DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY - PIAGETS THEROY OF DEVELOPMENT Flashcards
(31 cards)
Background on Piaget?
- interests in bio and philosophy
- organisms adapt to environment how
- ## similarities in adaption and acquisition of knowledge
What did Piaget study?
Piaget used a clinical interview in his Paris laboratory to study children’s reasoning .
He discovered that reasoning mistakes were systematic, not random, showing patterns in cognitive development
Whats Piaget principles schema?
A schema is a mental structure used to organize and interpret information.
Children develop and adapt schemas through assimilation (fitting new info into existing schemas) and accommodation (changing schemas to fit new info).
Whats assimilation?
Adapt incoming information to fit knowledge
Whats accomidation?
Adapt incoming information to fit incoming information
Equilibration?
Assimilation - accommodation balance
Whats Piaget small scale experiment?
Presented children with problem to solve
Young children - inferred cognitive abilities from behaviour
Clinical interview - with older children
Conversational style
What’s the methodological issues with Piaget theory?
Danger of inferring cognitive abilities from actions
- interviews require verbal ability - errors may obscure reasoning ability
Whats the 4 stages of development by Piaget ?
1) Sensorimotor stage (0-2yrs)
2) Pre-operational stage (2-7yrs)
3) Concrete operational stage (7-11yrs)
4) Formal operational stage (11yrs onwards)
Whats the basic for progression?
Children learn increasingly advanced mental operations by building and organising schemes
Emphasises importance of active experience
Explain the sensorimotor stage 0-2?
Reflexes are the building blocks of sensorimotor abilities.
Children learn through reflexes and gradually gain control of their motor system.
Repetition of actions leads to pleasing outcomes, helping to understand cause-effect.
The major achievement is the development of mental representations, especially object permanence (understanding that objects continue to exist even when unseen).
Whats the evaluation of the sensorimotor stages?
- Piaget findings broadly confirmed
- but underestimated young children’s cognitive abilities
What did baillargeon and de Voss find?
3 1/2 months old infants - loook longer at impossible events
explain the pre-operational stage in paigets theory of development?
this is the yrs 2-7
- the mental represetnation impoves in this stage
- major changes in symbolic thought
- language develops, thoguhts become detached from actions
whats the limitations of pre-operational stage?
egocentrism - unaware of other people’s viewpoint
for example an adult could ask a child if he has a brother but when asked if his brother has a brother (basically the child) then he doesnt
what was piagets and inhelders three moutains experiment?
- a child and doll sat in different positions
task - choose the pcitre showing what the doll would see
a pre-operatioal child would choose theri own view
for example they could have house and a cross on a mountian for their own view and it would be differeny for the doll but the child would state their own view
whats the critism of piaget for the pre-operational stage?
- hughes criticises piagets 3 mountian experiment, as task is not very relevant to child’s experience, child not motivated
more relevant task - hide doll so it cannot be seen by police officer.
4yr olds had 90% accurate in working out what the policeman can see
what did piaget find pre-operational children have a problem with?
conserving - superficial changes in a quantity do not affect that quantity and they can only consider one property at a time.
number
weight
volume
children find it harder to understand that the amoutn of water has stayed the same even if one glass has a hgiher level of water rate becasue it’s skinny
critism of piagets pre-operational stage conservation?
mcgarrigle and donaldson
- children expect that adults carry out actions to change things
children expect there to be a change
so if their not told it has been changed they wont understand that nothing has changed
explain class inclusion for piagets pre-operational stage?
they have difficult with hierarchial classification
so. when asked the question - are there more yellow flowers or more flowers? when there are more flowers they reply with yellow flowers
this is due to them not understanding that yellow flowers are part of the all flowers
whats the critism behind class inclusion?
mcgarrigle in donaldsoon
- critics his unusual question
Piaget: “Are there more black cows or more cows?”
Variant: “Are there more black cows or more sleeping cows?”
6 yr olds: Piaget = 25% correct.
Variant = 48% correct
explain the concrete operation stage 7-11 years
- child develops a new set of stategies called concrete operations
- more flexable thought
- no longer focus on jsut one aspect of problem
- overcome problems of egocentrocism, conservation and class inclusion
what are the types of things that occur in the pro-operational stages of 2-7yrs
- egocentrism
- conservation
-class inclusion
limitations of concrete operational thought?
- lack of abstract reasoning
- unable to reason beyond the immediate enviroment
for example when asked “John is taller than Dave. John is shorter than Mary. Who is tallest?”
Concrete operational children cannot solve without props (e.g. dolls)
