👶Cognitive Development Ch.5

What is Nature vs. Nurture?

Heredity(inheritance) vs. environment the child is grown up in

What is the phetnotype?

observable characteristic

What is the genotype?

genetic make-up

What is development?

psychologists generally use the term development to refer to changes that occur over time.

What is lifespan development?

from birth to and including old age.

How is something considered a developmental change?

Something must be permanent or lasting to be considered a developmental change.

What are the 4 areas of development?

Physical, social, cognitive and emotional.

What is physical development?

involves changes in the body and its various systems, such as the brain, nervous system, bones, puberty, etc.

What is social development?

involves changes in an individual's relationships with other people nd their skills in interacting with others.

What is cognitive development?

involves changes in an individual's mental abilities.

What is emotional development?

Involves changes in how an individual experiences different feelings and how these feelings are expressed, interpreted and dealt with.

What is psychological development?

social, cognitive and emotional development

What is attachment?

Attachment refers to the emotional bond which forms between an infant and another person (such as mother or father)

What did Mary Ainsworth do?

she devised a method for assessing attachment called the strage situation.

What is the strange situation?

The infant and caregiver are taken into an unfamiliar room
containing some age-appropriate toys. Then the infant
is exposed to a series of separations and reunions
involving the caregiver, the infant and a stranger.

What are some indicators of attachment?

-crying to attract the caregiver's attention
-crying when a caregiver leaves
-crying when held by someone other than the caregiver
-clinging to the caregiver

What are the types of attachment?

-secure attachment
-insecure avoidant attachment
-insecure resistant attachment

What is secure attachment?

-infant shows balance between dependence and exploration
-caregiver is a safe base while they explore
-distress when caregiver leaves and when they return
-infant seeks physical contact

What is insecure-avoidant attachment?

-infant treats caregivers like strangers
-rarely cries when the caregiver leaves and ignores them on return

What is insecure resistant attachment?

-infant appears anxious even when caregivers are near
-very upset when separated from the caregiver and when they return

What is the fourth attachment type?

Disorganised attachment

What is disorganised attachment?

-show odd and contradictory behaviour when separated or reunited with their caregivers
-they seek close contact but do so slowly and avoid eye contact
-they may also show fearful rocking and ear pulling

What are factors influencing attachment?

Genetics, Temperament, Early life experiences

How do genetics affect attachment?

The bond formed through attachment has an evolitionary function to improve an infants chance of survival, infants cant do it themselves.

How does temperament affect attachment?

Both parties involved play a role in establishing the bond depending on their temperament-our characteristic way of responding to people.

How do early life experiences affect attachment?

attachments usually form withing the first 6-7 moths of life.

What else should be considered that affect attachment?

The sensitivity and responsiveness of the caregiver
demographic factors (cultural background, etc)

What was Harlow's experiment?

-experiment with rhesus monkeys separated
-put in cages with two surrogate mothers; one of wire holding a bottle and the other covered in soft cloth
The monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother especially if they were distressed. Attachment in monkeys was based on comfort and not food.

How can we see cognitive development?

It cannot be directly observed
We must infer what is happening when we observe infant behaviour

Who was Jean Piaget and what did he believe?

Swiss psychologist that believed that infants did have some cognitive abilities which led him to study infants

What is a schema?

Mental ideas of what something is and how to deal with it

What is assimilation?

The process of new information and fitting it into to make it apart of old information.
eg. a truck and calling it a car

What is accomodation?

refers to changing an existing old idea to fit the new
understanding that a truck is a truck

What are Piaget's 4 stages of development?

-sensory-motor stage
-pre-operational stage
-concrete operational stage
-formal operational stage

When does the sensorimotor stage occur?

birth to 2 years old

When does the pre-operational stage occur?

2-7 years old

When does the concrete stage occur?

7-12 years old

When does the formal stage occur?

12 years old and over

What is the sensorimotor stage?

In the sensorimotor stage, infants construct their understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences.

Key accomplishments for the sensorimotor stage.

-object permanence
-goal-directed behaviour

What is object permanence?

out of sight is not out of mind

What is the pre-operational stage of development?

the child is increasingly able to assimilate ad accommodate and therefore think in more complex ways. They are able to represent events internally.

Key accomplishments of the pre-operational stage.

-egocentrism
-transformation
-irreversibility
-animism
-symbolic thinking

What is egocentrisim?

Egocentrism is the tendency to perceive the world solely from one’s own point of view. This is where children think in a self-centered way and lack the ability to consider other peoples’ point of views.

What is transformation?

Transformation is the ability for a child to understanding that something can change from one state to another.

What is irreversibility/ reversibility?

Reversibility is the ability to mentally follow a sequence of events or line of reasoning back to its starting point. They may be unable to reverse their thinking to back to their original ideas of an object before they change, or unable to understand that an object has changed.

What is symbolic thinking?

Symbolic thinking is the ability to use symbols such as words and pictures to represent objects that are not physically present. They find things to connect real-life objects to, to make it easier for them understand during this stage.

What is animism?

Animism is the belief that everything which exists has consciousness. This child becomes attached and caring for objects as they believe that they too have feelings and a conscious.

What is the concrete operational stage?

Thinking revolves around what they know and what they can experience through their senses; that is, what is concrete

Key accomplishments for the concrete operational stage.

-conservation
-classification

What is conservation?

THE CONSERVATION OF MASS AND OF NUMBER
The conservation of mass recognizes that despite changes to an object, its mass and volume remain the same.
Conservation of number, is when objects are changed and made to seem to many children that there are more or less than there were previously or compared to another.

What is clasification?

Classification is the ability of children being able to place things that share similar features into categories.

What is the formal operational stage?

More complex thought processes become evident and sophisticated.

Key accomplishments for the formal operational stage.

Abstract thinking and logical/idealistic thinking.

What is abstract thinking?

Abstract thinking is thinking that does not rely on being able to see or visualise things in order to understand those concepts.

What is logical/ idealistic thinking?

Idealistic thinking is the ability to fully consider what is realistically possible in a given time frame. Realistic goals are now set by adolescents in this stage as they begin to understand what can and can’t be done.