PSYC 101 Exam 1

piaget

interested in how people learn about the world around them

• paying close attention to the wrong answers the children gave

You become smart by actively engaging with your environment

• Knowledge begins with active interaction

• Motor activity is important

Constructivist

developing a mental picture of the world

• focus on representation of the world

Picking and choosing things from the environment

Piaget example

teaching the earth is round

• How are children thinking about the Earth being round

• Have a different perspective 

• Don’t have all the pieces

• Try to connect to what they already know

Piaget Schemas

frameworks for interpreting and responding to experience

• can be mental or physical

• as get older → more abstract schemas

sucking on an object to understand the surroundings

cog dev when we try to connect experiences and schemas

Assimilation

fit observations into schema

accommodation

change schema to fit observation

ex of assimilation and accodmodation

A young child sees a wild rabbit for the first time after only domesticated ones

• assimilation: assume it will behave like domesticated ones

• accommodation: adjust their understanding of rabbits based on their observation

  • concludes rabbits are more variable than previously thought

trusted friend betrays you

• assim: friend did it to protect you

• accom: friend never was trustworthy

Piaget stage development

sensorimotor stage 0-2

pre-operational stage 2-7

concrete operations state 7-12

formal operations stage 12+

sensorimotor stage 0-2

babies are limited to immediate sensory experience

fosters cognitive development

reflex activity (0-1 month)

primary circular reactions (1-4 months)

secondary circular reactions (4 to 8 months)

coordination of secondary circular reactions (8 to 12 months)

tertiary circular reaction (12 to 18 months)

reflex activity (0-1 month)

• baby has reflex schemas

• looking, sucking, hearing, grasping

• process info

• slowly modified by infant

primary circular reactions (1-4 months)

pleasurable response centered around own body

don’t involve external things

secondary circular reactions (4 to 8 months)

pleasurable response centered around objects and events in the external world

coordination of secondary circular reactions (8 to 12 months)

combines previously acquired schemas to reach goal

• lifts cover to pick up toy

• Piaget said this shows object permanence

• A not B error →

tertiary circular reaction (12 to 18 months)

active experimentation

discovering something and want to do something like it

instead of same over and over → slightly different

baby dropping different things

cognitive advancements seen at end of sensorimotor stage (18+ month) transitioning into the pre-operational stage

child not limited to immediate experience

delayed imitation → see something happen next day do that thing

visual imagery in problem solving → mentally imagine the path of the door crashing into pot

symbolic play →

piaget limitation of preoperational thought

centration: child can only focus on one aspect of a problem or object

• seen on classic conservation tasks

challenges to use science to improve developement

same influences can have diff consequences

often can’t systematically test effects

• impractical or unethical

disagreement on goals

diff aspects of development affect each other

physical development and connection with social and emotional development

ex: learning to crawl is a social and emotional experience

Context of development matters

• Effects of poverty

  • School uniforms

  • Public transit systems

Obvious conclusions may not be there when closer expected

Parents are not always to blame 

Development can mean losing and gaining capacities

• Specialization 

  • Language development and not being able to pick up differences in other languages as you get older

Development through exploration

Latch onto what is a good fit

We learn better when we deeply process information

examples: connect what we learn to what we know, teach others

social coordination benefits learning and social connection

includes joint attention and contingency

How we feel about and understand our experience matters

• Attributions have powerful psychological effects: answering why questions

• Belongingness and sense of purpose can have a large impact

reasons to study child development

curiosity about people

• figuring out what babies know

• making sense of behaviors and outcomes

• teen risk-taking and mortality

animism

child attributes animate properties to inanimate objects

egocentrism

fails to take another’s perspective

• covering eyes in hide and seek

• 3 mountain tasks - draw what the mountain looks like from the doll’s perspective

concrete operations stage

understand reversible logical systems

• not fooled by superficial appearance

• can think about multiple dimensions

formal operations stage

reason about abstract ideas

• can reason hypothetically and systematically

  • pendulum problem understanding that only length of the string matters

  • logic games

• can understand absract math

children actively construct knowledge

importance of active discovery

importance of engaging in meaningful activities

child is not vessel to be filled with facts

Major challenge to Piaget’s theory

• underestimated children’s competence by making his tests too hard

• babies may know where things are without being able to successfully search

ex: 5 month old infants search longer when object is hidden by darkness

ex: underestimation of babies

• On A not B task: more successful performance when reaching is disrupted with weight on wrist

