Download Developmental Psychology: Notes for College Psychology Major and more Study notes Developmental Psychology in PDF only on Docsity!
Developmental
Psychology
What is Development?
o (^) Systematic continuities and changes in the individual that occur between conception and death. o (^) A progressive series of changes that occur as a result of maturation and experience. o (^) Reflective Changes (Progressive series of changes) o (^) Past to Present Progressive Series of Changes
- Maturation – biological in nature o (^) Changes of which is the product of psychosocial & biological in nature (Herlock) o (^) Biological Predisposition – genetic inheritance that helps to develop a disorder. o (^) If not triggered, you will not have the disorder.
- Experience - psychosocial o (^) As Van den Daele has pointed out, "development" implies qualitative change. Systematic Continuities
- Orderly – regardless of the race, age, gender, orderly development occurs.
- Patterned
- Relatively Enduring
- Transitory Changes are not permanent changes such as looks, physique, cognition, behavior, and emotions (Mindset, Sound) Behavior – observable actions
- Outer reflections Developmental Continuities
- Ways in which we remain the same or continue to reflect our past. **Three Broad Domains
- Physical Development** o (^) Growth of the body and its organs, functioning of the physiological systems including the brain, physical signs of aging, changes in motor abilities and so on. o (^) Prefrontal Cortex – last part of the brain that fully develops.
- Executive function (Rational Thinking, Planning ahead)
- Develops during or after adolescence stage. 2. Cognitive Development o (^) Changes and continuities in perception, language, learning, memory, problem solving and other processes. 3. Psychosocial Development o (^) Changes and carryover in personal and interpersonal aspects of development such as motives, emotions, personality traits, interpersonal skills, and relationships, and roles played in the family and the larger society. o (^) Personality Traits (Biologically inherited) o (^) Empathy is an interpersonal skill, an ability to feel, understand, and reflect on other people’s experiences. Two essentially antagonistic processes in development take place simultaneously throughout life:
- Growth, or Evolution - happens at early stages of life
- Atrophy, or Involution – usually for old age
- Loss of abilities overtime
- It doesn’t mean it will not occur before reaching old age. The human being is never static. (Piaget) o (^) From conception to death, change is constantly taking place in physical and psychological capacities.
➢ Development is studied by a developmentalist (Sociologist, Neurologist, Anthropologist, or a Historian) ➢ First 7 years of life (6-7 years) are the crucial years for development. (Freud) Developmental Science o (^) The study of "womb to tomb" phenomena. o (^) A multidisciplinary enterprise. Some basic observations about character development
1. Human Development as a Continual and Cumulative Process In John Milton's Paradise Lost, he wrote: "Childhood shows the man as morning shows the days." o Experiences from the past can greatly affect the future. 2. Human Development as a Life-Span Process o (^) Experience is the same regardless the stages. Paul Baltes and his colleagues pointed out that development has the following characteristics
- A life-long process – Adulthood is as important as childhood.
- Multidirectional – Life can go to different ways, can be happy & unhappy, gain & lose
- Selection – We make choices and decisions
- Plasticity – “The brain is plastic”, able to change & grow (It develops neural pathways)
- Synaptic Booming – synapses/ brain neural pathways are growing to support characteristics and the abilities overtime.
