psychology
Ning77
PSYA02_Lecture3_Development3-1.pptxPSYA02: Introduction to Clinical, Developmental, Social, and Personality Psychology
Human Development, Part 3
1
Daily Objectives
By the end of this class, you should be able to confidently…
...describe Piaget‘s theory of cognitive development and its first two stages
...give examples of false belief tasks and describe the Strange Situation task
...characterize changes in self-esteem across the lifespan
2
Cognitive development
At the same time as their perceptual and motor abilities develop, children learn to think about the world around them
This emergence of the ability to think and understand is called cognitive development
Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist who pioneered understanding of children’s cognitive development by dividing it up into stages
Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)
Pre-operational stage (2-6 years)
Concrete operational stage (6-11 years)
Formal operational stage (11 years-adulthood)
3
Piaget’s theory
Piaget believed that children move from one stage to the next as they gain knowledge about the world
Children acquire knowledge
Children organize this knowledge into a schema
Children acquire new knowledge
Children add this new knowledge to their existing schema (assimilation)
Children acquire new knowledge that does not fit within their existing schema
Children modify their schema to fit this new knowledge (accomodation)
4
Assimilation and accommodation
5
Living things
?
Piaget’s stages
Two of Piaget’s stages occur during infancy and early childhood
Sensorimotor stage
Preoperational stage
During the sensorimotor stage (0-2 years), infants rely predominantly on their movement and senses to learn about the world
During the preoperational stage (2-6 years), children move from egocentrism to sociocentrism
Children develop a working theory of mind—the understanding that human behaviour is guided by mental representations, and that these mental representations differ across individuals
There are more accomplishments and failures that Piaget outlines at these ages. Read this part of your text carefully!
6
6
How do we measure theory of mind?
One way is via false belief tasks
“Change of location task”
a.k.a. “Sally-Anne task”
Failed by most 3-year-olds
Theory of mind tasks
Frith, 1989
False belief tasks
“Unexpected contents task”
Failed by most 3- and 4-year-olds
False belief tasks
8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEpu3dC5W70
Unexpected contents task
Social development
Piaget described the transition from egocentrism to sociocentrism… and infants are indeed more egocentric than older children!
But the sociocentrism of humans is one of our most defining features, even from birth
Like some other animals, human children form bonds with their caregivers
This emotional bond is called attachment
It is an essential part of healthy human development
10
Individual differences in attachment
All infants require an attachment figure for normal development
But there are major individual differences in how infants are attached to their caregiver(s)
How do we measure such differences?
The extent to which an infant uses their caregiver as a secure base
How the infant reacts to reunions with their caregiver after short separations
Mary Ainsworth developed the Strange Situation Procedure to operationalize and measure these variables
11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTsewNrHUHU
12
Strange Situation Procedure
On the basis of the Strange Situation, Ainsworth proposed that infants can be securely or insecurely attached to their caregivers
An infant’s attachment style predicts many outcomes in adulthood
Academic achievement
Emotional health
Relationship quality
Self-esteem
13
Identity in early childhood
Speaking of self-esteem: what do young children think about themselves?
Young children describe themselves…
…in physical terms
…almost always positively
14
Identity in early childhood
Positivity bias
Also called “self-enhancement”
4-year-olds almost always over-enhance
6-year-olds do so to a lesser degree
Less pronounced for peers than for self
Trzesniewski, Kinal, & Donnellan, 2010
15
Decline of positivity
Positivity bias declines quickly at school age
Why?
Social comparison begins
Cognitive skills increase
Perspective-taking increases
Schools begin objective evaluations
16
Self-esteem inconsistency: mean level change!
Men
Women
Robins & Trzesniewski, 2005
17
Young children have high self-esteem
Adolescents have relatively lower self-esteem
Particularly true for females
Adults gain self-esteem gradually throughout development
Elderly adults begin to lose self-esteem
Self-esteem consistency
However, compared to other people, an individual’s self-esteem is relatively consistent across the lifespan
Rank-order stability
Children with lower self-esteem tend to have lower self-esteem as adults
Much variability in self-esteem is due to heredity
Identical twins’ self-esteem correlates to a greater degree than non-twin siblings’
Physical appearance
Physical abilities
18
