Option: Developmental psychology flashcards

Topic 6: Option: Developmental psychology

Assimilation vs accommodation in Piaget’s theory

Assimilation: fitting new information into an existing schema. Accommodation: changing the schema when new information does not fit. Equilibrium is the balance that drives learning.

What are Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development?

Sensorimotor (0-2: object permanence), preoperational (2-7: symbolic thought, egocentrism), concrete operational (7-11: conservation, logic about concrete objects) and formal operational (11+: abstract thought).

What is the zone of proximal development?

Vygotsky’s term for the gap between what a child can do alone and what they can do with help from a more knowledgeable other. Scaffolding (Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976) is support that is reduced as the child becomes competent.

What did Harlow (1958) find with infant rhesus monkeys?

They preferred a cloth-covered surrogate mother to a wire one that gave milk, showing the importance of contact comfort. The study raises serious animal-ethics issues and generalising to human infants is limited.

What is the Strange Situation?

Ainsworth’s laboratory procedure of brief separations and reunions, used to classify attachment as secure, insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistant. Critics say it is culturally specific.

What is an internal working model?

Bowlby’s idea that early attachment experience forms a mental model of relationships that guides later ones.

What are Kohlberg’s three levels of moral reasoning?

Pre-conventional (judging by punishment and reward), conventional (by social rules and expectations) and post-conventional (by principles). He studied reasoning about dilemmas such as the Heinz dilemma.

What are Marcia’s four identity statuses?

Identity diffusion (no exploration, no commitment), foreclosure (commitment without exploration), moratorium (exploration without commitment) and identity achievement (both), building on Erikson’s identity versus role confusion.

Cross-sectional vs longitudinal studies

Cross-sectional: compares different age groups at one time; quick but affected by cohort differences. Longitudinal: follows the same people over time; shows change but is slow, costly and loses participants.