CH8 Pt1: Cognitive Development in Sociocultural Contexts

PSYC 207 Unit 3 exam material

Cognitive psychology

Studies thought & its influence on various domains of behavior

• Perception, attention, language, memory

• 3 Primary Frameworks…

  • Piaget’s Stage Theory of Cognitive Development

    • Emphasizing the child as a “naive scientist”

  • Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Development

    • Emphasizing cultural tools, language & knowledgeable others

  • Information-Processing Theory

    • Emphasizes the metaphor of the mind as a computer

    • Dominant perspective of contemporary cognitive psychology

Piaget on development

Conducted foundational cognitive developmental research…

• Cognitive abilities of pre-linguistic infants

• Problem solving & reasoning strategies through adolescence

• Early in recognizing qualitative differences

  • Errors in reasoning as insight into the child’s mind

Constructivism

Emphasizes the active role of children in their own cognitive development

• Children as “naive scientists”

Piaget knowledge acquisition

• Believed children conceptualized the world in terms of schemata

  • Organization framework for knowledge about the world

• Developed through processes of…

  • Assimilation

  • Accommodation

  • In an attempt to maintain cognitive equilibrium

Assimilation

Interpreting new information in the context of existing schemata

Accommodation

• Coping with new information through…

  • Development of new schemata

  • Alteration of existing schemata

cognitive equilibrium

The process of balancing assimilation & accommodation in order to maintain a stable understanding of the world

AKA equilibration

Piaget’s stage theory

Centered on the development of mental operations

• Mental processes involved in the manipulation of information

Sensorimotor stage

• The child learns about the world through…

  • Sensory processes

  • Motor behavior

• Notable Milestones: Object permanence & Stranger anxiety

• Further subdivided into 6 substages

reflexes; circular

Sensorimotor Substages I & II

• Stage I: ______

  • Infant begins to learn about the world through exercise of reflexes

    • Eventual transition to voluntary motor activity

• Stage II: Primary ______ Reactions

  • Infant engages voluntarily in repetitive cycles of motor behavior

    • Primary (self directed)

    • Circular (Repetitive nature)

  • Initially produced by chance

  • Repetition due to pleasurable effects

secondary; coordination

Sensorimotor Substages III & IV

• Stage III: ________ Circular Reactions

  • Child begins to interact directly with objects in their environment

    • Secondary = objects are external to infant’s body

  • Increasing levels of interaction w/ world

    • Unintentional —> deliberate

• Stage IV: _________ of Secondary Circular Reactions

  • Child begins to combine & coordinate behavior

    • Facilitating (planning & goal-pursuit)

tertiary; representational

Sensorimotor Substages V & VI

• Stage V: ______ Circular Reactions

  • Birth of the naive scientist

    • Greater integration of goal-directed behavior

    • Trial & Error hypothesis testing

• Stage VI: Beginning of ________ Thought

  • Emergence of symbolic representation

    • Symbols represent ideas, objects, & events (even when not present)

    • Beginning of pretend play

  • Emerging use of mental strategies in problem solving

    • Including memory for past events

object permanence

Understanding that items outside of the visual field continue to exist

• Relies on rudimentary mental representation

piaget’s preoperational stage

• No longer bound to explore through sensorimotor activity

  • Emergence of mental & symbolic representation

  • Not yet capable of mental operations

• Pretend Play

  • Exercises vital cognitive skills

  • Experiment w/ schemata (assimilation & accommodation)

• 2 substages

symbolic function

Piaget’s Preoperational Substage 1: _______ _______ (2-4yrs)

• Can mentally represent objects

• Perceptually bound problem solving

intuitive thought

Piaget’s Preoperational Substage 2: _______ _______ (4-7yrs)

• Increase in questions

• Understand world through intuitive reasoning

egocentrism

• Cognitive inability to take the perspective of others

  • Concluding that everyone thinks & feels similarly

• Often assessed using the three mountains task

  • Speculate on visual perspective of third party

the sally anne test

Classic false belief task

theory of mind (ToM)

• Cognitive ability to take the perspective of others

  • Important for socioemotional development & empathy

• Varies as a function of….

  • Culture

    • Collectivistic children develop knowledge access before diverse beliefs

  • Family Structure

    • Children w/ 2+ non-adult siblings perform better in ToM tasks

errors; preoperational

______ in __________ Thought

• Conservation: Quantity of substance retained despite changes in appearance

• Errors which impede conservation in preoperational thought…

  • Centration & Irreversible Thinking

  • Classification error & Animism

centration

Tendency to focus on one aspect of a problem at a time

irreversible thinking

Inability to mentally revert transformations back to their initial state

classification error

Difficulty understanding that an object may be subject to multiple classifications

animism

Tendency to ascribe life-like qualities to inanimate objects

piaget’s concrete operational stage

Can now apply logical operations — but only to concrete targets

• Especially to problems for which they have direct experience

  • Reflected by reliance on inductive reasoning (multiple observations generate specific conclusions)

• Now capable of conservation due to emergence of…

  • Reversible thinking, decentration, integrity of object identity

reversible thinking

Capacity to mentally revert transformations to original state

decentration

Capacity to consider multiple dimensions of the same problem simultaneously

integrity of object identity

Recognition that objects have qualities which do not change — regardless of appearance

other concrete operational milestones

• Basic time concepts

  • Past, present, future

• Classification — can arrange objects into classes

  • Superordinate

  • Subordinate

• Seriation

• Transitivity Inference

seriation

Capacity to organize items along a physical dimension

transitivity inference

Capacity to make inference concerning object relationships

piaget’s formal operational stage

Can now apply logical reasoning to both concrete & abstract targets

• Emergence of hypothetical-deductive reasoning

  • Develops hypothesis on the basis of what may logically occur

    • Systematically tests them

• Implications of newfound abstract, hypothetical reasoning:

  • Introspection & Pseudo-stupidity

  • Idealism & Hypocrisy

introspection

Reflection on one’s thoughts and feelings

Pseudo stupidity

Tendency to approach overly complex problems unsuccessfully, missing the “obvious” (aka overestimation of knowledge)

idealism

Formation and pursuit of ideas based on high standards of behavior

hypocrisy

Holding standards and beliefs to which your own behaviors do not conform

adolescent egocentrism

• Difficulty differentiating one’s own cognitive concerns from others’

• Framed by David Elkind as resulting from…

  • Imaginary audience

  • Personal fable

imaginary audience

Belief that those around oneself are as concerned with one’s appearance as oneself is

• Particularly on display in adolescent use of social media

Personal fable

Belief that oneself is unique, special, and invulnerable