Development 1 Flashcards

Question

Define nurture.

Answer 1

Nurture is how our environment and external factors (during/after pregnancy) can affect our traits and behaviour + personality

Answer 2

- Mothers getting proper, healthy nutrition during pregnancy - Maternal smoking (this can impede the baby’s brain development) - Infection e.g. rubella (which can result in hearing loss) - Hearing their mother’s voice (research shows that babies respond to this, hence they have got used to hearing it whilst in the womb)

Answer 3

Both nature and nurture operate at the same time, where although the **formation of our brain is due to nature**, the way our brain grows following conception is **influenced by our physical and psychological environment (nurture)**. We now know that both factors affect the development of children.

Answer 4

Identical twins share the same genes, so if both twins have the same characteristic (e.g. IQ or height), it provides evidence to show that the characteristic is due to nature. There have been studies that have been conducted to show that identical twins have very similar IQ's so that suggests that nature has a large role in intelligence. There has also been a study that showed that two identical twin's personalities were also very similar, despite growing and being raised apart from each other from 4 weeks to 39 years, where they shared the same interests and habits. This showed that **nature plays a larger role on personality than nurture**.

Answer 5

It is useful to study newborn babies because they have not gained much nurture or life experiences, thus acting as a good control. Psychologists have found that as well as being able to cry, babies can also recognize faces, implying that nature is responsible for these abilities since these babies haven't been able to be nurtured for longer. As babies are unable to talk until much later on, it is believed that nurture is responsible for language development

Answer 6

In one study, baby rats were kept in cages on their own with no toys, where another group of baby rats were held together in a cage with lots of stimulating toys. The rats that lived in the group in the stimulating environment developed bigger brains and demonstrated better problem-solving skills than the rats who had to live on their own. Therefore, this supports the idea that nurture is very important for early brain development.

Answer 7

A schema is a framework of knowledge that we have formed on the world around us **based on our own past experiences**, where each schema differs to each person but can be similar. Schemas develop because of assimilation or accommodation.

Answer 8

Assimilation is adding familiar information to our existing schema. This only works if the information is close to what we already know, where we can make it fit into our schema

Answer 9

Accommodation is when we have to change our existing schema to understand truly new information. To understand something truly new to us, we would have to remake our schema all over again

Answer 10

Cognitive means thinking, knowing things and learning.

Answer 11

Development is how our brain becomes better at certain skills like cognition

Answer 12

- Sensorimotor (0-2 years) - Pre-operational stage (2-7 years) - Concrete (7-11 years) - Former operational stage (11+ years)

Answer 13

Piaget's focus for this stage was on physical sensations and on developing basic physical coordination to relate what a baby can see (sensory) with what they can do (motor). From ages 0-2, there is a large amount of improvement of these skills in the child. Children under 8 months haven't developed object permanence, where if an object leaves their sight, they wouldn’t know to look for it and would think that it has disappeared. Children over 8 months are able to develop object permanence, where they know that even if an object is out of their sight, it still exists.

Answer 14

Children aged 2-7 at this stage have developed a **lack of conservation** as well as **egocentrism** (only seeing own perspective rather than any others). Children do not fully understand that **quantity remains constant** and that they view the world from their own perspective, hence the lack of conservation

Answer 15

According to Piaget, children who reached 7 years old were able to apply logic to solve problems and could conserve volume and amounts

Answer 16

Children at this stage can solve problems in a systematic way (well-planned, organized and critical). He found that children after the age of 11 would try and solve problems systematically, logically and can use abstract ideas in their mind, can have detailed discussions about subjects like religion.

Answer 17

- One strength of Piaget's theory of cognitive development is that his work led to an enormous amount of research, and while some supported the theory, some helped adjust 'truths' to his theory. - This is because the study conducted by Hughes helped to refine Piaget's theory that although children do move through the developmental stages, some are earlier or later than others. This means that **Piaget's theory has relevance and can be applicable to other theories.** - Therefore, without research, we would not be able to test the validity of the theory.

Answer 18

- One strength of Piaget's theory of cognitive development is that it can be applied to education - This is because Piaget's findings can be applied to education and has helped change classroom teaching for the better, allowing teachers to improve and enhance children's learning by carrying out more activity-based learning. - Therefore, this increases the validity of Piaget's theory.

