Dev. Psych. - Chp. 8

Death

• requires understanding…

  • universal (happens to everyone)

  • permanency (death is final)

  • non-functionally (ceased capabilities)

Egocentrism

kid’s inability to take another person’s perspective & assume that others share the same feelings/perspective
*Ex: kid showing teacher a picture by holding the drawing side towards themselves instead of the teacher (b/c they assume the teacher can see what they can)

Centration

tendency to focus on one part of a stimulus/idea & exclude all others (characteristic of preoperational reasoning)
*Ex: boy believes that if he wears a dress he will become a girl - focuses entirely on the dress rather than the rest of his characteristics that would make him a boy

Animism

belief that inanimate objects are alive & have feelings (characteristic of preoperational reasoning)
*Ex: kid says it’s raining b/c the sun is sad

Conservation

principle that a physical quantity remains the same even when its appearance changes (characteristic of preoperational reasoning)
*Ex: pouring water into a taller glass & the kid not believing it’s the same amount of water

Irreversibility

kids do not understand that an action can be reversed & a thing restored to its original state (characteristic of preoperational reasoning)
*Ex: kid believing his tower is ruined when a peer put a triangle block on top & still believes it’s ruined even when the triangle is removed

Hierarchical Classification

ability to group things/concepts
*Ex: there’s 7 daises & 2 roses → “are there more flowers or daises” → kid answers daises b/c they don’t understand that daises are a subclass of flowers

Semantic Bootstrapping

• part of grammar learning

• rely on word meaning to understand grammar rules

• understand meaning 1st

Overregularization

grammatical mistakes kids make b/c they apply grammar rules too stringently to words that are exceptions

Magical Thinking

• used for what they can’t understand

• used b/t 2 & 7 yrs

Intersubjectivity

shared awareness, understanding, & emotional coordination b/t a kid & another person
*Ex: 2 ppl exchanging attention

Attention

• sustain attention = focus for extended time

  • by 6-7yrs can resist pull of dominant stimulus

• selective attention = ability to focus on relevant stimulus & ignore others

Planning

• mastered @5yrs due to gains in…

  • inhibition

  • working memory

• best w/ simplified tasks

Make-Believe Play

• leads to…

  • social competence

  • strengthened cog. abilities

• imaginary companions enhance pretend

Metacognition

thinking abt thinking

Pragmatics

practical application of lang. for everyday communication
*Ex: will alter their request to be more polite when talking to an adult

Private Speech vs. Egocentric Speech

1. private speech = self-directed speech that kids use to guide their behavior (becomes inner speech) - Vygotsky

2. egocentric speech = spoken lang. that is not directed to any listener - Piaget

Scaffolding

temporary support that permits a kid to bridge the gap b/t their current competence level & the task at hand

Guided Participation

ppl learn from others who guide them, providing a scaffold to help them complete more than they could do alone

Theory of Mind

awareness of own & other ppl’s mental process
*Ex: you wrap a surprise b-day gift for a friend and & put it in the closet, you know it is there, but you understand your friend does not know about it yet

Word-Learning

• increases through…

  • fast-mapping = kids learn new words after brief encounter, connecting them w/ their own mental categories

  • syntactic bootstrapping = kids learn meaning of words by looking at grammar structure

ZPD (Vygotzky’s Zone)

tasks that kids cannot do alone but can exercise w/ the aid of more skilled partners

Impulse Control

core component of cog. regulation & executive functioning

How does morality develop?

kids develop conceptions abt justice & fairness through social experiences