Jean Piagets Views of Development

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Jean Piagets Views of Development

• Piaget believed that the effect of any experience
  on knowledge or thinking depended on the persons
  maturity combined with previous experiences
• He began his psychological career administering
  IQ tests but found it boring
• however fascinated by the incorrect answers that
  children would give.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• Piaget believed that a child constructs new
  mental processes as child interacts with the
  environment
• Behavior is based on schemata (singular -
  schema.)
• A schema is an organized way of interacting with
  objects in the world.
• New schemata are added and old schemata are
  changed as child matures.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• Adaptation of old schemata takes place through
  two processes.
• Through assimilation a person applies an old
  schema to a new object.
• Through accommodation a person modifies an old
  schema to fit a new object.
• People in all stages switch back and forth
  between these two strategies but ultimately
  cognitive change is accomplished through
  accommodation.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• The four stages of intellectual development
• Sensorimotor Birth to 1 years of age
• Preoperational 1 to 7 years of age
• Concrete Operations 7 to 11 years of age
• Formal Operations 11 years of age and older

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• The sensorimotor stage
• Piaget called the first stage the sensorimotor
  stage because at this early age behavior consists
  primarily of simple motor responses to sensory
  stimuli.
• Examples of these would be the grasping and
  sucking reflexes.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• The sensorimotor stage
• Object Permanence
• Jean Piaget believed that infants lacked a
  concept of object permanence during the early
  months of life.
• Object permanence is the idea that objects
  continue to exist even when one cannot see them
  or otherwise sense them.
• According to Piaget an infant does not know that
  a hidden object is still there until about 8-9
  months of age.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• The Sensorimotor Stage
• As infants progress through the sensorimotor
  stage they seem to develop a concept of self.
• At about 1 year of age they begin to show signs
  that they recognize themselves.
• They also begin to show self-conscious emotions
  such as embarrassment.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• The Preoperational stage
• Piaget called the second stage of cognitive
  development the preoperational stage because the
  child lacks operations.
• The term operations refers to reversible mental
  processes.
• The lack of operations leads to errors in
  cognition such as egocentric thinking the child
  for example knows that he has a brother but
  doesnt understand that he is his brothers
  brother.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• The Preoperational Stage
• Another example of a concept that preoperational
  children lack is conservation.
• The inability to conserve results in a failure to
  recognize that changes in shape and arrangement
  do not always signify changes in amount or number.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• The Concrete Operations stage
• From about age 7 children begin to exhibit
  reversible operations and seem to understand the
  conservation of physical properties.
• According to Piaget during the stage of concrete
  operations children can perform mental operations
  on concrete objects.
• They may however have trouble with abstract or
  hypothetical ideas.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• The Formal Operations stage
• Formal Operations is Piagets term for the mental
  processes used to deal with abstract
  hypothetical situations.
• These are processes that demand logical
  deductive reasoning and systematic planning.
• Piaget proposed that children reach this stage
  just before adolescence (at about age 11)
• Researchers have found that some people take
  longer to reach formal operations and some
  people never do.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• Are Piagets stages distinct
• Piaget believed that the four stages of
  intellectual development were discrete and that
  each one represented a major reorganization in
  cognitive processes.
• More recently though researchers have shown that
  this conclusion is not entirely warranted.

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An Overview of Piagets Theory

• Implications for education Piaget
• Children must discover certain concepts on their
  own.
• Childrens attention must be directed to key
  aspects of concepts when they are ready to learn
  those concepts.
• The teacher needs to determine the childs level
  of functioning and then teach material
  appropriate to that level.

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Eriksons Ages of Human Development

• Erikson divided the human life span into eight
  ages each with its own social and emotional
  conflicts.
• In this way he sought to provide a model of why
  people behave the way they do given the
  decisions that they are facing according to age.

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Eriksons Ages of Human Development

• Ages 0 - 1
• The infant faces the issue
• Is my social world predictable and supportive
• The conflict is basic trust versus basic
  mistrust.
• Ages 1 3
• The toddler asks the question
• Can I do things for myself or must I always rely
  on others to help me
• The conflict of is autonomy versus shame and
  doubt.

