lecture 13 - Intro to Developmental Psych Flashcards
What is developmental psychology?
Developmental psychology is a scientific approach which aims to explain growth, change and consistency through the lifespan.
What is the difference between theories of continuous change vs stage theories?
Theories of continuous change see development as a life-long, continuous experience which does not follow stages. Stage theories see development as a succession of changes that produce different behaviours in different age-specific life periods.
What is Piaget’s constructivism theory?
Piaget argued that innate endowments and experience are not sufficient for a child to develop; the child must also actively engage with the world to construct knowledge.
What is Piagetian assimilation and accommodation?
Piagetian assimilation is using an existing schema to interpret new experiences. Piagetian accomodation is modifying existing schemas or creating new schemas to fit reality.
What are Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?
Sensorimotor (0-2 years) infant understands the world through senses and actions
Pre-operational (2-7 years) child understands the world through symbols
Concrete operational (7-11 years) child understands the world through logical thinking
Former operational (11+ years) adolescent understands the world through abstract thinking and scientific reasoning
According to Piaget, when does object permanence occur?
According to Piaget, object permanence occurs around 8-12 months
According to Piaget, when does conservation become possible?
Conservation according to Piaget is the awareness that altering a substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties. According to Piaget, children under 7 cannot conserve.
What does the three mountains task show about egocentrism?
The three mountains task (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956) shows that children under 7 give egocentric responses. Egocentrism is the inability of the child to view things from another perspective.
What is the pendulum problem?
The pendulum problem (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958) requires participants to compare the motions of shorter and longer strings, with lighter and heavier weights attached. Children under 12 usually perform unsystematic experiments and draw incorrect conclusions. Adolescents produce multiple hypotheses and systematically test them one at a time.
What are elementary and higher cognitive functions according to Vygotsky?
According to Vygotsky, elementary cognitive functions are innate and not unique to humans, higher cognitive functions are socially constructed and are unique to humans.
What are the social origins of thinking according to Vygotsky?
According to Vygotsky, we develop higher cognitive functions through social interaction - cognitive development occurs as a function of child’s interactions with partners who are more knowledgeable than themselves.
What is internalisation according to Vygotsky?
According to Vygotsky, internalisation is the reformulation of social functions into psychological functions
What are private speech and inner speech according to Vygotsky?
We use private speech to convert social speech into inner speech.
What is the zone of proximal development according to Vygotsky?
The zone of proximal development is the area of potential achievements for the child with a little support and guidance from adults.
What is scaffolding according to Vygotsky?
Scaffholding is providing the right assistance in the zone of proximal development
