Developmental Psychology in the Real World Flashcards
(9 cards)
Memory Development and Eyewitness Testimony
Knowledge Development and Scripts
Factors Affecting Memory Development
Scripts: Recall of events is supported by our knowledge of how events work in general
* Provide top-down structure for events, allowing us to fill in gaps with prior knowledge rather than pay attention
* Children can generate recall of events based on scripts
* Limited detail and more focus on main action
* Younger children: More prone to error or missing detail (Less experience and world knowledge)
* With age, scripts become more detailed
Memory Development and Eyewitness Testimony
Suggestibility
Factors Affecting Memory Development
Younger children are more susceptible to suggestion
* Adult implying something about an event leads to children creating false memories for children
Cognitive factors
* Encode less information = More gaps in memory that can be filled by suggestion
Social factors
* Deliberately suggestive questions: Children respond inappropriately
* Social pressures to respond to an adult: Police/lawyers are unfamiliar and authoritative
Memory Development and Eyewitness Testimony
Eyewitness Testimony
Texas vs Macias murder trial (1987)
Murder case in which Macias was convicted partly on the testimony of a child and sentenced to death
* 9 year old witness:
* Often told by parents that Macias was a ‘bad man’
* Subjected to repeated detailed, suggestive interviews
* Said she wanted to help the adults
Recanted her testimony several years later
Memory Development and Eyewitness Testimony
Leichtmann and Ceci (1995)
Pre-school children witnessed a neutral event with a ‘clumsy character’
* False memories increased with interference but decreased with age
* Adults are not good at judging when a child is being accurate
Cognitive Development and Education
Developmental psychology research:
* Uncovers children’s cognitive capabilities
* Informs what they can manage in an educational setting
* Provides theories of how and why they develop
* Informs how to teach them and how they can learn
* Informs educational practice, theory, and policy
Cognitive Development and Education
Piaget’s Stage Theory of Development
Classroom Layouts
* Tables with multiple children: Allows for tasks and situations for children to explore and solve problems
* Encourages active learning
Stages of development mapped onto curriculum design
* Developmentally appropriate provision: A child needs to be cognitively ‘ready’ to learn a certain concept
Egocentricism and peer interaction
* Peer interaction can challenge egocentrism
* Pair working in the classroom can improve performance in the long-term: Interactions with confliciting views challenge perspective and lead to improved performance
* Egocentric children may learn more effectively from other children at similar developmental levels when they have conflicting ideas
Cognitive Development and Education
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Development
Learning through play and language
* Young children learn through pretend play
* Children encourage to talk out loud: Private speech
Personalised learning (ZPD)
* Activities pitched to appropriate level
* Teacher provides support to suit individual
Collaborative learning → Scaffolding
* Teacher guides learning
* Pair-work with mixed abilities/peer-tutoring
* Supporting learning though construction and helping → Not conflicting perspectives as in Piaget’s theory
* ‘Child as apprentice’
Cognitive Development and Education
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
Map onto behaviour management strategies
* Acceptable vs unacceptable behaviour is well understood, but how to manage them is less clear cut
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
Challenges and Realities
Teaching has become curriculum-focused rather than child focused
* Personalised learning is hard to implement in large classroom contexts
* Peer interaction can benefit but children are not as good as adults at giving guidance
