provided to the
adolescent in the zone of proximal development.

Question 21

List the types of intelligence in the theory of multiple intelligence, and explain the limitations involved in measuring them

Answer 21

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences includes nine types of intelligence. In
Gardner’s view only two of them, linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, are
evaluated by intelligence tests. The other intelligences are spatial (the ability to think
three-dimensionally); existentialist (sensitivity to questions about human existence);
musical; bodily kinesthetic (the kind that athletes and dancers excel in); naturalist
(ability for understanding natural phenomena); interpersonal (ability for understanding
and interacting with others); and intrapersonal (self-understanding). Neither Gardner
nor others have succeeded in measuring them well.

Question 22

Describe the process of overproduction (or exuberance) and synaptic pruning that takes place in the brain during adolescence

Answer 22

Recent research on brain development shows that a process of overproduction anc
synaptic pruning takes place in the course of adolescence, which leads to more effic
but less flexible cognitive functioning.

Question 23

Explain how myelination and changes in the cerebellum enable new conative capacities and adolescents

Answer 23

Along with synaptic pruning, myelination leads to better executive functioning over the
course of adolescence. In addition, the cerebellum shows a surprising amount of growth
in adolescence and emerging adulthood, leading to enhanced cognitive abilities in
areas such as mathematics and social skills

Question 24

Summarize how gray and white matter change to emerging adult hood and beyond, and the neurological changes that make emerging adult hood a stage of high potential as well as high risk

Answer 24

Studies analyzing brain content have found that gray matter decreases and white
matter increases through the 20s and into the 30s, continuing the processes that had
taken place in adolescence. These changes in the balance of gray matter and white
matter are reflected in greater processing speed, timing, and efficiency of brain
functioning. However, neuroscientists have also begun to investigate the possibility that
there are aspects of brain development that make emerging adults especially
vulnerable to mental disorders, such as overly rapid synaptic pruning.