development in psychology

• what is the pre-natal stage of development?

  this is the first stage

  pre-natal is the time from when a baby is conceived to when it is born.
• what is the childhood stage of development?

  this is the second stage

  childhood is the period from birth through to age 12.

  children at this stage are reliant on their caregivers, and bond with them to gain confidence and independence.
• what is the adolescence stage of development?

  this is the third stage

  adolescence is age 13 to 19

  the body undergoes significant changes as it matures sexually.

  individuals begin to think, act and feel differently.
• what is the adulthood stage of development?

  last stage

  adulthood is from age 20 to death

  time to take on new responsibilities
• what happens to the brain during childhood?

  after the child is born, the brain develops many new neural connections. For example In the visual cortex the number of synapses doubles up to the age of 4 months, when a baby is born its ability to see is very limited and by the time it is 5 months old the new synapses allow it to see in 3D and colour.
• what happens to the brain duirng pre-natal?

  16 days after fertilisation the human embryo develops a neural tube, which will become the brain and spinal cord. At 2 months the neural tube divides into brain cells and nerve cells. The cerebral cortex is formed and divides into 4 different sections; the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe, parietal lobe and the occipital lobe.
• what happens to the brain during adolescence development?

  the grey matter; which is found on the surface of the brain and is composed of the cell bodies of neurons, nerve fibres and support cells, reaches its density.
• what happens to the brain during adulthood?

  at around the age of 25 the prefrontal cortex, the 'rational' part of the brain, is matured. This means people make more rational decisions. During later adulthood, individuals can develop neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson’s disease.
• The IQ test tested memory skills, attention and problem-solving skills.

  They are now used to identify children who have either very high or low intelligence, so children can get support if they need it.
• describe Piaget's theory of cognitive development

  children's thoughts change as they grow older.

  there are 4 stages

  the stages are invariant, meaning they do not change and children pass through each stage in the same order.

  the stages are universal.

  Piaget viewed children as 'little scientists' who are actively trying to understand their environment.
• describe Piaget's belief on schemas

  Piaget believed that children had mental pictures of their world, called schemas, which help them to understand how to react to the world around them.
• describe assimilation in terms of development

  assimilation is where new information that the child encounters is merged into an existing schema. For example a child may have a schema that all cats have fur, but they might see a hairless cat so the schema is expanded to include hairless cats.
• describe accommodation in terms of development

  accommodation is where a child encounters new information which results in either new schema being formed or an existing schema being altered in some way. For example, if a child thinks all vehicles with four whells are cars, but then encounter a camper van, this means the schema must be altered.
• describe the sensori-motor stage of development

  sensori-moter stage is age 0 to 2

  during this stage, babies learn about the world through their senses and moving around their environment and doing things.

  key feature=

  object permanence: at the beginning of this stage, if a toy is hidden from the baby, they will not search for it. This is because the baby lacks object permanence. But at around 12 months old, the baby will have developed object permanence.
• describe the pre-operational stage of development

  pre-operational stage is age 2 to 7 years old

  during this stage, children will start school and contine to develop their skills.

  key features=

  animism: children in the pre-operational stage believe that inanimate objects have feelings. They will also treat their toys as though they are alive and have conversations with them.
• describe egocentrism

  egocentrism happens in the pre-operational stage of development.

  egocentrism is where children believe everyone sees the world in the same way that they do, they cannot understand that different people can be feeling or thinking different things to them.
• describe reversibility in development

  reversibility happens in the pre-operational stage of development.

  reversibility is the ability to think about things in reverse order, during the pre-operational stage children lack this.

  they are also unable to understand that if you add or take something away from an object, that you can return it to its original state.
• describe the concrete operational stage of development


  concrete operational stage is age 7 to 11 years old.

  key features=

  conservation: once children enter this stage they gain the ability to conserve, this means that if they don't have the ability to understand that even though something might change it's shape or form, it's volume, mass or length remain the same.
• describe decentration in terms of development


  decentration happens in the concrete operational stage

  in this stage, children are able to focus on more than one aspect of a situation. This is important when learning to read, helps put letters together to make words or sentences.

  Children who have entered the concrete operational stage and have decentred are able to read.
• describe seriation in terms of development

  seriation happens in the concrete operational stage.

  seriation is the ability to put things into rank order, for example, putting coins in order from the smallest amount to the largest.
• what is linguistic humour?

