Chapter 5/6

• Jean Piaget - Swiss psychologist and genetic epistemologist, developed the theory of cognitive development.


  Cognitive Development - how children develop intellectually, critical thinking
• Assimilation - applying an old schema to new objects or problems


  Accommodation - modifying an old schema to fit a new object or problem
• Equilibration - the establishment of harmony or balance between assimilation and accommodation
• Schema - an organized way of interacting with objects


  • If you ask people to draw a house all the drawings will look similar
  • A is the color red
• Sensorimotor

  • 0-2 years
  • Curiosity about the world
  • Balance between senses and motor skills (touch, taste, sound)
  • Understand and communicate simple terms (more, no, stop)
  • Object permanence developed (awareness of an object even when it's not visible
• Preoperational

  • 2-7 years
  • Imagination is building (play with cash register, lawn mower, car)
  • Speech is developing
• Concrete Operational

  • 7-11 years
  • Understand time, space, and quantity
  • Can understand math and word problems
• Formal Operations

  • 11+
  • Theoretical, hypothetical, and counterfactual thinking
  • Abstract logic and reasoning
  • Strategy and planning
• Identity Development:

  • Identity Diffusion - no clear sense of identity (clueless)
  • Identity Moratorium - considering the issues but not yet making decisions (procrastination, having options but not decisions)
  • Identity Foreclosure - reaching firm decisions without much thought (choosing out of stress)
  • Identity Achievement - the outcome of having explored various possible identities and then making one's own decision


  Questions:

  • Who am I?
  • What's my purpose?
• Gender roles - sex roles; the different activities that society expects of males and females
• Still Face Paradigm: A test of an infants social cues and awareness; the parent interacts with them as normal and then does not engage with them (still face)


  The infant tries to get the parent's attention and throws a tantrum; when the parent responds once again all order is restored and the infant calms
• Identity Crisis - an adolescent's concern with decisions about the future and the quest for self understanding
• Authoritative Parents:

  • Set high standards
  • Impose controls
  • Warm and responsive to the child's communications
  • Set limits but adjust when appropriate
• Authoritarian Parents:

  • Set firm controls
  • Emotionally distant from child
  • Set rules without explaining the reasons behind them
• Permissive Parents:

  • Warm and loving
  • Understanding
  • More like a friend than a parent
• Indifferent/Uninvolved Parent:

  • Spend little time with their children
  • Do the minimum of providing food and shelter
• Behaviorism - the position that psychology should concern itself only with what people and other animals do, and the circumstances in which they do it
• Stimulus Response Psychology - the attempt to explain behavior in terms of how each stimulus triggers a response
• Ivan Pavlov:

  • Early 1900s
  • Russian physiologist
  • Nobel Prize in physiology for research on digestion
  • Stumbled upon an observation that explained learning
• Unconditioned Reflexes - Pavlov assumed that animals are born with automatic connections. 


  Ex. Between a stimulus such as food and secreting digestive juices
• Classical Conditioning (Pavlov Conditioning) - the process by which an organism learns a new association between two stimuli: a neutral stimulus and one that already evokes a reflexive response
• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) - an event that automatically elicits an unconditioned response (UCR)


  Unconditioned Response - the dog salivates in response to seeing food
• Conditioned Stimulus - depends on the preceding conditions


  Conditioned Response - whatever the response the conditioned stimulus elicits as a result of the conditioning (training) procedure
• Stimulus Generalization - the extension of a conditioned response from the training stimulus to a similar stimuli


  Blocking Effect - the previously established association to one stimulus blocks the formation of an association to the added stimulus
• Operant Conditioning - learning through reinforcement and punishment.
• Thorndike and the Law of Effect (Operant Conditioning):

  • Responses followed by a satisfying effect become more strengthened and are more likely to recur in a particular situation
  • Responses followed by a dissatisfying effect are weakened and less likely to recur in a particular situation


  Cats had to escape from a "puzzle box"

  • Process was by trial and error
  • Observation led to Law of Effect

  
• Visceral Responses - responses of internal organs


  Skeletal Responses - movement of leg muscles and arm muscles
• Punishment:

  • Decreases the probability of a response
  • Most effective when it's quick and predictable
  • Alternatives are often more effective
• Negative Reinforcement - something undesirable is removed to encourage behavior

  • Ex. Clean your room so your parents won't nag you

  Positive Reinforcement - something desirable is given to encourage behavior

  • Ex. Giving a dog a treat if they correctly perform a trick
• Operant Conditioning

  A) Reinforcement

  B) Punishment

  C) Escape

  D) Active Avoidance

  
• Shaping - Used to establish a new response by reinforcing successive approximations to it
• Chaining - Reinforcing actions with the opportunity to engage in the next one
• Conditioned Taste Aversions - associating a food with an illness
• Social Learning Approach - learning about behaviors by observing the behaviors of others


  Monkey see, monkey do
• Vicarious Reinforcement - substituting someone else's experiences for your own