Piaget - cognitive development

Question 1

What is cognition

Answer 1

1. How we think about things and understand the world
2. Attention, memory, language, logic, problem solving, decision making

Question 2

Cognitive developmental theory

Answer 2

1. How our cognition develop over time
2. Focuses on things like memory, problem solving, attention concept formation
3. Doesn’t look at social behaviour

Question 3

Piaget

Answer 3

1. Philosopher and biologist
2. Interested in origins of knowledge - genetic epistemology
3. Studied intellectual development of his own children
4. Studied children’s acquisition of knowledge because cognitive change is most pronounced in childhood

Question 4

Before Piaget

Answer 4

1. Developmental processes aren’t scientifically examined
   2 .Miller - surprising features of children’s thinking, physics (object permanence), numbers (with preschoolers, the more spread out a number of things the more there are), liquid quantity, morality, psychology (children don’t realise what they know isn’t known by everyone else)

Question 5

Structure of cognitions

Answer 5

1. As we develop, we acquire cognitive structures
2. Cognitive structures - mental representations or rules we use to understand the world, how we solve problems
3. Representations of reality
4. Structures are how we organise and interpret our experiences
5. Mental schemata
6. concepts

Question 6

Schemata

Answer 6

1. Schema - a mental representation of an action which includes the knowledge and experience we have acquired relating to the action
2. E.g. reflexes are the only schema available from birth

Question 7

Concepts

Answer 7

Rules that describe the properties of environmental events and how they relate to other concepts

Question 8

How do we learn mental structures

Answer 8

1. Assimilation - when a schema is adapted to other objects but is not changed
   2 .Equilibrium - process of adapting schemata without any real change
2. Disequilibrium - coming across an object for which the existing schema is a poor fit, creating a state of disequilibrium
3. Accommodation - process of changing an existing schema
4. Equilibration - back and forth between disequilibrium and accommodation

Question 9

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development stages

Answer 9

1. Sensorimotor - birth to 2 years, discovery of relations between sensation and motor behaviour
2. Preoperational - 2 to 7 years, use of symbols to represent objects internally, especially through language
3. Concrete operations - 7 to 11 years, mastery of logic and development of rational thinking
4. Formal operations - 11 onwards, development of abstract thinking and hypothetical reasoning

Question 10

Piaget’s theory - key claims

Answer 10

1. Each new stage derives from and improves upon the previous stage
2. Invariant sequence
3. Stages are universal

Question 11

Sensorimotor period

Answer 11

1. Children’s thinking is on a physical level
2. Development of familiarity with objects through senses and own motor actions
3. Major characteristics - object permanence develops (object continues to exist even if its not visible)

Question 12

Preoperational thought

Answer 12

1. Thinking separates from movement
2. Thinking capacity increases greatly in speed
3. Children acquire verbal skills
4. Evidence of thinking abstractly
5. Children are egocentric
   6.Centration - focusing on salient aspect of a situation

Features:
Symbolism - more symbolic thought
Egocentrism - child is unable to appreciate other people’s perspectives
Centration - exclusive focus on one salient aspect of a problem
Lack of reversibility - can’t grasp that the effects of events are reversed when the process is reversed

Question 13

Concrete operations

Answer 13

1. Logical thinking
   Increasingly flexible thinking
2. Child is able to infer other mental states
3. Child begins to grasp abstract concepts
4. Understanding of conservation develops
5. Conservation - a recognition that some properties of objects remain fundamentally unchanged even if there are external perceptual changes in appearance
6. Three ways conservation happens:
   Compensation
   Reversibility
   Identity
7. By understanding the logic or testing out, the child comes to understand conservation

Question 14

Formal operations

Answer 14

1. Endpoint in terms of development of structure
   2 Formal, abstract and rational thought
2. Hypothetical thinking
3. Use of metaphors and analogies
4. Exploring beliefs, values, philosophies
5. “Operations on operations”

Question 15

Theory of development

Answer 15

1. Theory is constructivist
2. Structuralist - organisation of functions and behaviour is important
3. Stage based
4. Charts adaptation to environment
5. Information is either assimilated or accommodated to schemes
6. Goal is equilibrium

Question 16

Debate and controversy - methodological concerns

Answer 16

1. Case studies
2. Natural observations - experimenter adapts to child’s responses
3. Inconsistency in questions
4. Notes taken by experimenter during process - bias

Question 17

debate and controversy - criticisms

Answer 17

1. Under estimation of ages - piaget said object permanence from 8 months, Baillargeon et al found from 5 months
2. Baillargeon, Spelke and Wasserman - infants habituated to a screen moving 180 degrees, then showed a possible event or an impossible event, possible event was that the bridge stopped at box and returned, impossible event was bridge kept going to 180 degree turn, results were 5 month old infants surprised with impossible event, understood solid object that is continues to exist

Question 18

debate and controversy - conservation criticisms

Answer 18

1. Gelman - conservation is actually perceptual seduction
2. Experimental procedure - 3 yr olds, conservation of number task, two lines of toy turtles each covered by the experimenter in turn, one line is made longer, correct answer still given
3. Rose and Blank - argued Piaget’s method of questioning may be misleading, and will impact age

Question 19

Debate and controversy - criticisms of stage theories

Answer 19

1. Individual differences
2. Vygotsky - importance of instruction and culture
   3.. Difficult to assess how each stage derives from previous
3. Ethnocentric
4. Development beyond adolescence
5. Social contexts

Question 20

Impact and legacy - scientific impact

Answer 20

1. Highlighted need for studying children’s cognitive development
2. Emphasises constructivism - children contribute to their own development
3. Instigated research in developmental psychology, moral reasoning

Question 21

impact and legacy - applied impact

Answer 21

1. Contributions to education and child centred approaches, peer interaction
2. Used extensively today - development of children’s moral reasoning, speciesism and children’s development