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)

focus on learning as a collaborative process

• culture and social interaction matters

• effects still studied now

• private speech: tool for solving problems and regulating behavior

• talking to yourself

  • transitions into inner speech as children develop, reflecting cognitive growth

• children use cultural tools that are shared in a particular

culture to make sense of the world

• language, writing systems, numerical notations, technology,

Children learn best in zone of proximal development

• difference between what a learner can do independently versus can achieve with support from a more knowledgeable person

• slightly above their current level

Vygotsky

social scaffolding

social support that helps children do more than on their own

• infant play (4s alone versus 20s with caregiver)

• autobiographical memory

  • talking about falling down at the pool

• helping children solve their own problems

  • block tower keeps falling down

• daily tasks

  • setting table, cleaning a bedroom

Vygotsky

learning from others

we depend on what others tell us

• many things children cannot learn from direct experience (e.g., history)

• children are bombarded with information; usually believe it even though it is sometimes inaccurate

Can occur in many ways. examples:

• observing how people respond to what others do

• e.g., a peer breaks a classroom rule

• modeling and imitation

learning from others example

effort and no effort condition

adult interacts with one toy

learn from other santa claus

many children told about Santa

• taught he knowns what every child desires,, has sleigh pulled by flyer

children stop believing around 8

most common: testimony of others

• overhearing classmates, siblings reveal, ask parents

• second most common: first-hand experience

• seeing parent hide presents from Santa under the tree

• rarely: logic

• How many houses Santa would need to visit on a single night?

• sometimes induced broader skepticism about fantastical

beings like the Easter Bunny

by age 5 we already have many tools to evaluate evidence to decide what to believe

using context: children learned about made up animals called surnits

• less likely to say they believed they were real if told dragons or ghosts collect them than that doctors or scientists use them

• expertise

• more likely to believe a strange fact about a fish from a zookeeper than a mechanic

• prior history of accuracy

• more likely to believe someone who presents surprising

evidence, when it is clear that it is intentional

• “You’re not going to believe this, but this is actually a dog”

• know people can have good and bad motives

• know people with bad motives may lie

• but will often leave with strangers despite being told not to do so

implication of development for public policy

school start times → later start for better grades

Nature vs nuture

hard to tell the affects apart

methods:

• compare monozygotic and dizygotic twins

• adoption is a natural experiment that creates genetic and enviormental relatives

behavioral genetics: heritability

heritability from 0 to 1

Heritability of 0.6 means 60% variability in the trait in a population is due to genetic differences

• does not mean 60% caused by genetic factors

Heritability can increase with age

• ex intelligence

• 9 years → 41% ; 12 years → 55% ; age 17 years → 66%

• Choices amplify differences

• With age you choose your environments

solving real world problems

managing anger and disappointment

• calm down is not affective

many cognitive behavioral interventions are helpful

• changing unhelpful thinking and behavior

• preparing children for possible disappointment

turtle technique → preschool to demonstrate how he thinks himslef to stop and retreat until calm and can solve problem

narrative

emotional coaching

adults respond with empathy, guidance, and problem-solving

• as opposed to dismissing, punishing, or ignoring children’s negative emotions

key features

• validation (communicating that feelings are real and important)

• guidance (help child label emotions and link to experience)

• problem solving (support thinking through constructive responses)

• modeling (demonstrate emotion regulation skills) benefits

• emotion recognition

• emotion regulation

• builds trust and connection

emotional coaching examples

Child upset about losing a game

• Dismissive response: “Don’t be a sore loser. Stop crying.”

• Emotion coaching response: “It looks like you’re really disappointedabout losing. That makes sense. It’s hard when you try so hard and don’t win. Let’s think of ways you can practice for next time.”

Preschooler frightened of dark at bedtime

• Dismissive response: “There’s nothing to be scared of, just go to sleep.”

• Emotion coaching response: “I can see you’re scared about being alone in your room. Sometimes shadows can look big at night. Let’s name what’s here in the room together, and then I’ll show you a way to calm your body with a few deep breaths.

testing effectiveness of programs

extending what works

• peer tutoring

• certain board games

knowing what doesn’t

• drug prevention

  • obesity letters

considering how developmental stage matters

promoting academic success

• remedial programs

similar effects for school attendance awards

making use of psychological principles for children

promoting adaptive attributions

• reappraisal in middle school transition

  • decreased disciplinary incidents

  • increased attendance

  • reduced failing grades

making use of psychological principles promote good habits

nudges: a subtle form of encouragement or suggestion that influences behavior without restricting freedom or voice