- Synaptic Pruning – Certain abilities we enjoy doing in the past that we do not do in the present, the brain neural pathway stops producing for that certain ability and transfer the nutrients on the things that we are currently interested. (If not used, the pathways will be cut off in order to support other new abilities)
- Embedded in History
- Development involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss
- **Development is a co-construction of biology culture and the individual Three Types of Influences
- Normative age-graded influences** o (^) Similar for individuals in a particular age group such as puberty and menopause. o (^) Includes sociocultural factors and environmental processes such as beginning formal education and retiring from the workplace. o (^) Happens to all. o (^) Common and usual 1. Normative history-graded influences o (^) Common to people of a particular generation because of historical circumstances. (Marcos Apologist) o (^) History – past events 3. Nonnormative Life Events o (^) Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on the lives of individual people. o (^) Do not happen to everyone, and when they occur, they can influence people in different ways. o (^) Example: Death of a parent when a child is young, pregnancy in early adolescence, winning the lottery, getting an unexpected career opportunity. Certain developmental periods with their characteristics Period Characteristics Prenatal (Conception to birth) Nine months of rapid growth in which organs and systems appear; extreme sensitivity to negative influences. Teratogens are the monsters of
Ideographic – involves individual variations, rate, extent, etc… (Individual Differences)
- Not all has the same pace (Accounts for differences)
- Context specific 3 Major Goals of Development (by Developmentalist)
- Describe Development
- Explain Development
- Optimize Development (e.g., advising the client to exercise) o Are we going to provide assignments? o To enhance characteristics 4. Human Development as a Holistic Process Holistic – Appreciate the person of a whole Holistic Perspective ➢ Dominant theme of human development (1980s) ➢ In contrast to piecemeal approach (divide people as a whole), this approach/perspective is unified view of developmental process that emphasizes the interrelationships among the physical, mental, social, emotional aspects of development. According to Rogers , Organism = I (Holistically/innately good) + experience (UPR, Genuinness) **Significant Facts about Development
- Early Foundations are critical.** ➢ Attitudes, habits and patterns of behavior established during the early years determine to a large extent how successfully individuals will adjust to life as they grow older. ➢ “Could the young realize how quickly they become more walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while still in the plastic state.” – William James ➢ “ Many child psychologists have said that the pre-school years are the most formative influential in a child’s development.” - Bijou o Even babies in months old already have development. ➢ White contends that the foundations laid during the first 2 years of life are most critical. ➢ Erikson claims that babyhood is the period when individuals learn general attitudes of trust or mistrust, expending on how their parents gratify their child’s need for food, attention, and love. Note: Early patterns tend to persist but they are not unchangeable. Three Conditions under which Change is likely to occur:
- The change may come about when the individual receives help and guidance in making the change.
- Change is likely to occur when people treat individuals in a new and different ways.
- Change may occur when there is a strong motivation on the part of the individuals. 2. Roles of Maturation and Learning in Development ➢ Maturation: is the unfolding of the individual inherent traits o It sets limit to everyone. o Raw material ➢ Learning: is development that comes from exercise and effort on the individual’s part. (Ontogenetic functions, like driving) Three important facts emerge from our present knowledge of the interrelationship of maturation and learning
- Human beings are capable of learning, variations are possible.
- Maturation set limits beyond which development cannot process, even if with the most favorable learning methods.
- There is a definite “timetable” for learning. Developmental Readiness – readiness to learn 3. Development follows a definite predictable pattern.
➢ There are orderly patterns of physical motor, speech, and intellectual development. Law of Developmental Directions ➢ Cephalocaudal Law (Principle/Approach) – From head to toes development ➢ Proximodistal Law – Development starts from the center (torso) to the proximodistal areas to the fingertips. (From center to extremities)
4. All individuals are different. ➢ Dohzhansky – “Every person is indeed biologically and genetically different from one another,” even in the case of identical twins. ➢ Neugarten has pointed out that, “Adults are not only much more complex than children, but they are more different from one another, and increasingly different as they move.” Because no 2 individuals ever have identical hereditary endowments/ the same environmental experiences
- One can never predict with accuracy on how people will react to a situation, even when there is a ample information about this inherited abilities & even when it is known how the average person behaves in similar situations.
- One should not expect the same achievement from people of the same age and intellectual development.
- Individual differences are significant because they are responsible for individuality in personality make up. 5. Each Phase of Development has characteristic behavior ➢ Equilibrium – when individuals adapt easily to environmental demands, as a result, they make good personal and social adjustments. ➢ Disequilibrium – when the experience difficulties in adaptation as a result of make poor personal and social adjustments. o How do we identify if a child’s behavior is a problem? Remember : It is never safe to assume that all difficult behavior will disappear as the child grows older.