Answer 19

- One weakness of Piaget's theory of cognitive development is that it does not account for learning differences. - This is because Piaget's theory doesn’t account for those children who may have some learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, neglect in education or even processing difficulties, where they might be unable to develop at a faster pace, showing that he assumed that all children were able to develop their cognitive abilities at the same time and didn’t consider students who face developmental issues in their education, contradicting his theory that children's development is universal. - Therefore, this reduces the validity of the study.

Answer 20

- One weakness of Piaget's theory of cognitive development is that there is evidence which challenges it. - This because the findings of Hughes' study found that children were able to see from another point of view by the age of 4, thus contradicting Piaget's theory this was younger than Piaget expected. - This reduces the validity of Piaget's study as he was unable to understand certain aspects of child development

Answer 21

- Readiness approach - Application to stages - Child-centred approach

Answer 22

Teachers should take on a **readiness approach**, where they should teach a child according to their developmental stage and should present **opportunities and concepts that they are ready to learn**. For example, teachers wouldn't discuss abstract concepts like religion to a child in the pre-operational stage.

Answer 23

Children should be taught in a child-focussed way, where children should be allowed to **discover solutions independently** , therefore allowing children to develop their own skills (self-discovery). Teachers should NOT just give the answers for solutions, but should **provide the children the resources and opportunities to solve issues themselves**.

Answer 24

Teachers should use application to stages, where, for example teachers who teach 2-7 year olds (in the pre-operational stage) would ask the children to roleplay, which could potentially reduce their ecocentrism, or would allow the children at this stage perform hands-on activities so they can freely explore their environment to aid development.

Answer 25

Egocentrism is a child's tendency to only be able to see the world from their own point of view, which can be applied to a physical visual point of view and arguments in which a child can only understand their own point of view.

Answer 26

Hughes' 'policeman doll study'

Answer 27

In "Hughes' Policeman doll study", he aimed to investigate if children could see the world from another perspective, where he wanted to challenge Piaget's theory

Answer 28

Lab experiment

Answer 29

The participants were 30 children aged 3 1/2 to 5 years old.

Answer 30

- Hughes tested egocentrism using a model of two intersecting walls, a boy doll and two policeman dolls. - To introduce the task, a policeman doll was placed on the model. Each child was asked to hide the boy doll from the policeman doll. - A child was told if they made a mistake. Then they were allowed to try the task again. - In the actual experiment, a second policeman doll was placed on the model and the child was asked to hide the boy doll so that neither of the policeman dolls could see him.

Answer 31

The results showed that 90% of the children were able to position the boy doll where both policemen wouldn’t be able to "see" him. In the more complex versions of the task, the 3 year olds had more trouble, where 60% of the trials were correct. However, the 4 year olds had 90% success.

Answer 32

Hughes was able to conclude that the results that were collected showed that Piaget underestimated younger children's abilities, where if the task was altered to be more relatable and applicable to the children's daily life, the younger children were able to see the world from another person's perspective, thus lacking in egocentrism. However, there were some age differences, supporting Piaget's theory that the way that children think changes with age.

Answer 33

- One strength of Hughes' policeman doll study is that the task made more sense to his participants. - This is because the task was able to be easily applied and related to the children's real life experiences. For a child, hiding from a policeman was easier to think about than selecting a view from a mountain top. - Therefore, this makes the study a more realistic test of the participant's egocentrism, increasing the validity of the study.

Answer 34

- A strength of Hughes' Policeman doll study is that it effectively challenges Piaget's theory of egocentrism. - This is because the positive results from Hughes' study contrasts with Piaget's result, implying that the reason why Piaget was able to draw that conclusion was because the task that he created for the children was confusing, thus reducing the children's abilities to understand another person's point of view. - Therefore, this study helped refine this type of child development research, increasing its validity

Answer 35

- A weakness of Hughes' Policeman doll study is that the participants are unrepresentative of the target population. - This is because the participants were children from Edinburgh aged 3 1/2 to 5 years old, meaning that there wasn't a great range of ages, as well as the fact that the children's upbringing in Edinburgh would have been similar, thus reducing the generalisations that can be made as the children must've had a similar childhood, thus influencing the results. - Therefore, the lack of range in the children's ages and their similarities in upbringing reduces their validity as it is unable to be applied to a wider population.

Answer 36

- A weakness of Hughes' policeman doll study is that the researcher might have provided the participants with hints. - This is because Hughes might have given the children slight cues about where the boy doll could be hidden, although accidentally. This can lead to the children getting indications on the right answer. - Therefore, this reduces the validity of the results as we are now unsure if the results were influenced by the researcher's slight cues or by the children's own lack of egocentrism.

Development 1 Flashcards

(60 cards)