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Eriksons Ages of Human Development

• Ages 3 6
• The preschooler needs to figure out
• Am I a good person or a bad person
• The conflict is initiative versus guilt.
• Ages 6 12
• In an expanding social world the school-aged
  child wants to know
• Am I successful or am I worthless
• The preadolescent faces the struggle with a sense
  of industry versus inferiority.

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Eriksons Ages of Human Development

• Adolescence
• Teenagers seek independence and the answer to a
  fundamental question
• Who am I
• The adolescent must resolve the conflict between
  a settled identity versus role confusion.
• Young Adulthood
• Young adults deal with the importance of
  companionship and connection
• Shall I share my life with another person or
  live alone
• The conflict is that of intimacy versus
  isolation.

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Eriksons Ages of Human Development

• Middle age
• In the mid-adulthood one seeks to have
  contributed meaningfully to society -
• Will I add anything of value to the world
• Conflict is achievement of generativity versus
  stagnation.
• Late Adulthood
• Toward the end people face a deep question -
• Have I lived a meaningful life or squandered my
  time
• We struggle to determine whether we have arrived
  at a stage of ego integrity versus despair.

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Infancy and Childhood

• Attachment theory
• Attachment is a long-term feeling of closeness
  between a child and a caregiver
• Early developmental psychologists believed that
  feeding was the primary cause of attachment
  between mother and child.
• Later John Bowlby (1973) and other developmental
  psychologists theorized that infants who develop
  a good sense of attachment to adults who care for
  them have a better sense of safety and confidence
  as they start to explore the world around them.

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Infancy and Childhood

• Early attachment in humans
• Some researchers wanted to know why the quality
  of attachment between human children and their
  parents seemed to vary so much in quality.
• Mary Ainsworth devised a test called the Strange
  Situation to examine what factors might
  contribute to this variation.

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Infancy and Childhood

• Early attachment in humans
• In the Strange Situation study
• A mother and infant (12 to 18 months of age)
  enter a room with toys in it.
• A stranger enters the room.
• Mother leaves the room.
• Mother returns to the room.
• Mother and the stranger leave the room.
• The stranger returns to the room.
• Mother returns to the room again.

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Infancy and Childhood

• Early attachment in humans
• The psychologists who observed the Strange
  Situation classified the infants responses as
  follows
• Securely attached
• Anxious or insecurely attached
• Anxious and avoidant
• Disorganized

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Infancy and Childhood

• Early attachment in humans
• Uses of the Strange Situation
• Has been used with fathers as well as mothers and
  children
• Predicts the quality of the childs future
  relationship with parents
• Has also been used with grandparents and
  grandchildren and even pets and their humans

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Infancy and Childhood

• Early attachment in humans
• When interpreting these results remember
• Parental behavior does have an effect on
  attachment and possibly temperament
• child born with a pleasant and calm temperament
  may elicit more affectionate behaviors from a
  parent than a less predictable and fussier
  infant.
• study may have limited applicability across
  cultures.

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Adolescence

• Over the course of the twentieth century
  adolescence in our society has lengthened.
• generally recognized to begin at puberty the
  onset of changes that result in sexual maturity.
• The end of adolescence is harder to discern.
• most of last century characterized adolescence as
  a period of storm and stress.

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Adolescence

• Identity development
• Adolescence is the time of finding oneself.
• Western society offers many choices to teenagers.
• This is invigorating and yet also can cause
  anxiety.
• An adolescents concern about the future and
  achieving self-understanding has been referred to
  as the identity crisis.
• The crisis may or may not be so turbulent
  depending on the adolescent.

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Adolescence

• Identity development
• James Marcia developed set of identity statuses
  based on 2 elements of identity development
• Whether or not one is actively exploring the
  issues of identity development crisis
• Whether or not one has made any decisions
  commitment

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Adolescence

• Identity development
• Having given decisions no real thought and having
  no clear sense of identity is identity diffusion.
• Having made firm decisions without giving them
  much thought is foreclosure.
• Seriously considering issues without making any
  decisions is a state of moratorium.
• Having explored the possibilities and made ones
  own decisions is state of identity achievement

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Adolescence

• Identity development
• Marcias statuses are useful for thinking about
  the important dimensions of finding a stable
  identity.
• It is possible that identity achievement does not
  happen all at once.

