Developmental Pysch Flashcards
Definition of Developmental Psychology
aims to explain how children and adults change over time (socially and pyschologically)
History: 1700
children were seen as ‘mini-adults’; only quantitavely different
History: Enlightenment
John Locke + JJ Rouseau: children development studied
History: 1800’s
Charles Darwin + Evolutionary Theory: adaptation, change, variation and individual differences
Industrial Revolution + 19th-century history
Childhood literary and education begins to be studied
The 1920s History
Dev Pysch becomes a scientific dicisiplines; hwoever broken into ‘nature’ vs ‘nurture’ aspects
20th Century + Now (HIstory)
- nature + nurture brought together
- ‘all encompassing’ study of development from childhood to adulthood (holistic) as whole life span deevelopment is studied
Who was Jean Piaget
a swiss scientists studied logical thinking in children from biological roots and came up with his ‘4 stages of development’ theory
John Locke
NURTURE; childs mind is a ‘tabula rasa’ at birth that sponges up experience
JJ Rousseau
NATURE: child develops due to a preconditioned biology
Genetic Epistemology Theory (2)
Piaget’s points of how knowledge is acquired in children:
- children are active agents in learning
- intellectual development is an evolutionary process occuring in progressive statges of intellectual development (each is fixed + invariant)
4 stages of Cognitive Development
- Sensory Motor
- Pre-Operational
- Concrete Operational
- Formal Operational
What happens in the Sensorimotor Stage
Birth- 2 years old
End: Object Permanence is Acquired After
Child:
- uses senses and motor skills
- beings to know items by their use
What happens in the Pre-Operational Stage
2- 6 years old
End: Imagination/Experience grows and Chidl Decenters View
Child:
- symbolic thinking
- language acquired
- ecocentrism
What happens in the Concrete-Operational Stage
7-11 Years
End: conservation, matthematical thinking and classification, ideas
Child:
- logic applications
- some objectivity
- informal interpretation
- concrete thought to real life
What happens in the Formal Operational STage
12 years- Adulthood
End: acwuire ethics, politics and social/moral interests
Child:
- think abstractly
- hypothethical ideas
- broader issues engaged with
Theories of Development (5)
Piaget
Vygotsky
Erikson
Bowly and Ainsworth
Bronfenbrenner
How did Piaget study object permanence
Placed a screen before a 6 month year old baby; showed the object ‘didnt exist’ unless the baby saw it
What was Piagets ‘A not B’ Task
2 cloths and an objec:
researcher places an object under a cloth-> baby grasps for that cloth
then:
reseracher moves object to another cloth-> baby still goes for original cloth as existence of toy was dependent on its own actions
How did Piaget study Conservation
he asked a 6 year old if playdought ofo the same size/shape was the same amount
then changed the shape of one of the playdoughs in front of the child
child in pre-operational stage would say that the changed object is of a higher quanitity
Piagets ‘building blocks of thinking’
- mental schemes guide actions that aid in working through an issue/novel situation
work by:
Assimiliation-> equilibrium (set of rules)–> novel situation (rules dont apply)–> disequilibirum–> acocmodation
- feedback kloop from environment changes shemes to adapt to new situations allowing for the accomodation of learning to occur
Butterworth Criticisms of Piaget
Critiqued his idea that babies are egocentric.
Babies follow where mom is looking= which shows that the undersatnd the mom sees somethign they dont
Donaldson critique of Piaget
Found children COULD conserve earlier than piaget predicted:
- changed the playdought tasks by changing the way the researcher asked the question:
—> used a ‘helper teddy’ that ‘changed the playdough’
Donaldson attributed that a child expects a change when researcher asks a question which influences their answer
Lev Vygotsky: what did he do/study
looked at the role of language in human society/thought
was a social ‘constructivist’; looked at how culture/society infleunces development
developed theory of scafolldly (kinds mind grows by interating with social elements and by paenting)