psych p1 development

• Early brain development


  1. Neural plate forms in 3rd week of pregnancy

  2. Neural plate folds to form neural tube

  3. Neural tube divides into spinal cord, forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain in 4th week

  4. Forebrain divides into cortex and thalamus in 6th week

  5. Neurons and synapses begin to develop in spinal cord allowing movement and reaction

  6. Hindbrain forms cerebellum in 15th week

  7. Brain fully formed but not full size by 6 months

  8. Final 3 months fold form on cortex to give brain wrinkled appearance
• Brain stem


  Connects spinal cord to brain, controls autonomic functions (breathing, heart rate, blood pressure), baby's heart beats regularly and pumps blood by 6 weeks
• Thalamus


  Centre of brain, sensory processing station, receives messages from senses and translates into appropriate motor response, all sensory info passed through thalamus
• Cerebellum


  Back of the brain, coordinates movement and balance and receives into from cortex, tunes this info into a motor activity, damage can cause difficulty with muscle coordination, balance and motor skills
• Nature


  Characteristics and behaviours inherited from parents
• Nurture


  Characteristics and behaviours influenced by environment, develop after birth and are shaped dependent on the individuals experiences
• Twin studies


  • Twins share identical genetic makeup, similar characteristics suggest nature as the cause, identical twins raised separately were very similar when they met for the first time at 39, however identical twins may be treated similarly by people such as parents and teachers and therefore behaviour is based on nurture
• New-born baby studies


  • Little chance for nurture to impact child, babies can recognise faces suggesting a natural ability, babies do not talk until much later so it is believed nurture is responsible for language development
• Animal studies


  • Rats with stimulating toys developed bigger brains and better problem-solving skills, however what applies to animals may not necessarily generalise to humans because human development is very complex
• Schemas


  Blocks of knowledge which develop in response to our experiences from the world, babies are born with simple schema's and as they grew, new schemas developed
• Assimilation


  A child may initially try to understand new info in terms of their already existing knowledge, occurs when an already existing schema is used on a new object and so involves incorporation of new info into existing schema
• Accommodation


  When a child or person adapts existing schema in order to understand new info that does not fit in with current understandings of things, changes existing schemas or forming new ones when new info cannot be assimilated
• Piaget's 4 stages of development

  1. Sensorimotor, 0-2 years

  2. Pre-operational, 2-7 years

  3. Concrete operation, 7-11 years

  4. Formal operational, 11+ years
• Sensorimotor stage


  • Children learn about the world through senses and motor abilities
• Pre-operational stage


  • Egocentric nature, shown by using three mountains and placing a doll in the scene, child had to choose a photograph that matched doll's viewpoint, children above the age of 7 could choose correctly, however most children below the age of 7 chose their own viewpoint
• Concrete operation stage


  • Ability to conserve (knowing the amount of something stays the same despite its appearance changing)
• Formal operational stage


  • Systematic problem solving, used different lengths of string and weights to attach, task was to investigate what factor affected speed of pedulum by varying string length and number of weights, children under age of 11 attempted to change weight and length at the same time, whilst children over age of 11 would solve in a systematic way
• Discovery-based learning


  A child's intelligence developed from discovering things for themselves and exploring objects and situations
• Criticisms of Piaget's theory - ages suggested were incorrect, more recent studies shows babies can develop object permanence before eight months and children can lose their egocentric thinking and conserve before age 7, children enter formal operational stage much later than 11 and some never reach it at all
• Criticisms of Piaget's theory - confusing study design, data collection issues with small samples and research on his own children
• Policeman doll study


  • To see if children can see from another person's perspective at an earlier age than Piaget suggested, 90% aged between 3.5 and 5 were able to decentre when situation was familiar and task made more sense, however hiding from policemen is not a situation young children are likely to have experienced
• Naughty Teddy study


  • To see if children developed conservation skills at an age earlier than Piaget's prediction, 62% aged 4-6 years stated counters remained the same, showing ability to conserve if change to materials was perceived to be accidental, however over 30% still failed to conserve when changes were made
• Fixed mindset


  Believe their intelligence is unchanging and down to genetics and therefore nothing they can do will be able to change this
• Growth mindset


  Believe their intelligence derives from hard work and can be increased by putting in more time and effort to learn
• Studies show differences in intelligence levels even in identical twins, suggesting environmental factors support Dweck's mindset theory
• Person praise


  Student praised for intelligence
• Process praise


  Student praised on efforts and processes used when completing a task
• Self-efficacy


  Belief you have in your own ability to succeed
• Learning styles


  • Visual - prefer to learn by seeing things, reading, pictures

  Auditory - like to learn by hearing/listening, speaking out loud aids learning

  Kinaesthetic - prefer to learn by doing things themselves, get physically involved
• Verbalisers


  Process info verbally, prefer writing things down and will think using words
• Visualisers


  Process info in a visual way and prefer to learn from pictures and diagrams, think using pictures
• Willingham disagreed that learning styles exist, but agreed visual and auditory memory may be better within students, however this did not help in learning environment because teachers want students to learn the meaning of things not what they sound/look like
• Willingham believed students should be taught using best method based on content, and if a student struggled with taking in a particular form of info, they should be given the opportunity to practice dealing with that info