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Adolescence

• The Personal Fable
• According to David Elkind teenagers are
  particularly prone to harbor beliefs such as
• It wont happen to me!
• Nobody understands how I feel.
• Everyone cares about how I look and what I am
  wearing. also known as the imaginary
  audience.
• These beliefs may be adaptive in some situations
  but can also lead to risk-taking behavior and
  feelings of alienation from parents and peers.

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Adulthood

• The beginning of young adulthood is marked by
  commitments in the areas of career relationships
  and lifestyle.
• The quality of the period known as middle age is
  influenced in part by the outcome of these early
  adult decisions.

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Adulthood

• The midlife transition
• midlife crisis is a dramatic expression for the
  reassessment of personal goals
• A more low-key and accurate term is midlife
  transition.
• Some abandon unrealistic goals set in youth set
  new goals that fit with their current lives
• Others try to fulfill some of those early life
  dreams or set new ones

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Adulthood

• Old age
• Despite the stereotypes we hold old age is not a
  uniform experience for humans.
• Some people do deteriorate rapidly either
  physically or intellectually.
• Others remain active and alert into their 80s and
  well beyond
• elderly in our society have been experiencing
  improved health activity and intellect

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Adulthood

• The psychology of facing death
• Death can occur at any age but we usually
  associate it with the later years of life.
• The way we deal with death is culture-based and
  is constantly evolving.
• Terror-management theory states that we cope with
  our deep fear of death by actively avoiding the
  thoughts of it and maintaining an optimistic and
  hopeful world-view.
• Even being casually reminded of mortality
  increases peoples defense of their belief
  system whatever that may be.

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Gender Influences

• Cognitive differences
• Females tend to perform better in
  language-related tasks especially language
  fluency.
• Males generally do better on difficult spatial
  and mathematical tasks.

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Gender Influences

• Male-female relationships
• As adolescence begins males and females may not
  be prepared to communicate with each other.
• Males tend to demand what they want and women
  tend to cooperate.
• Males are more concerned with issues of status
  compared to other men.
• Women prefer expressions of sympathy from
  listeners men often fail to understand this.
• These are generalizations. Not all male-female
  relationships are hampered by these issues.

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Ethnic and Cultural Influences

• Membership in a minority group molds a persons
  development in two ways
• The customs of the group may differ significantly
  from those of other groups.
• Members of the minority group are affected by the
  attitudes of other people who may treat them
  differently or expect certain behaviors of them
  based on stereotypes.

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Ethnic and Cultural Influences

• Acculturation is a transition from feeling
  connected to the culture of origin to feeling
  like part of the culture of a new country
• It is a gradual process and may take more than a
  generation to complete.

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The Effects of Parenting Style

• Diane Baumrind described 4 basic parenting styles
  based on dimensions of warmth control
• Authoritative parents impose controls but show
  warmth and encouragement to the child.
• Authoritarian parents impose control but tend to
  be emotionally distant from the child.
• Permissive parents are warm but impose few
  limits.
• Uninvolved parents are distant and do little more
  than provide resources.

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The Effects of Parenting Style

• Children of authoritative parents tend to be most
  self-reliant and cooperative.
• Children of authoritarian parents tend to be
  obedient but also distrustful and not very
  independent.
• Children of permissive parents are frequently
  socially irresponsible.
• Children of uninvolved parents tend to be
  impulsive and hard to discipline.

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Parental Employment and Child Care

• Although we tend to assume that western models
  are the norm child-rearing practices vary
  greatly between world cultures
• Communal child rearing use of paid help and
  many other variations exist from our traditional
  model of the stay-at-home mother.
• In general whether loving stay-at-home parents
  rear children or children receive high quality
  day care for part of the day child development
  proceeds normally.

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Parental Conflict and Divorce

• Not so long ago divorce was an unusual outcome
  for marriage.
• An estimated 75 of African-American and over
  one-third of European-American children will
  experience the divorce of their parents.
• These children show more academic social and
  emotional problems than children whose parents
  have not divorced
• This may be partly explained by the reduced
  attention and increased economic hardship
  experienced by these children.