OCR GCSE Psychology Unit 2 - Cognitive Development

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  • Created by: Maz
  • Created on: 03-06-13 11:12
What are invariant stages in terms of cognitive development?
When stages are in the same, fixed order and don't change. Same stages, same time period.
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What are universal stages in terms of cognitive development?
Where all children go through the same stages. Some will do some stages and not others, and could be done in any time period.
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What were Piaget's 2 types of methodology?
Clinical interviews and natural obervations.
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What is a naturalistic observation?
Watching and recording the behaviour of children in their natural environment.
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What is a clinical interview?
Interviewing children using the same first question. The following questions are then determined by the children's answers.
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What is schema?
Children are born with a ready made simple set (eg sucking). They are said to be innate. An organised block of knowledge containing all the information known about an activity. As they experience things they build on these blocks.
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What is accommodation?
The process where, when a child comes across a situation where the schema they have are inadequate, they modify/adapt their schema to fit the situation. (Eg using the schema for grasping a bottle to grasp a ball).
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What is assimilation?
Using a schema in several situations. The child has applied existing schemas to new situations (eg,when presented with a bottle, they will change their grasping schema to be able to grasp the bottle).
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What are the 4 stages that make up Piaget's theory of cognitive development and at what ages do they occur?
Sensorimotor (0-2 years), per-operational (2-7 years), concrete operational (7-11 years) and formal operational (11+ years).
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What is the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development?
Children learn through senses and actions. They spend their time examining their surroundings and placing objects into schemas in their minds. The baby gradually starts to make sense of the information coming in through the senses.
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What are the main features of the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development?
Body schema, motor co-ordination and object permanence.
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What is body schema in terms of the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development?
The infant recognises that it exists physically (eg it can recognise itself in a mirror).
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What is motor co-ordination in terms of the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development?
The infant learns to co-ordinate different body parts (eg learning how to move knees and hands for crawling).
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What is object permanence in terms of the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development?
The infant knows that an object/person still exists even if they can't be seen. Towards the end of the stage, from as early as 8 months old, babies will look for hidden objects.
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What are the achievements of the pre-operational stage of cognitive development?
The child can create an internal representation of an object/concept (symbolic thought), has a sense of past and future, and they are able to use their imagination in pretend play.
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What are the limitations of the pre-operational stage of cognitive development?
Animism, reversibility and egocentrism.
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What is animism?
When a child treats inanimate objects as if they are alive like themselves (eg they will talk to/about their teddy or have imaginary friends).
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What is reversibility?
When a child is unable to work backwards in their thinking (eg if a 4 year-old is asked if they have a sister and they reply "yes", however when asked if their sister has a sister, their reply is "no").
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What is egocentrism?
Seeing/thinking of the world from only your point of view. A child entering this stage sees things only through their eyes and has difficulty appreciating someone else's point of view. This was demonstrated in Piaget's "Three Mountains" study.
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What is centration?
A tendency to focus on only one aspect of a situation.
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What is decentration?
When the child can focus on more than one aspect of a situation. This means they can use 2 classification systems at once.
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What happens to egocentrism towards the end of the pre-operational stage of cognitive development?
It is no longer active in a child's thinking. This is decentring.
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What is the concrete operational stage of cognitive development?
It is the 3rd developmental stage, characterised by children learning to think logically about concrete events (eg maths equations).
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What are the achievements of the concrete operational stage of cognitive development?
Decentring, stop animism and overcome reversibility.
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What new cognitive skills do children develop in the concrete operational stage of cognitive development?
Linguistic humour, seriation and conservation.
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What is linguistic humour?
When a child starts to understand and enjoy word games and double meanings. They will laugh and ask the same word game question time after time.
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What is seriation?
The ability to put things inrank order (eg smallest to largest).
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What is conservation?
When children know that the properties of certain objects remain the same even if the objects appear to change. Pre-operational children cannot do this and the differences in the stages were shown in Piaget's "Conservation of Number" study.
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What are the limitations of the concrete operational stage of cognitive development?