- Person before label (A person with depression)
- So called “problem behavior” does not automatically disappear when children reach legal maturity. 6. Each Phase of Development has hazards. ➢ There is an ample of evidences that each period in the life span has associated with it certain developmental hazards--- whether physical, psychological, environmental in origin--- and those inevitably involve adjustment problems. 7. Development is aided by stimulation ➢ While most development will occur, as a result of, maturation and environmental experiences. 8. Development is affected by cultural changes ➢ An individual’s change development is molded to conform to cultural standards & ideas, changes in these standards affect the developmental pattern. 9. Social Expectations for Every Stage of Development ➢ Every cultural group expects its members to master certain essentials.
o Should be congruent
2. Falsifiable (testable) o We can conduct research about it. o Black Marble Experiment o Theory is neither be explained accurately and correctly. 3. Supported by Data (Confirmed by Research) Flynn Effect ➢ Intelligence is progressing ➢ Proves that the characteristic and norms are changing. **Evaluation of Theories Based on Five (5) Key Developmental Issues
- The Goodness-Badness of Human Nature** ➢ Are people inherently good? ➢ Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) argued that children were innately good, that they were born with an intuitive understanding of right and wrong, and that they would develop in positive directions as long as society did not interfere with their natural tendencies. (As he felt it often did) ➢ Thomas Hobbes portrayed children as inherently selfish and bad and believed that it was society’s responsibility to teach them to behave in civilized ways. ➢ John Locke maintained that infants are tabulae rasae, or “blank slates”, still waiting to be written on by their experiences. o Children were neither innately good nor innately bad but could develop in any direction depending on their experiences. ➢ John Locke (neither) , Rosseau (good) , Thomas Hobbes **(bad)
- Nature-Nurture** ➢ Is development primarily the product of nature (biological forces) or nurture (environmental forces)? ➢ Strong believers in nature (like Rousseau, the champion of the innate goodness of children ) stress the importance of individual genetic makeup, universal maturational processes guided by genes , biologically based predispositions built into genes over the course of evolution, and other biological influences. ➢ Strong believers in nurture (like Locke, who claimed experience shapes environment) would emphasize environment--- the range of influences outside the person. 3. Activity-Passivity ➢ Focuses on the extent to which human beings are active in creating and influencing their own environments , and, in the process, in producing their own development, or are **passively shaped by forces beyond their control.
- Continuity-Discontinuity** ➢ Do humans change gradually, in ways that leave them not so different from the way they were before, or do they change abruptly and dramatically? ➢ Focuses on whether the changes people undergo over the life span are gradual or abrupt. ➢ Second aspects of this issue focus on whether changes are quantitative or qualitative in nature. ➢ Quantitative Change is about the degree of change. ➢ Qualitative Change is about the kind of change. ➢ Continuity theorists typically hold that developmental changes are gradual and quantitative. ➢ Discontinuity theorists hold that they are more abrupt and qualitative. 5. Universality-Context Specificity ➢ Developmental theorists often disagree on this issue, the extent to which developmental changes are common to all humans ( universal) or
different across cultures, subcultures, task contexts, and individuals ( context specific ) ➢ Mark Van Doren says, “There are two statements about human beings that are true: that all human beings are alike, and that all different.” Issues in Human Development Freud: Psychoanalytic Theory (1856-1939) ➢ Psychodynamic is the umbrella term that subscribes to psychoanalysis/psychoanalytic theory. ➢ A neurologist who shifted to psychiatrist. ➢ People are driven by motives, emotional conflicts and drives that they are unaware of. ➢ Motives are biological drives and forces. ➢ He adapted Hobbes theory that we are selfish. ➢ Instincts must be satisfied. Instincts and Unconscious Motives ➢ Freud viewed the newborn as a “seething cauldron ”, an inherently selfish creature “driven” by instincts, or inborn biological forces that motivate behavior. ➢ These biological instincts are the source of psychic (or mental) energy that fuels human behavior and that is channeled in new directions over the course of human developments. ➢ Freud strongly believed in unconscious motivation--- the power of instincts and other inner forces to influence our behavior without our awareness. ➢ Freud’s theory emphasizes the nature side of the nature-nurture issue: BIOLOGICAL INSTINCTS are forces that often provide an unconscious motivation for actions--- guide human development. ID, EGO and SUPERGO ID ➢ At birth, all psychic energy resides in the ID --- the impulsive, irrational, and selfish part of the personality whose mission is to satisfy the instincts. ➢ The ID seeks immediate gratification, even when biological needs cannot be realistically or appropriately met. ➢ Pleasure Principle (We don’t want suffering) ➢ Man is born ID. ➢ Demanding and unrealistic EGO ➢ The ego is the rational side of the individual that tries to find realistic ways of gratifying the instincts. ➢ Reality check or reality principle (Realistic and rational way to satisfy instincts) ➢ However, toddler’s egos are still relatively immature; they want what they want now. As the ego matures further, children become more capable of postponing their pleasures until a more appropriate time and of devising logical and realistic strategies for meeting their needs. o Ego emerges when the psychic energy ID divert from it. ➢ Accommodates and life and environment. ➢ Should have energy to face the reality. Erogenous Zone ➢ Energy transfers to the mouth (Erogenous Zone)
➢ Castration Anxiety – anxiety that a boy instilled in them that they might get their genitals harm or cut off by their father because of their sexual attraction towards their own mother. ➢ Hence, boys tend to identify themselves as their father called identification.