  Linguistic humour is playing with words create jokes or humour. In the concrete operational stage children gain the ability to create jokes.
• describe the formal operational stage of development

  formal operational stage is 11 years +

  children who have reached this stage will be able to think abstractly. They also start to think more logically and can compare and contrast different theories.

  key feature=

  hypothetical thinking: this is where children are able to think about abstract ideas once they reach this stage.
• describe a criticism of piaget's theory

  piaget's theory describes the differnet stages but doesn't explain how these stages actually occur and what changes the childs thinking. Therefore, although we have an idea of what happens, we don't know why or what prompts the changes.
• describe another criticism of piaget's theory

  piaget's theory can be considereed reductionist because he didn't take into account the important role teachers have in children's learning. He viewed children as independent, and they explore the world themselves without the need for support from teachers. However other psychologist's have recognised that learning is a key aspect of development.
• Piaget's study into the conservation of number

  method=

  the study was a natural experiment as the independent variable was naturally occuring ( the age of the children )

  DV: the ability to conserve number.

  it is a cross-sectional study because Piaget tested different children of different ages.

  Independent measures as each age group represents a different condion of the IV.
• Piaget's study into the conservation of number

  sample=

  the sample size is unknown but it was small

  swiss children, including his own 3 children.
• Piaget's study into conservation of number

  procedure=

  each child was presented with 2 identical, parallel lines of counters.

  Then the child was asked if there is the same number of counters in each row.

  The counters were then spread out, no more counters were added.

  Then asked again if there is the same number of counters in each row.
• Piaget's study into the conservation of number

  results=

  children at the begining of the pre-operational stage , age 3 to 4 years, believed there were more in the strectched row.

  children at the end of the pre-operational stage, age 5 to 6 years, believe they were both the same but couldn't explain why.

  children in the concrete operational stage, age 7+, believed both rows were the same and could explain.

  concusion=

  children in the concrete operational stage were able to conserve.
• Describe a criticism of Piaget's study into the conservation of number

  artificial=

  the study is criticised for being artificial. For example, the adult deliberately moving the counters in front of children. This lacks egological validity as children are not asked to do this everyday, it is not natural and cannot be generalised to everyday lives.
• Describe another criticism of Piaget's study into conservation of number

  biased=

  The study was culturally biased. The study was only conducted on swiss school children. The ability to conserve may be affected by eductaion and upbringing, therefore the results may not represent all children in different countries. It is ungeneralisable.
• describe Dweck's learning theory

  Dweck's learning theory states that mindset relates to the way that we think in relation to where our talents come from and whether these are changeable. She focuses on how children learn in the classroom and what influences their ability to succeed.
• what is a FIXED mindset and what is a GROWTH mindset?

  people with a fixed mindset believe their intelligence in innate and therefore cannot be changed.

  people with a growth mindset believe they can develop their intelligence over time.
• Students with a fixed mindset are more concerned with looking intelligent, so avoid doing things they may fail at. Failure affects their self-esteem, making them believe they are not as intelligent as they thought. They don’t put much effort in as they think ability is innate so shouldn’t need practice.
• Students with a growth mindset believe that with effort and practice, they can improve. They view failure as a challenge and opportunity to learn from.
• Dweck found that children who were praised for intelligence chose easier tasks to allow them to continue succeeding whilst those praised for effort choose harder tasks that allowed them to learn more.
• describe a criticism of dweck's theory

  Nurture is a key aspect of this theory as it suggets children can make the changes themselves, but this can have a negative impact on their self-esteem if they fail to succeed. It might be that innate traits have a greater impact on a person's ability to succeed than Dweck recognises.
• describe another criticism of dweck's theory

  The theory was challenged by a large scale study. The Education Endowment Foundation funded research into mindsets in schools in the uk. Children in 30 schools were given an intervention that taught them about growth mindset. Results showed that there was no significant difference compared to the control group.
• Willingham's ideas on the myth of learning styles

  learning styles have been used in education for years and believe that students have different learning styles and will learn better if lessons are tailored to fit this.

  the styles are:

  • visual
  • auditory
  • read/write
  • kinaesthetic
• Willingham states that teachers should be more concerned whether the method of teaching best fits the content rather than fitting all types of learning styles.

  Willingham also suggested that all knowledge must be ‘meaningful’.

  Teachers should ensure that when teaching knowledge or facts to students that they create links between the information, rather than just giving students a list of facts to memorise.
• describe a criticism of Willingham's learning theory

  Willingham's theory ignores the role of nature, by ignoring the influence of innate factors on development. For example, some children's brains may function differently but willingham discounts the fact that these children may need to be taught in a specific way.