Lecture 7 Flashcards
What are the similarities and contrasts between Piaget and Vygotsky?
Similarities
▪ Focus on the child
▪ Children as active (not passive) learners
(they both focus on the child themselves playing an important role in development. Going against the idea of the child as a passive sponge soaking up the info. In vygotsky’s case co-creating their knowledge with other people and they both emphasize the child as an active learner in their development. THey focus on not just external influences but also thinking about what the child themselves bring to the table .)
Contrasts:
▪ Piaget → learning through self-
discovery, Vygotsky → learning through
social collaboration
▪ Piaget → discontinuous change,
Vygotsky → continuous change
▪ Piaget → universal processes of
development, Vygotsky → development
as culturally situated
▪ Vygotsky → language as key to learning,
Piaget → language and thought as
largely unrelated
(vygotsky you are learning through social interactions whereas piaget you are learning on your own. Vygotsky’s theory is much more culturally situated. He says that learning happens thorugh collaboration with comptenr members of your culture. This will look quite different across cultureal backgrounds. Vygotsky talks about language as a really important skill. Piaget thinks the language we use might show our thoughts but it is not a mechanism to create new thought. You can see some of the push and pull between Piaget’s ideas and the inspirations that have come from vygotsky. )
Is Piaget or Vygotsky right?
these are theories, we don’t believe all of them. There is a lot of research testing these ideas ans most research shows that neither of these theories is perfect. Vygotsky overestimates the role of language.
Current research shows neither of
these theories is entirely accurate,
and neither can explain all of
children’s learning! They are inspiration and guides
for research & application…
what are mental states?
Mental states → beliefs, desires, intentions, perceptions
What is the study of social cognition?
the study of social cognition is taking cognition (thinking) and asking about how we think about and process social interactions and humans. What are the ways we think about and process other people and how is this different from how we process and think about other things. You often interpret humans in terms of mental states but not items in terms of mental states. You can never see somebody’s mental states but yet we think about people differently and as being rooted in mental states.
What is theory of mind?
- The ability to think about mental states in ourselves and
others; understanding that mental states influence behaviour
the term that dev psychs often uses for this is theory of mind. when you watch a person you can theorize. Piaget is really the root of theory of mind.
How did Piaget study egocentricism?
WATCH THIS PART OF THE LECTURE AGAIN
the three mountain task
What is theory of mind and what do you need to have?
- The ability to think about mental states in ourselves and
others; understanding that mental states influence behaviour
→Must understand that people have mental states
→Must understand that others’ mental states can differ from your own
→Must understand that mental states guide behaviour (regardless of
whether those mental states are accurate)
to have a theory of mind we first need to be able to understand that people have mental states. You also need to be able to understand that people can have different mental states (beliefs, desires etc. ). lastly, you have to understand that these mental states guide behaviour. So someone’s belief that the keys are in a certain room guides their behaviour. This is not real, it is guided by your belief not reality. Regardless of if our mental states are accurate, they guide our behaviour.
How do researchers test theory of mind?
researchers in dev psych has used the idea of false belief to test theory of mind.
What is the False-Belief Sally Ann task?
this is an unexpected transfer
sometimes called the unexpected transfer task. You have 2 characters, sally put somethign in her basket then goes out of the room. Then an takes the marble out of the baseket and into the box. The question is where will sally look for her marble?
What is the smarties false belief task?
this is unexpected contents
also called the unexpected contents task. The kid is shown a container that is clearly labelled with a particular thing like smarties, then we open it and it is something different. like pencils. Then ask if someone else who has never seen this before saw this, what would they think is inside of the box?
younger children answer according to reality, older children seem to answer in response ot mental states
At what age do children fail the false belief tasks? At what age do children pass this task?
Children under 4 years
“FAIL” on traditional false
belief tasks
Children 4-5+ “PASS”
traditional false belief tasks
do people agree on what explains this development of theory of mind?
NO. there is lots of controversy
What are the different explanations proposed for the development of theory of mind?
▪ Changes in conceptual abilities
to reason about mental states?
- Changes in processing?
What is the changes in conceptual abilities reason about mental states explanation? what are the 2 theories associated with this explanation?
▪ Changes in conceptual abilities
to reason about mental states?
Theory theory → change in ways of
thinking about mental states
one perspective raised is that there is a change in children’s conceptual abilities, they are able to think differently about peoples minds
the most influential perspective on this is theory theory. It says that as kids develop they change up their theories of theory of mind. What is shifting is kids naive theories of mental states and minds of others. Initially at age 2 peopel have a theory of desires and desires guide their behaviour and then somewhere at around age 3 or so, kids shift their theories and now think that people have desires and beliefs that guide behaviours. It is not until ages 4-5 that kids thinking about mental states shifts so that they understand that people can have false beliefs that guide their behaviours. This is kinda a qualitative shift about kids theories about theoy of mind.
- Modular theory → brain maturation
(modular theory argues that all of us have an inate module for thinking about mental states but what changes from 3-5 is brain maturation. You have modules in your brain that come on line during this time. We have pretty good evidence that certain areas of our brain become activated increasingly. Modular theory thinks it is the brain development that changes and allows you to conceptualize mental states and false beliefs. )
What is the changes in processing abilities explanation? Example?
- Changes in processing?
Younger children not able to pass
false-belief tasks because they have
difficulty with the processing demands
of the tasks
(another perspective thatwhat changes from ages 3-5 is their ability to process the demands of the test. There is a lot that kids are being asked to do in this test and thats getting in the way. )
What do we think about the tasks being too hard perspective of the changes in processing explanation for theory of mind development? (2 main points)
Other than the tasks being too hard, what is another thing we think about under this explanation?
- Tasks too hard? (e.g. what is required to solve the Sally-Ann task?)
it is important to note that Many studies show reasoning about mental states earlier in development
when we look at children’s ability to think about mental states other than false belief, they are able to think about mental states early in development.
Example: at 14 months, babies share goldfish all the time but at 18 months, if the researcher likes goldfish most of the kids are sharing goldfish but if the researcher likes broccoli now they are sharing broccoli.
- Some evidence infants can succeed
in non-verbal false belief task
what if we can create false belief tasks that don’t use verbal responses or prediction. This can be done with looking time.
Executive function & inhibition?
- Having to keep track of both reality
AND a person’s perception of reality - Having to inhibit your knowledge of
reality → “curse of knowledge”
(in the sally ann task you have to inhibit the information that you know to be true, you have to answer according to sally’s test. )
How have researchers been trying to get around the curse of knowledge element of the false belief tasks?
LOOK AT DIAGRAM ON SLIDES AND REWATCH THIS PART OF THE VIDEO
slides 19-21
recently researchers at UBC have tried to eliminate the curse of knowledge.
they are told the ball is moved but they don’t know which box it was actually put in. when kids know where the ball is they are answering based on their knowledge.
so again, this idea of theory of mind development has continued to be a controversy and debate. This debate back and forth about is it children’s conceptions of mental states that are changing or is it their verbal ability?
What are individual differences related to theory of mind development?
- # of siblings
- Pretend play
- Parenting
- Language
- Autism
most kids are passing these tasks by age 4 or 5 but we are wondering what the individual differences are. There are a handful of things that shift some kids to being better than others like your number of siblings (more siblings better abilities), experience with pretend play helps kids do better at this task, parenting can play a role (parents who talk more about emotions and mental states correlate). Language is also a correlate. Kids who get more language exposure tend to do better, kids who grow up bilingual tend to do better as well. Autistic individuals often struggle with the classic theory of mind tasks.