- They imitate their father’s actions so they can replace their father. ➢ “Superego” (knowing what’s right or wrong) is the last psychic energy to emerge after resolving the Oedipus Complex. Latency Stage ➢ 6 - 12 years old ➢ Their sexual urges are invested in studying, playing and other activities. ➢ School Age ➢ Sexual urges towards their mother disappear. ➢ Fixation is none. Genital Stage ➢ Experiencing conflicting feelings with parents, leading to detachment and dissociation from their parents. (isolation) o Isolation due to difficulties with sexuality, causing anxiety to an individual. ➢ Even in Phallic Stage, children have ego already but the ego just matured in Genital Stage. ➢ Sexual instincts are mature. Remember: The parents’ goal should be to allow some (but not too much) gratification of impulses while helping the child achieve reasonable (but not too much) control over these impulses. Defense Mechanisms
- Repression – it happens automatically in our mind.
- Regression – involves the act of reverting to earlier stage where they feel safe. (Child- like behavior)
- Projection – projecting your real feelings and thoughts to others.
- Reaction Formation – real feelings towards other people are shown through an opposite treatment or behavior. Example: The real feeling of madness but you are smiling and treating them good. Others Defense Mechanisms
- Denial – refusing to accept reality.
- Displacement – redirecting emotions from the original source to a less threatening target.
- Sublimation – channeling negative emotions into socially acceptable behaviors.
- Rationalization – justifying one’s actions or feelings. Weaknesses of Psychoanalytic Theory of Freud
- The theory is ambiguous.
- Internally inconsistent – some parts of the theory are not agreeable and absurd.
- Difficult to pin down and test.
- Little hard evidence to support the idea of theory. Strengths of Psychoanalytic Theory of Freud
- The theory is very influential. ➢ Once you hear the theory, you’ll immediately recognize the notion and concept.
- It makes the unconscious drives conscious.
- The theory is the first to highlight the experience within the development from earlier to later stage.
Note: There’s no subconscious but only pre- conscious. It serves as a gatekeeper, act as a sift of the information. Erikson: Neo-Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory Erik Erikson (1902-1994) ➢ Studied with Anna Freud, his classmate, and emigrated from Germany to the United States when Hitler rose to power. ➢ Like Sigmund Freud, he concerned himself with the inner dynamics of personality and proposed that the personality evolves through systematic stages. o He’s also a stage theory. ➢ Jewish ➢ He extended Freud’s Psychosexual Theory and focus on social influence. ➢ Pioneer of life span perspective. Compared with Freud, Erikson: ▪ Place less emphasis on sexual urges as the drivers of development and more emphasis on social influences such as peers, teachers, schools and broader culture. ▪ Placed less emphasis on the unconscious, irrational and selfish ID and more on the rational ego and its adaptive powers. ▪ Held a more positive view of human nature, seeing people as active in their development, largely rational and able to overcome the effects of harmful early experiences. ▪ Put more emphasis on development after adolescence. “Upward in consciousness, outward to the social world, and forward throughout the complete life span.” (Hoare, 2005) Psychosocial Stages ▪ Biological maturation and social demands are pushing us to go through the next stage. ▪ Each stage requires balancing a positive and a negative tendency. ▪ The positive quality should dominate, but some degree of the negative quality is needed as well for optimal development. ▪ The successful outcome of each stage is the development of a particular virtue , or strength. ▪ Erikson originally called crisis in personality--- major psychological challenge that is particular important at that time and will remain an issue to some degree throughout the rest of life. If all goes well as children confront and resolve each conflict, they will gain: ▪ A sense of self and develop autonomy (rather than shame and doubt about their ability to act independently). ▪ Develop initiative (as opposed to guilt) that allows them to plan and tackle big projects. ▪ Acquire the sense of industry (rather than inferiority) that will enable them to master academic and social skills in school. ▪ This growth will position adolescents to successfully resolve the conflict for which Erikson is best known, identity vs. role confusion. ▪ Successfully resolving adolescent conflict of identity versus role confusion paves the way for resolving the early adulthood conflict of intimacy vs isolation and for becoming ready to participate in a committed, long-term relationship. ▪ Successful resolution of the middle- age conflict of generativity vs stagnation involves adults gaining a sense that they have produced something that will outlive them, whether by successfully raising children or by continuing something meaningful to the world through work or volunteer activities. ▪ Finally, elder adults who resolve the psychosocial conflict of integrity vs despair find a sense of meaning in their lives that will help them face death.
