Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
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Sensorimotor (0-2 years)
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Preoperational (2-7 years)
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Concrete Operational (7-12 years)
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Formal Operational (12+ years)
According to Piaget . . .
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Child is an active participant
Piaget
Schemas: cognitive structures underlying
organized behavior patterns
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Assimilation:
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Accommodation:
Sensorimotor Stage
n
Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years)
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Learn about the world through interaction between reflexes &
environment
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Babies are born with certain
reflexes
n
They learn to coordinate their
behaviors in more complex ways over time.
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Object Permanence
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Won’t search for toy completely hidden
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Problems with invisible displacement
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
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Manifestations of representation
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Symbolic Play
n
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Language
n
Understanding that a word stands
for something but is not that thing
Preoperational Stage
n
Limitations of preoperational
thought
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Child cannot think of a thing in 2 different ways at same time
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Conservation tasks
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Appearance versus reality
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Animism
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Child attributes animate
properties to inanimate objects
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Concrete Operations (7-12 years)
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Operations
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Reversible mental processes
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Children do well at conservation
tasks
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Limitation:
Formal Operational Stage
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Children can reason abstractly
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Limitations:
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Optimistic Bias
Suggestions
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Check out this website if you are
interested in learning more about Piaget
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The Jean Piaget Society: Society for the Study of Knowledge and
Development
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Test a preoperational child using
a conservation task and describe your findings for your next writing assignment.
Attachment
n
Attachment is defined as an
active, intense, emotional relationship between two people that endures over
time
n
Attachment as an innate process:
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Attachment as “contact comfort”:
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Attachment
n
Facilitates exploration and
learning about the world
n
Reduces anxiety in threatening or
novel situations
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Fosters mental health—we learn to
seek others in stressful situations
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Is the basis of our “internal
working model” of relationships. We learn to trust or not trust others—seek or
not seek out others for comfort.
Patterns of Attachment: Mary Ainsworth
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Assess child’s reaction to:
Four Signs of Attachment
Eight Episodes of the Stranger Situation
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Entry
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Experimenter leaves
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Stranger enters
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Mother leaves
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Mother returns and stranger leaves
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Mother leaves again
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Stranger enters again
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Mother returns again
Patterns of Attachment: Mary Ainsworth
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B =
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Patterns of Attachment: Mary Ainsworth
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A =
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Patterns of Attachment: Mary Ainsworth
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C =
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Patterns of Attachment
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D (A/C) =
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Research Findings
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Attachment predicts the quality of
later relationships
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Children with secure attachments at 12-18 months
Important Factors for Development of
Security
n
Parental behavior
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TEMPERAMENT
Thomas & Chess's
Temperament Categories
n
Easy Babies
Thomas & Chess's
Temperament Categories
n
Difficult babies
Thomas & Chess's
Temperament Categories
n
Slow-to-warm-up babies
What is temperament?
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Elements of most definitions of
temperament:
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The "how" of behavior
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Individual differences in behavior
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Not personality
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Dimensions of Temperament
(McCall, 1987)
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Activity:
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Reactivity:
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Emotionality:
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Sociability:
Goodness of Fit
n
Parent and infant characteristics
can interact in complex ways
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Crockenburg study
Kagan and Colleagues
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Uninhibited/Fearless:
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Inhibited/Fearful:
Kagan and Colleagues
n
Do infants change their
temperaments?
SANDSS Study
n
McGuire and colleagues
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Observational measure of reactions to the unfamiliar
SANDSS
n
Exploratory behavior
Shyness in Middle Childhood
n
Asendorpf (1993)
Temperament and Context
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Behavioral Flexibility
n
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Temperament and Culture
n
Culture influences the
developmental consequences of temperamental characteristics.
Social Development: Parents
n
Baumrind’s Parenting Styles
Dimensions included in studies of parenting patterns
Main Criticisms Against Model