Children lack abstract logical thought. They can only manage logical thinking if concepts are presented in a "concrete" way by use of familiar objects.
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What is the formal operational stage of cognitive development?
It is the final developmental stage of cognitive development characterised by children learning to think logically about abstract events.
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What are the achievements of the formal operational stage of cognitive development?
Children now have abstract thought so can perform logic with unfamiliar concepts and hypothetical situations. They can make sense of hypothetical situations (eg extinction of dinosaurs). Seen using the "Test Tube" task.
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What are the criticisms of Piaget's theory of cognitive development?
It ignores the full impact of environmental factors on learning, it ignores individual differences (not all children will develop at the same rate), too much emphasis on biological drives and it is a gender bias theory (scientific development -boys).
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Who came up with the alternative theory of cognitive development?
Vygotsky.
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What kind of theory is the alternative theory?
A socio-cultural theory which is influenced by the importance of the role of the individual within a group).
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What is the main outline of the alternative theory?
That we develop cognitively through the interaction with others where language is the leading means of communication. This helps children to interact with the environment and adults to help them make sense of their experiences (social construction).
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What is scaffolding (Vygotsky)?
The interaction with others. As the adults around the child provide a framework for the child to safely learn and develop cognitively.
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What is the zone of proximal development (ZPD)?
The difference between what a child can achieve alone compared to what a child could achieve when given help.
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What did Vygotsky find about children with a bigger ZPD?
The find learning easier because a bigger ZPD means a child can progress further given assistance.
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What is the name of the core study of cognitive development?
Piaget's conservation of number study.
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What was the aim of Piaget's study?
To test if there is a difference in the conservation of number between children in different stages of Piaget's theory.
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Piaget used cross-sectional studies. True or false?
True.
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How was the equipment used in the study set up?
2 rows of counters (same number of them) facing each other in parallel and spaced out the same.
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What were the children asked?
If the number of counters was the same or if there was more in one row than in the other.
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How was the set up manipulated?
The researcher moved the counters in one row so that they were more spaced out as the child watched them do it.
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How many times did the researcher as the child the question and when was the question asked?
Twice - once before the rows were manipulated and once after the row was manipulated.
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What did the results of the study show?
That children in the pre-operational stage of cog. development tended to say that the manipulated row had more counters than the other because it was longer. Concrete operational children mainly got it right, saying bother rows had the same.
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What did Piaget conclude?
Piaget said pre-operational children were not able to conserve as they couldn't reverse the situation. Concrete operational could as they knew something had to be added/removed in order to change something.
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What is the evaluative point for Piaget's study that incldues the "Naughty Teddy"?
The task the children did was meaningless, and results from a study where a naughty teddy was used to manipulate the counters showed that 60% of pre-operational children could pass the test. This contradicts the theory.
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What are 2 more evaluative points for Piaget's study?
The way the question was asked has been criticised as asking the same question twice may have confused/tricked children. He used a small sample, meaning it may have been unrepresentative of all children.
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What is the application for cognitive development?
Education of children.
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How has Piaget's theory been influential in the education system in the UK?
Concept of readiness has helped to sort children into "key stages" as he argues that children can only learn what their current cog. state allows. Peer support - allowing unstructured discussion helps with decentring.
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How has Vygotsky's theory been influential in the education system in the UK?
Spiral curriculum - Difficult concepts are presented in very simple terms and is then revisited at a more advanced level (eg algebra). Role of teacher - More knowledgeable other so should actively intervene to help the child as a learner to develop.
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What are universal stages in terms of cognitive development?

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Where all children go through the same stages. Some will do some stages and not others, and could be done in any time period.

Card 3

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What were Piaget's 2 types of methodology?

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Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

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What is a naturalistic observation?

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Card 5

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What is a clinical interview?

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MrsMacLean

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A huge set of 51 flashcards which cover all of cognitive development...perfect for OCR GCSE and A Level students!

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