➢ More on experimental, accurate, and exact terms. ➢ Behaviorism and Social Cognitive Theory S-R Theories – Stimulus-Response Theory ➢ Used by Behaviorist ➢ No capacity of thinking (whereas SCT considers the capacity of thinking) Behaviorism ➢ A mechanic theory that describes observed behavior as a predictable response to experience. ➢ Considered development as reactive and continuous. o Reactive: Environmental stimulation that we react to (Well, we are proactive) so there’s no thinking and emotions. ➢ Believe in humans are robot or mechanistic process because we program behavior. ➢ Associative Learning o Classical Conditioning o Operant Conditioning John Watson: Classical Conditioning Watson ➢ Emotional response can be learned. ➢ He rested on his belief that conclusions about human development and functioning should be based on overt behavior rather than on speculations about observable cognitive and emotional processes. o Overt Behavior – can be seen and observed. o Covert Behavior – behaviors that are covered and cannot be observed. (Hence, they are just speculations) ➢ Rejected psychoanalytic theory and devoted a good deal of effort to trying to explain Freud’s fascinating discoveries about humans in terms of basic learning principles. ➢ Behaviorists leans on the nurture side of Nature-Nurture issue of Development. o Little Albert Experiment o He proves in here that responses can be learned. ➢ He maintained that learned associations between external stimuli and observable responses are the building blocks of both normal and abnormal human development. ➢ Like Locke, he believed that children have no inborn tendencies and that how they turn out depends entirely on the environment in which they grow up and the ways in which their parents and other significant people in their lives treat them. Classical Conditioning ➢ A simple form of learning in which a stimulus that initially had no effect on the individual comes to elicit a response through its association with a stimulus that already elicits the response. Ivan Pavlov ➢ Russian physiologist ➢ Discovered classical conditioning quite accidentally while studying the digestive systems of dogs. Innate = means “unlearned” ➢ Salvation of dogs in sight of the food Conditioned = means “learned” ➢ Bell and salivation
Little Albert Experiment Classical Conditioning is context-specific. Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory ➢ “Social Learning Theory” ➢ Bandura claims humans are “cognitive-beings”. o Humans have the capacity to think (which turns to be the Behaviorist’s failure) o Whose active processing of information plays a critical role in learning behavior and learning. ➢ Human learning is different from rat learning. ➢ Humans have far more sophisticated skills/ capabilities. ➢ He agrees that Skinner’s theory, the operant conditioning, is crucial. o Operant Conditioning : Behavior manifested is followed by reinforcement and punishment. ➢ He noted that people think about connections between behavior and consequences. o They (subject) anticipate consequences to follow behavior. ➢ We aren’t just mechanical robots but we have the thinking capacity such as knowing the consequences, decision-making, planning, etc., ➢ However, our mental capacity may sometimes punish or reinforce ourselves. (small wins, good job) ➢ Bandura wants his theory be called as “Social Cognitive Theory” as he wanted to distance himself from the Behaviorists who are reactive. o He wanted to emphasize his theory as motivating and self- regulating. Observational Learning ➢ Is simply learning by observing the behavior of other people called models. ➢ Experience doesn’t have to be at 1st hand. ➢ It is regarded as more cognitive form of learning than conditioning because learners must pay attention, construct, and remember mental representations (images and verbal summaries) of what they saw, retrieve these representations from memory later, and use them to guide behavior. ➢ Experience of others can be learned. (Pagmumura) ➢ Very observable ➢ Children may learn from paying attention and construction realities. Bobo Doll Experiment ➢ It sets out to demonstrate that children could learn a response neither elicited by condition stimulus as classical condition nor perform and strengthen reinforcer as operant condition. ➢ Bobo Doll – inflated doll ➢ Nursery children are situated within a room where Bandura made them watch a violent adult film hitting the doll. o As a result, they manifested or followed the behavior of the adult they have watched. What did the children learn? ➢ The children who saw the model rewarded and the children in the no- consequences condition imitated more of the model’s aggressive acts than did the children who had seen the model punished.
