Developmental theory (2)

Question 1

Outline Piaget’s principle of the adaptation process

Answer 1

• intellectual growth = process of adaptation, whereby organisms are constantly striving for equilibrium within the environment.
• This is achieved through assimilation and accommodation

Question 2

What is meant by assimilation and accommodation (Piaget’s adaptation process)

Answer 2

• assimilation: child encompasses new experience into an existing schema. aids consolidation of mental processes.
• accommodation: child adjusts an existing schema to fit in with the nature of the environment. this encourages growth and change.

Question 3

How does Piaget propose assimilation and accomodation aid in child development?

Answer 3

• allow the child to reach a new stage of equilibrium (with the environment)
• balance between assimilation and accommodation results in the child’s intrinsic motivation to learn and the opportunity for development

Question 4

Outline Piaget’s stage theory (the stages involved?)

Answer 4

• Sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2)
• Preoperational stage (2 - 7 years)
• Concrete operational (7-11 years)
• Formal operational (11+ up to adulthood)
  Each stage corresponds to increase in sophistication of thought

Question 5

What are important overall aspects of stage theory?

Answer 5

• cannot skip a stage

- cannot develop to late stages without having reached the earlier ones

Question 6

Outline sensorimotor stage

Answer 6

KEY MILESTONE: Object permanence

• child achieves this through exploring the world around them with their senses and manipulating objects
• ‘A not B error’ - paradigm introduced by Piaget (1963) - searching for a hidden toy under blanket
• around 8 months old permanence reached - able to form a mental representation of object in their mind?

Question 7

Criticisms for a not b paradigm?

Answer 7

• child could become distracted or loose interest

- may not have motor coordination to retrieve the object

Question 8

Bower and Wishart (1972) - what did their study regarding the sensorimotor stage show?

Answer 8

• found infants 1 - 4 months showed object permanence
• waited until infants reached for an object, then turned off the lights and watched the infant through an infrared camera. found the infant continued to reach for the object 90 seconds after the lights turned off.
  BUT –» plausible the child completed the task by accident ; randomly reaching out out due to distress

Question 9

Stage 2 - preoperational stage - outline

Answer 9

• children are thinking at a symbolic level but are not yet using cognitive operations (cannot use logic or combine ideas)
• building experiences about the world through adaptation and working towards the (concrete) stage when it can use logical thought
• egocentric view of the world
• able to focus on only one aspect or dimension of problems

Question 10

Three mountains task - Piaget (1956) – outline

Answer 10

1) 4 year olds shown a model of 3 different mountains, and asked about the perspective of a doll sat facing a different view of the mountain
2) 4 year olds almost always choose the photo that reflects their view, rather than the dolls = inability to decentre

Question 11

CRITICISMS - 3 MOUNTAINS TASK

Answer 11

• Hughes (1975) - argued context of task too difficult for children to comprehend –> did not make sense to children as they had to match the dolls perspective with a photograph
• came up with Policeman doll study

Question 12

Hughes (1975) - policeman doll study

Answer 12

1) showed children a model comprising two intersecting walls, a ‘boy’ doll and a ‘policeman’ doll
2) He then placed the policeman doll in various positions and asked the child to hide the boy doll from the policeman
3) 3 & 1/2 - 5 year olds were correct 90% of the time; this remained consistent in more complex versions (more policemen or more walls

Question 13

Main argument against Piaget’a view of stage theory?

Answer 13

• Piaget grossly underestimated a child’s ability for theory of mind
• suggested performance on these ecocentric tasks is context specific (Hughes 1975)

Question 14

Stage 3 - concrete operational – outline

Answer 14

• characterised by organised and rational thinking
• child can use operational thought, but only apply logic to physical objects
• gain ability of conservation i.e. something stays the same even though the quality changes (LEAD TO CONSERVATION TASKS)
• children still unable to think abstractly or hypothetically

Question 15

Conservation task - Piaget (1954)

Answer 15

1) set out a row of counters in front of the child and asked them to make another row the same as the first one
2) spread out his row of counters and asked the child if there were still the same number of counters in both rows
3) Most 7 year olds correct, conclude by 7 years children could conserve number

Question 16

Conservation task - CRITICISM - Rose and Blank (1974)

Answer 16

• argued that when a child gives the wrong answer to a question, we repeat the question in order to hint that their first answer was wrong (Piaget asked same questions twice)
• . Rose and Black repeated the experiment, asking the question only once, and found many 6 year olds gave the correct answer
• Piaget underestimated logical reasoning of developing children

Question 17

Conservation task - CRITICISM - NAUGHTY TEDDY PARADIGM

Answer 17

• McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974)
• Naughty Teddy Paradigm: two identical lines of sweets, naughty teddy ‘accidentally messes up’ one line –> children pass task
• 80% of of 4-6 year old children pass relative to 48% when the line is rearranged intentionally
• UNDERSTANDABLE CONTEXT = BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF TASK

Question 18

Formal operational stage 4 - outline

Answer 18

• abstract reasoning begins, children can manipulate ideas in their head without any dependance on concrete manipulation
• child can reason deductively and formate and test hypotheses

Question 19

Inhelder and Piaget (1958): testing formal operational thinking pendulum task:

Answer 19

• asked children to determine which variable (length of string, heaviness of weight, strength of push) determined the speed of swing of the pendulum
• children in formal operational stage approached task systematically, testing one variable at a time
• younger children changed two variables at the same time and tried out variations randomly

Question 20

CRITICISM - Robert Siegler (1979)

Answer 20

• psychologists found that children could not successfully complete the task until they were near the mid to end of the formal operations stage
• Siegler argued children’s cognitive development is based on acquiring and using rules in increasingly more complex situations, rather than in stages

Question 21

PIAGET VS VYGOTSKY

Answer 21

v = emphasis on culture affecting cognitive development --> assumes cognitive development varies across culture
v = emphasis on social factors affecting cognitive development --> the environment a child grows up in will influence how they think / feel
v = emphasis on language - thought and language seperate entities that merge at around 3 years (to give inner speech)
v = adults are an important source of cognitive development adults transfer their cultures tools and knowledge that children internalise 
P = stages
P = adaptation to environment via assimilation and accommodation