• reduces friction for the desired outcome

• choices easier and automatic

• shoes near the door

• defaults and physical structure of enviorment

nudges in childhood

change the environment so a helpful choice feels easy, natural, or fun

• healthy snacks on table

• child nudged to reach for healthier snack first

• bright folder with HOMEWORK next to child’s shoes

  • nudges child to remember homework without having to tell them

when programs are not formally tested → we can still evaluate

anticipate consequences

• apply psychological principles

• apply knowledge of development

• assessing recipient thinking and experience

  • case of giving money to families in Kenya

ex of untested program

color-coded ids

• students given one of three colors for student ID

• based on standardized testing

  • black - free admission to concerts and sports events

  • gold - some special privileges and discounts

  • white - no privileges and stand in seperate line

common strategies for data collection: self report 

checklists, interviews, questionnaires

• child behavior checklist: rate behavior

common strategies for data collection: observation

naturalistic

• gives ecological validity

structured 

• control for situation

experimental method

gold standard for establishing causation

compare effects for conditions that vary in terms of only one thing of interest

variables

• independent variable (IV): variable manipulated

• dependent variable (DV): outcome measure

• control group: comparison group for evaluation of a treatment

• random assignment: each participant has same opportunity to be assigned to each group

Research challenges: interpreting experimental results

• confounds: alternative explanation for findings

  • groups differ on factors other than what is manipulated

  • example: exercise on learning, but exercise group starts out knowing more

    • can control for factor

    • more commonly: do random assignment

• mistakenly believed to be any experimental problem

Research challenges: measurement Presentation motive

person doing the observation present themselves or person in positive way

issue for self and other report + observation

EX: teachers’ gender bias, how many words parents report their child knows

Make self unobtrusive

• technology, familiarity

Ethics issues

Research challenges: measurement knowledge problems

may not remember or have relevant knowledge to judge

• how many hours does child sleep for?

• how active is child?

understadning what is being asked

• when did your child start talking

  • ambiguous questions such as does your child play sports or musical instruments

research challenges: defining constructs

what counts

coding responses

• parents lying study

  • what counts as a lie

infant methodologies

habituation paradigm

• present stimulus until subject is bored

• change stimulus observe response

3 month olds tested:

infants focused on the relation between the actor and her goal only with prior experience reaching with sticky mittens

high amplitude sucking

access preferences based on sucking rate

• before testing babies are taught they can choose between 2 diff recordings by changing how quickly they suck

  • own vs other mothers voice

  • preference for stories heard prenatally over another one they havent heard

preferential looking

access preferences

side by side comparison and which one they look at more

must watch for confounds

• 6 month old look longer at less probable events

longitudinal designs

test sample over time

ex: Kauai

• predictors of resilience in coping with poverty

  • positive personal qualities like being easy going

  • close relationship with at least one parent or adult

longitudinal designs advantages and disadvantages

advantage: prediction over time

disadvantage: costly and time intensive

dropout

repeat testing may have effects

changes due to factors other than age

• more fear of germs at age 10 than 5

  • but global pandemic effect

cross-sectional design

common to look at age related change

• different age groups at the same time

• advantage: low cost

• disadvantage

  • cant look at change in individuals

  • change due to other factors than age

  • tech use is difference for 5 and 10 may not just be age related

longitudinal research on deprivation and poverty

romanian orphans

• wanted to boost population: fertility used as instrument of state control

• bad economy and high fertility

• families couldn’t manage → orphans got little attention and human contact

rutter study

can good care make up for poor care in institutions in early life

• 165 romanian orphans adopted by British families

• time varies: before 6 months all adopted by 42 months

• assessments of social and cognitive development at 4, 6, 11, 15

only those adopted after 6 months had lasting deficits

attachment difficulties attention seeking overfamiliarty

limitation : orphans were NOT randomly assigned

psychological principles vs cultural learning

problem of WEIRD samples (White, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic)

diverse sample

• allows determine what developmet is culturally specific

• gives insight into what is possible

• give insight into own cultures

risk and safety

what extent to children need to be protected

• monitoring on playground

• age to stay home unsupervised

tight vs loose cultures

core distinction: strength of social norms and intolerance of deviant behavior

• tight: Pakistan Singapore

  • restrict the range of behavior deemed appropriate across everyday situations

• loose: France, Netherlands

May result in high threat and need or social coordination for survival

• asses with items like

  • people always comply with social norms

  • if someone inappropriately others with strongly disapprove

interconnected value

individualism vs collectivism

• freedom and individuality vs group idenity

individualism: focus on rights and concerns of each person; independence, self-expression, and assertiveness encouraged

collectivism: focus on group harmony and shared responsibility; relational self-conception (actions reflect on family)

distinction is not about generosity

Learning by Observing and Pitching In (LOPI) developed by Rogoff

• prevalent in many Indigenous communities of the Americas

• central feature of LOPI: inclusion of children in communities

• Children’s motivation derives from their interest in contributing and belonging

Contrasted with what Rogoff calls “Assembly- Line Instruction” common in West vs LOPI

• creating child worlds separate from adult worlds

• tests students in contexts separate from the learning process and separate from contexts of productive use

• characterized by known-answer quizzing

• questions where the person asking knows answer, such as: “Where is your nose?”