➢ Darwinist perspective – survival of the fittest (traits and skills made us survive) Some notes about Bandura’s Theory: ➢ Like Watson and Skinner, Bandura doubts that there are universal stages of human development. o He maintains that development is context specific and can proceed along many paths. ➢ Bandura also believed that development is continuous, occurring gradually through a lifetime of learning. ➢ Bandura acknowledges that children’s cognitive capacities mature, so they can remember more about what they have seen and can imitate a greater variety of novel behaviors. o Yet he also believes that children of the same age will be dissimilar if their learning experiences have differed considerably. Strengths ➢ Learning theories contributed immensely to the understanding of development and continue to be influential. ➢ They are precise and testable ➢ Learning principles operate across the life span and can be used to understand behavior at any age. ➢ Learning theories have incredibly important applications. Criticisms of Learning Theories:
- Learning theorist rarely demonstrate that learning is possible for commonly observed developmental changes; they show through their experiments only that learning might have resulted in developmental change, as in the case of reinforcement.
- Early learning theorists, and even Bandura, probably put too little emphasis on biological influences on development, such as genetic endowment and maturational processes, that affect how people respond to learning experiences. Skinner: Operant Conditioning ➢ Instrumental Conditioning or Skinnerian Conditioning ➢ Proposed by B.F. Skinner ➢ Behaviorists are radical, experimental and scientific. (So is Skinner) o Trained mostly at USA so their work emerged. ➢ Associative Learning ➢ We learned “to operate” and “to manipulate” our behavior. ➢ Involves voluntary behaviors. ➢ “Consequences” rather than predicting “Behaviors”. ➢ A learner’s behavior becomes either more or less depending on the consequences it produces. ➢ Between Active-Passive, Operant Conditioning is at the passive side of the development because we wait for reinforcement and punishment from environment. Burrhus Frederic Skinner ➢ Probably the most famous American psychologist. ➢ Had a long, distinguished career at Harvard University and had a huge impact on approaches to behavior change. Operant Conditioning ➢ A learner’s behavior becomes either more or less probably depending on the consequences it produces. Reinforcement ➢ In the language of operant conditioning, reinforcement occurs when a consequence strengthens a
response, or makes it more likely to occur. ➢ Can be positive or negative. ➢ To strengthen behavior. Positive Reinforcement ➢ Positive (+) here means that something pleasant or desirable has been added (+) to the situation. ➢ Reinforcement means that behavior is strengthened. ➢ Should be continuous. ➢ Schedules of Reinforcement (Theory of Personality) Negative Reinforcement ➢ It is not, a fancy term for punishment. ➢ Occurs when a behavioral tendency is strengthened because something unpleasant or undesirable is removed (-) from the situation, or is escaped or avoided, after the behavior occurs. Punishment ➢ Decreases the strength of the behavior or weakens it. ➢ Types: o Positive Punishment o Negative Punishment Positive Punishment ➢ Occurs when an unpleasant stimulus is applied or added to the situation following a behavior. Negative Punishment ➢ Occurs when a desirable stimulus is removed following the behavior. What is a good alternative to punishing a child’s misbehavior? ➢ Ignore and reinforce desirable behavior that is incompatible with it. What are your thoughts on spanking children for their misbehavior? ➢ By contrast, in a 2004 national survey: o 77 % of men and 69% of women agreed that a child sometimes needs a “good, hard spanking.” o More than 90% of parents of 3 to 4 years olds had spanked their child in the previous year. Spanking or another form of physical punishment can be effective in changing behavior in the longer run if it:
- Is administered immediately after the act (not hours later, when the child is being an angel)
- Is administered consistently after each offense.
- Is not overly harsh.
- Is accompanied by explanations.
- Is administered by an otherwise affectionate person.
