A full and comprehensive revision pack for cognition and development A-level psychology. This detailed guide has everything you need from theory to evaluation point for each developmental theory.
Includes:
- Piagets theory of development
- Vygotsky's theory
- Baillargeon’s Explanation of In...
Cognitive Development: is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem
solving and decision making as well as our understanding of the world, from childhood, adolescence
to adulthood. Piaget became interested in the reason why children gave incorrect answers to
questions on an IQ test that required logical thinking. He suggested that children are unable to
logically think through things therefore score low on tests.
Piaget’s Theory: Piaget focussed on development not learning, and proposed that discrete stages of
development are marked by qualitative differences. Discrete stages are independent stages showing
differences in what children can and cannot do at certain ages. To Piaget cognitive development was
a progressive reorganisation of mental process due to biological maturation and environmental
experience. Biological maturation are changes that occur naturally, therefore, children will be able to
do tasks that are more complex when they are biologically ready. He realised that children do not
know less than adults do, instead they have an entirely different way of thinking to adults. Children
construct their own understanding of the world and distinguish between what they already know
and what they discover in their environment.
Schemas: describe both the mental and physical actions involved in understanding and knowing,
they consist of categories of knowledge that help us to interpret, predict and understand the world.
Piaget suggested that we develop our understanding of the world through active engagement. He
also argued that we use new experiences and information to modify, add to, or change previously
existing schemas. Combination of schemas are known as operations, e.g. shaking a rattle would
involve a combination of schemas for grasping and shaking.
1. Assimilation: children use existing schemas to deal with new objects or situations, as the
event is similar to past experience therefore old schemas can be used to interpret and
predict a new situation
2. Equilibrium: child reaches a period of stability where they are in a mental state in which
their existing schemas are able to deal with most new information through assimilation.
3. Child is then presented with a new situation and does not have any appropriate existing
schemas to deal with the new situation
4. Disequilibrium: assimilation cannot occur as the child does not have the appropriate
schemas to deal with the new situation
5. Accommodation: To escape disequilibrium, the child adapts to the new situation by
exploring and learning what needs to be done to deal with the situation. Therefore creating
a new schema for the new situation
, Maaha Malik
Piaget’s Stages of Intellectual Development: he theorized that intellectual development takes place
in stages loosely linked to age. These stages cannot be missed as each new stage requires skills from
the one before. Stages are biologically programed and children progress through them as a result of
innate maturation, therefore the process cannot be sped up or slowed down.
1. Sensorimotor Stage – Object Permanence Blanket Experiment
2. Pre-Operational Stage – Egocentrism Three Mountains, Class Inclusion and Conservation
3. Concrete Operation Stage
4. Formal Operations
Sensorimotor Stage: 0-2years – child learns through movement using automatic reflexes. Schemas
are inborn reflexes (sucking so they can feed) that change with experience. Object permanence is
developed in this stage, as the child develops the understanding that things remain to exist even
when out of sight. Imitation is developed slowly; they begin to imitate things they have previously
seen near the end of this stage.
There are 6 sub stages in the sensorimotor stage. From 0-4 months there is no intention behind
what the child does, the child develops because of their reflex actions, and they repeat pleasurable
experiences. Here they lack OP, but it develops as the child gets older and progresses through these
sub stages by gaining an understanding of the world from schemas, language and experiences.
Children develop OP at sub stage 4, where they understand that objects exist however; OP is not
fully developed, as they do not understand that an object should be found in the last place it was
seen. In the pen under the blanket study, when the pen is put in place A and then moved to place B
the child does not understand that it is the same pen being moved, they think it is a different pen
and the original is still in place A therefore they look for the pen in place A.
This stage ends at around 2 years of age when infants develop language. Piaget said that language is
the basis for symbolic thought.
Testing Object Permanence – Piaget’s Blanket Study:
Piaget wanted to investigate at what age children acquire OP. He hid a toy under a blanket while the
child was watching him. He then observed if the child looked for the hidden toy or not. If the child
did look for the hidden toy then they did have OP. Piaget suggested that the child would only look
for the toy if they had a mental representation of it.
He found that infants looked for the hidden toy when they were around 8 months old, because they
were able to form a mental representation of the hidden toy in order to look for it. Piaget also
suggested that the child has to relate to the item so that they want to look for it that is why a toy
was used as it grabs the infant’s attention.
Pre-Operational Stage: 2-7years – the child has mobile and can use language to communicate
however, lacks reasoning ability, they have not developed logic. This means that there are
limitations to their thinking so Piaget identified a number of mental tasks that children in this stage
are unable to complete. Children within this stage see things as facts; things are either right or
wrong. He concluded that children do not understand concrete logic, therefore cannot mentally
manipulate information and are egocentric, and often show centration where they can only focus on
one thing at a time.
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