• What are effects in cultures where this is uncommon

executive function

process that allow for goal directed action

• regulation and control over cognitive processes

involves mental flexibility

executive function assesment

inhibit either an automatized distractor

• examples: day night, head toes → override what they would normally do

flexibly switch between rules

• dimensional card sorting test

color vs shapes sorting → dropped all the cards and children get better

executive function predicts

academic performance

• attempts to teach general executive function

• most fail, do not replicate, or do not generalize

in one context may not work for the other

claims that bilingualism, pretend play, and martial arts have positive effect are disputed

executive function need to be learned in domain specific way

depend on whether learning concrete and meaningful

• brazillian candy seller used

  • learned in a way that meaningful to them

sometimes children have the required executive function capacities for a task but don’t value control

• “if children have the goal of completing a foot race as quickly as possible, they may engage control early and prepare (i.e., getting into the right stance and listening carefully for a signal) if they have knowledge that doing so benefits running performance (e.g., from observing or listening to others), [or] if they believe that running fast will please their friends or family... (Doebel, 2020)

• Interventions thus need to support knowledge, values, and beliefs

• Interventions also need to address factors that make it harder for children to exert EF when they want to

need capacity and motivation

learning strategies

least to most effective for understanding

• passive - receiving info without overtly doing anything else related to learning

• active - some form of action is undertaken - highlighting / copying problem solutions

• constructive - learning generate something new like a concept map or explaining what the information means to them

• interactive - both partner’s utterances are constructive + turn taking

why does enagaement matter

how the information is connected to what you already know

isolated knowledge is sometimes okay

• better when we can connect

• when active it is connected to

how do we know these levels of engagement matter

• Typical design: students spend the same amount of time in activities that require different levels of engagement and assessing learnings

• rereading (active) versus practice testing (constructive)

• Can you think of other ways to test this

promote better learning

• use and help others use more constructive and interactive strategies

• rather than show completed answer, show problem with step missing and have student figure that out

• explanation (including self-explanation)

• applying information to a new context

• write a mini-lecture

promoting better learning

strategies promote learning even when students get the answers wrong and are confused

even activities that are constructive can be more constructive

• building models is more constructive than comparing models

teaching strategies can promote deep engagement, but do not determine engagement

• can listen to lecture with no activities in a constructive way

intuitions are often wrong about what works

• people often think they will learn more from rereading than from practice test

other factor that affect learning

struggle and timing of study strategies

productive struggle

timing matters

• benefits of spacing out practice

• benefits of intermixing types of problem types

• benefits of cumulative review

promoting better learning: Even with good study strategies, we forget most of the details of what we learn

• even so, we may still be building mental models that let us interpret information and make sophisticated inferences.

example:

• show 6- to 9-year-olds a 7-minute video on how an engine works (Keil and others, 2021) → developed abstract thinking

• engine expert detection test

  • watched the video created a mental model of the

Infantile amnesia

inability to retrieve early memories

instrumental condition

when they kick their foot the mobile moves

retest them and if their remember what they learned

2 month old can remember for 24 hours

6 months can remember for 2 weeks

conext is important for memory retrieval → bumper pads can affect the retrieval

memory before age 3

autobiographical events 6 months earlier

scripts → remember the sequence of events

early memories: false memories & source memory

false memories develop with repeated questions

• asked whether bitten by a rat in the basement

• most children said yes after a few weeks

source memory → how we know something?

• if you thought about it or if it really happened

• cant tell the difference between if it happened or not

  • same with adults

representing the world: appearance reality distinction

appearance reality distinction

• when do children realize appearances can be deceiving

Classic shown deceptive objects

• what does object look like

• what is the object truly

• 3 yo have same answer for both

• likely reflects confusion about what is real

fears of people in costumes

• trouble thinking about same thing in 2 ways at once 8

children success of some task

• when asked to give experimenter “real X” versus “one that looks like X” → can see the real vs fake banana

• when asked about eating contaminated food

  • Vegemite on bread, roach in drink → they said it was not okay to eat

why do they succeed

1. they understand appearances can be deceiving for simple task

2. they do not know the difference but repeating what they have heard

3. fragile understanding they can apply in some context vs others