- Is used sparingly and combined with efforts to reinforce more acceptable behavior. Strengths ➢ Skinner’s operant conditioning principles can help explain many aspects of human development. ➢ Applied in behavioral, cognitive behavioral interventions in
➢ We weren’t born reactive to stimulation. Note: Children do inventive movements and actions (crib mobile) as their adaptive behaviors. o Adaptive behaviors help them figure out and understand the realities. How do children construct more accurate understandings of the world? ➢ By being curious and active explorers: watching what is going on around them, seeing what happens when they experiment on the objects they encounter, and recognizing instances in which their current understandings are inadequate to explain events. ➢ Children use their current understandings of the world to help them solve problems, but they also revise their understandings to make them better fit reality. ➢ The interaction between biological maturation (most importantly, a developing brain) and experience (especially discrepancies between the children’s understanding and reality) is responsible for the child’s progress from one stage of cognitive development to a new, qualitatively different stage. This cognitive growth occurs through three interrelated processes:
1. Organization ➢ The tendency to create categories such as birds, by observing the characteristics that individual members of a category, such as sparrows and cardinals have in common. ➢ According to Piaget, people create increasingly complex cognitive structures called schemes, it is the way of organizing information about the world that govern the way the child thinks and behaves in a particular situation. 2. Adaptation ➢ Is Piaget’s term for how children handle new information in light of what they already know. ➢ It occurs through two complementary processes: o Assimilation – easier, it is the process of taking in new information and incorporating information into existing cognitive structures. (You learned new information from what you already know) o Accommodation – adjusting one’s cognitive structures to fit the new information. 3. Equilibration Stages of Cognitive Development ➢ Multi-Stage Theory ➢ 4 Major Stages of Cognitive Development Invariant Sequence ➢ We all progress in an orderly listed without skipping stages. ➢ Ages are just guidelines. ➢ Different children progress in different rate. 1. Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to around 2 y/o) ➢ Infants in this stage deal with the world directly through their perceptions (senses) and actions (motor skills). ➢ They are unable to use symbols (gestures, images, or words representing real objects and events) to help them solve problems mentally. ➢ Crib Mobile
➢ Due to curiosity, infants reach for the crib mobile. ➢ Out of their senses, actions, and motor, they make sense of the world.
2. Preoperational Stage ( 2 - 7 y/o) ➢ The preschooler who has entered this stage of cognitive development has now developed the capacity for symbolic thought but is not yet capable for logical problem solving. ➢ Preschoolers are egocentric thinkers. ➢ They can recognize and do symbols but not yet the complex problem solving. ➢ What they believe is their reality. **Theory of Conservation
- Concrete Operational Stage (7- 12 y/o)** ➢ Children at this stage are more logical than preschoolers. ➢ They use a trial-and-error approach to problem solving and do well on problems that involve thinking about concrete objects. ➢ These children can perform many important logical actions, or operations, in their heads on concrete objects (hence, the term concrete operations). ➢ They don’t do abstract yet. ➢ Children want tangible objects to visualize. 4. Formal Operational Stage (Around 11 - 12 y/o and above) ➢ Adolescents who reach this stage are able to think more abstractly and hypothetically than school- age children. ➢ They can define justice abstractly, in terms of fairness, rather than concretely, in terms of the cop on the corner or the judge in the courtroom. ➢ They can formulate hypotheses or predictions in their heads, plan how to systematically test their ideas experimentally, and imagine the consequences of their tests. ➢ Mental ability to abstract from general to specific ideas. ➢ Strengths ➢ Piaget’s influence left a deep and lasting imprint on thinking about human development. His theory dominated the study of child development for about three decades, until the 1980s. ➢ Most developmentalists today continue to accept his basic beliefs that thinking changes in qualitative ways during childhood, that children are active in their own development, and that development occurs through an interaction of nature and nurture. ➢ Piaget’s description of intellectual development has been tested and has been largely, although not wholly supported. ➢ His ideas have influenced education and child rearing by encouraging teachers and parents to pitch their educational programs to children’s level of understanding and to stimulate children to discover new concepts through their own direct grappling with problems. Criticisms ➢ Critics fault him for saying too little about the influences of motivation and emotion on thought process. ➢ They also question whether his stages really hang together as coherent and general modes of thinking that can be applied to a variety of types of problems. ➢ Critics also conclude that Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of young children.
